Brulé - Learn to cook 25 Southern classics 3 ways: traditional, contemporary, international

I lied to my mother. I lied because of an overwhelming desire for Velveeta cheese. It was 1980 and I was a twelve-year-old latch-key kid: That is, I walked home from school and opened the door to my house using a key that hung on a piece of red-and-white butchers twine around my neck. Alone in the house, Id make a snack and watch TV until my parents got home from work. This was rather common in those days in families where both parents worked.

But this morning I had indirectly lied to my mother. The rule was that once I was home, I stayed there, inside the house. This afternoon I planned to leave the house, walk the half mile down the street to the Big Bear grocery store, and buy a brick of Velveeta cheese. My mother would have had two problems with this scenario: (1) I left the house and walked to the grocery store, which entailed crossing a very busy five-lane street, and (2) I bought a brick of Velveeta cheese.

The week before, I had tasted Velveeta for the first time at my friend Laras house. Her mother made me a grilled cheese sandwich with it, and the gooey, salty goodness blew my mind. Both my parents were exceptional cooks. Grilled cheese sandwiches at my house were a rarity, but when they did make an appearance, they were crafted strictly from sharp British cheddar, or possibly a French Camembert, never from processed cheese. That curiously slurpable Velveeta grilled cheese made my head spin.

My corduroys made a zip-zip-zip sound as I speed-walked toward the grocery store. A few tentative, staccato jumps across the busy street landed me in the markets parking lot. It took me a while to find the Velveeta in the store. Because it was called cheese, I made the incorrect assumption it would be in the refrigerated cheese case. I finally found it high up on a shelf near the bread. I stood in line waiting to pay for my heavy brick of processed cheese food feeling sneaky and scared and nervous and defiant.

Back across the busy street, I was more emboldened now, carrying the yellow rectangular box like a hard-won prize. I arrived home and immediately began microwaving thick gelatinous slices one after another, eating the golden, molten cheese-lava with a spoon. I ate half of the brick (which is about the weight of a toddler) and threw the remaining half, the evidence, in the trash.

Although I skipped dinner that night, complaining (quite honestly) of a stomachache, my mother never found out that I had walked to the grocery store and tainted her brand-new microwave with processed cheese.

My life has been delineated by memorable food moments, from gourmet to greasy spoon. Food, cooking, and family are what make up my life experiences, and they always intertwine. After the birth of my first baby, I was most excited about her first meal. I imagined it and planned it for eight months, until she was old enough to eat table food. I made her risotto with smoked salmon and squished sweet peas. She loved it. She took the spoon from me and ate the rest of the sticky rice with her hands. I dont remember her first steps, but I will never forget her first meal.

If I am not cooking, Im distracted by thoughts of cooking. It is my singular obsession. Im not stating that to be boastfulIm not even sure that its a good thing to have such a one-track mind. Its just how I am wired.

For me, attention to food and cooking are like unchecked compulsions. Thankfully, there is a special school for people like meits called culinary school. It was there that I learned the crucial and proper cooking techniques, but it has been the five to eight hours of cooking each day (over the last twenty-one years) that have refined my art. To me, cooking truly is an artistic expression of love.

Ive been lucky that magazine editors and television producers see the value in my art. Ive cobbled together a tremendously fulfilling career in food writing and food television. Ive developed recipes for national magazines and popular mommy-blogs and appeared in countless cooking segments on North Carolina television stations. Ive also had the great fortune to teach cooking to children, teens, and adults in three different countries, to dozens of different nationalitiesalways learning as much about food from my students as they learned about cooking from me.

One thing I know for sure is that most people like to eat. A handful of people have told me that they would rather take a pill than eat a meal. Part of me, about thirty pounds of me, wishes that I had a bit of that apathy toward eating, but mostly I am confused by that sentiment. For me, cooking and eating are about so much more than sustenance.

What led me to write a cookbook about southern cooking, and to use these iconic dishes as a way to teach cooking techniques, was my career as a food writer and cooking teacher and the years my family spent living in both the American South and Europe.

About twelve years ago, our family was living in Augusta, Georgia, and I was a food writer for the Augusta Chronicleand then my husbands company moved us to Switzerland. The expat adventure that we thought would last just two years ended up stretching into seven years and two countries.

From our home base in Zrich, our family traveled every possible chance we had. I would drive forty-five minutes into Germany to grocery shop, or Id join a friend for the ninety-minute drive to France for lunch, just because I could. Later, when we lived in northwestern England, our family spent sunny weekends seeking out windy beaches in Wales, squishing through soggy moors in Englands Lake District, or making exciting, urban visits to Edinburgh, Scotland.

We crammed our family of six into our minivan and drove all over Europe on weekends and every school holiday, seeking out new places to explore and foods to eat. We packed the diaper bag and set off for a long weekend in Lyon, France, when our twins were just eight weeks out of the hospital.