Quick

When Ernestine Williams, mother of Ole Miss Colonel Reb and NFL football great Gentle Ben Williams, was teaching me how to make skillet fried corn, the top of the black pepper shaker fell off and a ton of pepper fell in the skillet. She scooped out as much as she could but there was still a whole lot that got left in. We liked it. Now when I make it I add a good bit of black pepper and a whole lot of garlic. You have to use fresh corn in this dish; frozen just won’t do if you want it to really fry up nice.

My cousin Daniel Foose fell in love with a girl he met in music school. Sueyoung Yoo and Daniel married out at our family farm, Pluto, on what might have been the hottest day that year, Saturday, June 30. Friends and family began to arrive the Wednesday before. As the bride and groom are both accomplished jazz musicians, she a pianist and he a bassist, most of the bridal party came with instruments in tow, and late-night jams filled the evenings. Sueyoung made kimchi, massaging each leaf of cabbage with rich chile paste and placing it in her groom’s great-grandmother’s soup tureen. Her soon-to-be in-laws, Uncle Jon and Aunt Caroline, had driven from Austin with a plug-in home-size chest freezer in the back of their Suburban rigged to a battery and filled with all sorts of slow-cooked Creole and Tex-Mex food for the reception. The reception came together in an eccentric perfection combining cooking from New Orleans, Korea, Mississippi, and Texas; and the band played well into the night. It is a joy to have Sueyoung in the family. Now out at Pluto we have kimchi buried in the yard and Korean barbecue is served on Christmas night.

The sweetness of peaches and sugar snap peas makes them pair up quite well. A bit of seasoning sends the duo down a chutney path.

Romano beans (aka Italian string beans) are really just a different variety of snap bean, and are grown and eaten the same way. Broad flat-podded green snap beans with five- to six-inch pods are often called Italian Pole or Romano beans, and varieties include Roma, Greencrop, and Bush Romano. Anchovy paste makes these good; don’t tell folks what is in them and they will eat them up.

When you say “Greek” in Oxford, Mississippi, most people will think you are talking about one of three things: sororities and fraternities, antebellum architecture, or Angelo Mistolis’s feta cheese salad dressing. This dressing of mine is great on cold-cut foot-longs and on salads of all sorts.

Spring is a short-lived but well-loved season in the Mississippi Delta. All is verdant and lush with the scent of fresh-tilled earth in the air. When spears of asparagus are combined with farm-fresh eggs, to me, it all signals spring. I particularly enjoy this dish for breakfast with sourdough bread for sopping up the luxuriant, velvety cream sauce.

Like reverse butterflies, when the showy yellow blooms of peanuts begin to fade, the peduncle bows to the ground and buries its head in the earth, forming the webbed cocoon-like shells this legume is known for. This slaw is a great one for picnics in the hot summer because it isn’t bound by mayonnaise. Chile, cilantro, and rice vinegar give it a fresh, spicy crunch that makes it the perfect peanutty partner for grilled chicken or pork.

The Palestine Gardens is a miniature replica of sites from the Holy Land built down in the piney woods around Lucedale, Mississippi. For sixteen years Reverend Walter Harvell Jackson and his wife searched for a place to build his Bible-themed garden. After seven years of construction, the forty-acre garden opened in 1960 with Bethlehem, Jericho, and Jerusalem all constructed out of concrete blocks, and with its own Dead Sea. It has expanded over the years to include the Sea of Galilee. Jerusalem artichokes do well in the kind of sandy soil and full sun they have down there in George County and will thrive in most gardens, producing the edible tubers and brilliant yellow sunflowers. I like to serve this over Israeli couscous, of course.

“Alligator pears” is what we call the big pale-skinned midwinter varieties of avocados. They’re also known as Florida avocados (as opposed to the more familiar California Hass variety, which has dark, pebbly skin). One type has the name Bacon and that is a great coincidence since they work so wonderfully together.

Every year in early June Biloxi, Mississippi, holds the Blessing of the Fleet. Shrimp boats festooned with pennants, flags, as well as images of Jesus and animated shrimp form a procession out in the Mississippi Sound and file past the anchored “blessing boat.” There stands the officiating priest, who sprinkles holy water on the boats and gives the blessing for each one. St. Michael’s Catholic Church, with its stained-glass windows of Christ’s twelve apostles depicted as fishermen and its scalloped roof, has been the central sponsor of the ceremony for more than eighty years. An evergreen wreath is dropped into the gulf in remembrance of those lost at sea, and prayers are offered up for a safe and prosperous fishing season. This year, with the oil spill, more than ever the fishermen could use a blessing. This traditional coastal dish is perfect to serve for a Sunday brunch.

Chicory flowers are Aequinotales, meaning the flowers open and close at the same time just like clockwork. Here, that is from around six in the morning until the sun is high at noon. About the same time these blossoms are awakening, chicory roots blended with coffee are percolating across Louisiana. They make a fine combination. This dressing has the faintest sweetness of Louisiana molasses that works with the coffee to balance the bitter bite of the salad greens.

Once bound by the southeastern borders, pimiento cheese has slowly swept the nation. This soup was just a matter of time. A big batch of this is perfect for Super Bowl parties and such.

When I see the river rise and hear the birds sing, I think of my late dear friend Charlie Jacobs and his tune “Rhythm of Spring.” His association between native produce and more innocent days elevates the memory of spring smells to a sort of romance. He beguiles us. And he tells us that from our soil comes the ingredient we need to find meaning. When I make this soup in the first cool days of spring, I’ll serve it warm, and when the days begin to lengthen and turn warm, I like to serve it cool.

I don’t think people think of making their own crackers much, but homemade crackers can make store-bought dips and spreads set out for parties a little more personalized. A batch will last for a month stored in a tin and, when paired up with a hunk of good cheese, makes a very nice hostess gift.

Agatha Christie said of her grandmother, “Although a completely cheerful person, she always expected the worst of anyone and everything. And with almost frightening accuracy [she was] usually proved right.” Her grandmother would say “I shouldn’t be surprised if so-and-so was going on,” Christie recalled. “And although with no grounds for these assertions, that was exactly what was going on.” Sounds just like my grandmother Elsie. Elsie fancied herself an adept armchair detective. She was thrilled when our neighbor was murdered. Wait—that might lend the wrong impression. She was saddened by the loss of life, certainly, but elated at the chance to do some sleuthing and speculating. She quickly deemed it a love triangle gone wrong, a day before the police figured it out. I can see her now, seated in her floral chintz wingback chair with feet propped on the hearth, reading a good mystery. I must say that on early dark winter evenings I find myself right there in her favorite wingback, set about my guilty pleasure of working my way through The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, all 1,878 pages of it, with a plate of Elsie’s rarebit to sustain me.

Rarely do I pull out any of the inexplicable number of fondue pots we got for wedding gifts. They just sit up on the ledge above my kitchen cabinets and collect dust. The fig preserves my girlfriend Jane Rule gifts to us also sit up on that shelf. I love her preserves. I love them so much that I always think I’m going to save them for a special occasion, and they end up collecting dust until the next jar arrives. It’s ridiculous. This sweet, nutty cheese fondue uses both of these thoughtful gifts. On a chilly night, sharing this communal dish with friends makes you feel warm all over.

This makes a wonderful sweet-tart condiment with caramelized, almost molasses, undertones. It lasts for at least two weeks in the fridge and is amazing drizzled over creamy, mild ingredients such as avocado slices or soft goat cheese spread on crackers. It’s especially good over filet mignon (page 108) and Brazilian Leeks (page 142), which in fact go beautifully together.

When I go to New York, I often eat at Serafina Restaurant, which makes an amazing lemon spaghetti dish that is so good that I was again inspired to get the recipe. The chef kindly obliged. This version is a little simpler and creamier than the original. As with most other pasta dishes, you want the sauce to be ready before the fettuccine is so that the hot noodles absorb the creamy, lemony sauce (the longer it sits, the less saucy it will be). Note that the broth and cream will need to simmer for a good long time so that they are well reduced. Be sure to grate the lemons before you juice them. This is wonderful served with grilled chicken brushed with Steak Grill Sauce (page 164).