• Food Stories

    Find Your Thrill on Blueberry Hill

    From your email, please click on the title to view the photos and comment online. When I was growing up on the farm in Illinois, blueberries were more of an occasional treat. My grandmother and my mother would occasionally make…

  • Food Stories

    Cherries on Top

    I have always loved cherries, and during cherry season, I’ve been hankering for a delicious homemade cherry pie. When I was growing up in Midwest pie country, my mother made a killer cherry pie, though often it was filled with…

  • Food Stories

    Can You Name That Apple Dessert?

    This is the time of year when my mother and grandmother would get together to make apple pies that were put unbaked into the freezer for a future dessert. They were masters at pastry, and the apples were from my…

  • Food Stories

    Cool It This Summer

    The heat of summer is upon us. Growing up on the farm in Illinois, for me, July and August were centered around baling hay, harvesting oats, and then baling the oat straw. That meant spending those 90-degree-plus, extremely humid days…

  • Food Stories

    Bright Ideas with Citrus

    When I was young, this time of year usually meant a big basket of citrus arriving from Florida, courtesy of my grandparents. For a few weeks, it was fresh orange juice in the morning and grapefruit for breakfast. No fancy…

  • Food Stories

    Snack Attack

    This is the time of year when a lot of us are trying to trim some of those holiday pounds. But come mid-day, we’re often wishing for something to munch on that will satisfy a hunger craving without also contributing…