Baking Inspiration

My grandmother's recipes

My writing, particularly my manuscript, and my culinary work are heavily inspired by my three grandmothers.

Let me explain.

As an adopted child, I had some empty branches for a family tree. The parents of my adoptive mother’s childhood friend became our “pretend grandparents.” Lorene Coleman, “MeeMaw,” offered me my first taste memory when I was 6 years old. I learned that love tastes like strawberries, picked from an every-bearing backyard patch on Lee Avenue in Oak Hill, WV. Each Sunday, with all of the excitement my soul could contain, I went to spend the day with her picking strawberries, firm in my small hands, tugged and torn from the stem, smelling of sweetness of fresh earth and the red heart-berry inside. Each Sunday, especially in the Spring, consisted of halcyon days of sugared strawberries and baking honey-nut chocolate chip cookies, sans nuts.

My maternal adoptive grandmother, Lois Hall Robinson, “Nanny,” loved baking applesauce cake with her mother, Grandma Criss. This was the last memory she shared with me before she passed away. 

I am often asked if I grew up with deep culinary training or experience, and I did not, past the two memories shared above. I never attended culinary school or even worked in a professional kitchen when I showed up for an interview to be a part-time baker at a restaurant in Charlottesville. The food, the baking, the love, the creation was just always there, even if dormant, waiting to be unleashed. 

But a few years ago, my birth sister discovered me via Ancestry.com after looking for me for much of her life. Through her, I learned of my paternal biological grandmother, Dorothy Owens, who was an award-winning baker and cook. She passed away before I could know her, but I now realize she has always been a part of me, the invisible ink, so to speak, writing words I have only begun to read.

In my baking, this story, these three women come together, much the way a pie does - a foundation, a filling, a topping, baked together with the binding of Butter and Love.

Here is a recipe from each of these women, hand-written, from their archives.