Overnight Coffeecake

"Good" Coffee Cake

Tucked away in a cookbook I found a series of photocopied papers clipped together with some handwritten notes scattered in the headers and margins of the pages.  I immediately grasp from the titles that the recipes are for breakfast cakes and rolls from various sources.  What is not so easily ascertained is how I came to own these copies, though the name referenced at the top of the page is quite possibly referencing Mary Greene from Mountain City, TN where I enjoyed many delicious meals (after which I would always ask for the recipes). As you can see clearly in the photo I've included in this blog post one page in this series of papers, taken from the Spring 2004 issue of Home & Farm (a publication of the Tennessee Farm Bureau), has a very bold "Good" written at the top of it.  I take that stamp of approval on paper as my cue in approaching the Sunday Spiritual Kitchen Experience this week, albeit Saturday evening to start the process.  I did not find the 2004 recipe archived on the TN Farm Bureau website, but I did find another overnight coffee cake that comes from Farm Flavor. Interestingly when I attempted to find recipes with the same ingredients as the 2004 recipe I'm making they varied in the use of  ricotta or sour cream while this recipe calls for buttermilk,which I believe must add a special flavor while at the same time little fat.  I've opted to share an online blog version for Overnight Coffeecake that most closely resembled the aging papered version I hold in my hands~using buttermilk.  Already thinking about coffee time in the morning being "oh so good!"

Awakening with Asparagus

Spring came early to the Lowcountry.  The azalea bushes are casting their vibrant color and flowering plants have begun to emit their fragrant aroma. And the salt marsh grasses are flush with green vegetation.  With those elements as inspiration I'm reaching into the cookbook collection for a dish that brings spring to my dinner table just as poetically as mother nature has brought it to my back door.  Out comes Oprah's favorite recipes (at least the ones from 1994, I'm sure she like many of us continues to expand her favorite list as time slips by or at the very least I imagine her palate growing and evolving like mine with age). Like many of the cookbooks I feature from the early nineties~when my exploration into food, flavors and fun was just beginning~I seem to have cycled back to a time when it was all new and fresh information.  Revisiting a era that for the better part of 18 years I describe as an awakening of my senses.  Thus I select a recipe from In the Kitchen with Rosie that evokes that period of food enlightenment and the now ever present Spring sitting on my door step.  This Asparagus Salad is a first course, a side dish and perfect for the picnic blanket. I've committed to delivering so many colorful food memories in many renditions across the last 18 years, but this dish makes me smile simply by plating it up for others to enjoy (and the flavor at first bite just makes that smile broader). Awakening!