American

I’m a big fan of horseradish. When it’s stirred into BBQ sauce it takes beef to the next dimension. If you take a few minutes to start this dish in the morning before work, you’ll be eating about an hour after getting home at night.

We give catfish a good soaking in seasoned buttermilk before we coat and fry it. It tenderizes and sweetens up the fish, which we serve with our favorite spicy tartar sauce. You’ll find it on our appetizer menu every day and in a sandwich on Fridays.

Personally, I don’t know why this is considered a southern dish. With our short growing season in Central New York, there’s never a shortage of green tomatoes. It seems like the North should have thought of this dish first.

Folks might laugh, but I could eat deviled eggs all day. My mother made them for me when I was a kid, and I’ve loved them ever since. When we serve our spiced-up version on a catering job or make them for a Custom-Que appetizer, everyone just goes nuts. To buy Zatarain’s mustard, see the Resources section (page 175).

Central and Western New York is “wing country,” so you’ve gotta have some good wings on your menu. Most places fry their wings according to the original Buffalo recipe, but we smoke ours. You can make them hot or mild on your grill just by changing the rub and the sauce you slather on at the end. We serve them with the traditional fixin’s—Blue Cheese Dressing and celery sticks.

Georgia produces more peanuts than peaches—maybe it should be called the peanut state! This is one great way to use them. Daddy loved peanut brittle, and he made this all the time when I was growing up.

Boiled custard is a southern tradition that has been used for centuries in recipes like banana pudding, pies, and homemade ice cream. It adds the richness and flavor of a pastry cream to every recipe it’s used in, but it’s not as thick.

When we were children, we never made homemade ice cream unless we had company. I’m not sure if it was because we were being sociable or if it was because we needed help with the old hand churn. After working that hard, you definitely deserved a big bowl of ice cream! Daddy always added fresh peaches to this recipe because he loved homemade peach ice cream. Feel free to experiment with a fruit you love. I usually make it plain, then put out bowls of peaches, strawberries, bananas, nuts, and chocolate syrup so my guests can top it as they please.

The tradition of making homemade treats for gifts is still alive and well in the South. In the early to mid-1990s, I worked on videos and photo shoots in Nashville with a girl named Maria Smoot. She is responsible for some of the most beautiful hair-styles in country music. I found a tin of these cookies in my mailbox one Christmas with a sweet note from Maria. What was even sweeter was that she included the recipe.

I started making these cookies in the eighth grade, and they just might be responsible for my love of cooking. It wasn’t just that they are gooey and awesome, which they are; it was also that people complimented me on my cooking skills, and that gave me confidence. It later worked out in the singing thing, too! Exactly how chewy these cookies are depends on how big you make them. I make mine a little bigger than the recipe calls for because I like them soft in the middle. They are best served with a really cold glass of milk … or more cookies!

You can’t be considered a serious southern cook if you don’t know how to make peach cobbler. Canned or frozen fruit works better in some recipes than fresh, and this is a perfect example. I recommend any brand of canned freestone peaches because they are tender and tasty. This dessert is easy to make and it tastes delicious, especially with a huge dollop of Home-Churned Ice Cream (page 212) on top.

Every Georgia girl has a trusted pecan pie recipe if she knows what’s good for her! This one came from a great family friend in Monticello named Betty Maxwell.

Sweet Potato Pie is always served at Thanksgiving at my house. I used to think there wasn’t much of a difference between Sweet Potato Pie and Pumpkin Pie, but this recipe made me change my mind. It’s just sweet enough, and it’s so smooth and creamy. Hmmm … I need to think of more holidays to make this for, so I can eat it more often!

It has become a tradition in my house that I make everyone’s favorite dessert on his or her birthday. Garth’s favorite is German Chocolate Cake, Taylor’s is Banana Pudding, and so on. When it came time for my friend Joe’s birthday, his wife, Kim, let me know that his favorite was cheesecake. “No problem,” I said, as I started thinking about that awesome cheesecake in a box I was going to make (I have to admit that it’s my favorite). “He loves the old-style New York cheesecake,” she explained. Umm … no problem? But I was committed, so I did what I always do: call my family for help. Beth hooked me up with several cheesecake recipes, and this is the one I like best. It made me a big hit on Joe’s birthday.

We seem to place a lot of emphasis on birthday cakes in my family. We like for everyone to have his or her favorite cake, but more than that, we like the variety of awesome sweets we get to eat throughout the year! This cake was once Beth’s birthday cake of choice—or so Mom thought until she learned that Beth actually preferred the chocolate caramel cake I always ask for. At first, I thought she was just trying to copy me (it’s a sister thing!), but then I realized that if it’s her favorite cake, too, that’s twice a year for me!

I’m always looking for fun recipes to make with our girls, hoping they will grow up to love cooking as much as I do. This cake is fun because they can’t believe you put all the pretty decorations on the bottom of the pan and the cake still turns out to be gorgeous!

So what’s my birthday cake of choice? Chocolate cake with caramel icing. Yum! Most people have tried white cake with caramel icing, but my grandma Elizabeth Yearwood spread that amazing Caramel Icing on chocolate layers, and it was even more delicious. The cake recipe came from my grandma Paulk. I guess I could call this Two-Grandma Cake! Now my mom makes this cake for me every year. The Caramel Icing has a mind of its own, so you never really know what it’s going to look like, but it doesn’t matter to me. It always tastes amazing!

Every February, when Garth’s birthday rolls around, I make this beautiful and delicious cake for him. Last fall, he made some sad statement like, “Only three more months until you make me that awesome German chocolate cake again!” I made the cake the next day. (I know, I’m a sucker.) I double the frosting recipe to frost the entire cake, because my husband likes extra frosting, but one recipe will frost the tops of the layers and do the trick just fine—unless you’re Garth, of course! If you have some left over, the frosting is also good spread on a graham cracker or on brownies (page 198). Okay, it’s also good right off a spoon!

This is great bread for any meal, but one of my favorite ways to eat it is crumbled up in a big bowl with really cold milk. Mmmm! Beth likes it cold with buttermilk. Now that’s just wrong!

Biscuits are synonymous with southern cooking. If I had the time, I would have homemade biscuits at every single meal. They should be required in every household! When my niece Ashley was small, one of the things she liked best about going to Granddaddy and Grammy’s house was breakfast. There was usually a conversation the night before about all the awesome things on the menu—bacon, grits, sausage, and, of course, homemade biscuits. Ashley would be up early to help make the biscuits, standing on a chair beside Granddaddy, wearing a big apron and covered with flour.