Damon Lee Fowler

Eleven dozen Christmas star-shaped cheese straws later, my holiday baking is beginning to get caught up. Next is the daunting job of baking the fruitcake. Daunting not because any step of it is all that difficult, but because it's a bit messy and does take three days.

Once upon a time fruitcakes took longer than that: The citrus peel (assuming one could even get oranges and lemons), had to be cleaned, blanched, and candied. The raisins, currants, and other dried fruits had to be "stoned" (not like we mean it nowadays—they didn't come already seeded), then reconstituted  Read More 

One of the things I love best about cooking is that it's predictable (to a point) and yet always evolving.

Yes, there are certain reactions that are basic and scientific. If you add this to that, you'll get a predictable result. Handle pastry dough with tender finesse and it'll be delicate, flaky, and tender; treat it roughly and it'll be hard and tough. The opposite is true for a yeast bread dough. But even with things we've made a thousand times and gotten the same result for almost every one of those times, there's always the opportunity for that unexpected "aha" moment.

I've been making cheese straws for my entire adult life—longer if I count the hundreds of my mother's  Read More 

Thanks to a move across three states, all the usual upheaval that goes with it, and a few unexpected wrenches thrown in along the way, we're still adjusting to our new home and life in Virginia. The consequence is, that my holiday baking has gotten a very late start. While that's probably not a bad thing for my waistline, it hasn't helped my spirit.

Yesterday, however, at long last I finally tied on an apron, got out the mixer and processor, and began my baking ritual with a batch of Christmas Cheese Stars.

That's just cheese straws with a little bit of a holiday spin that happened completely by accident. Read More 

Every year when the winter holidays roll around, I begin to crave that old-fashioned Southern holiday treat, drinking custard. Eggnog, at least, the real thing laced with bourbon or brandy, wasn’t something we had in a Baptist pastorium. But drinking custard was another thing. We could enjoy it not only at Christmas, but throughout the cold season.

If you’ve not encountered it, drinking custard is the same thing as custard sauce, only made with fewer egg yolks or whole eggs so that it’s thin enough to sip from a cup the way you’d do eggnog. For many Southern families, it was and still is a long standing holiday tradition and is actually the base that is often used for eggnog, especially if it contains no alcohol.

Mama used to tell stories of the days when my father was in seminary in Louisville and pastored a small country church Read More 

Of all the Christmas goodies that hosts and hostesses have traditionally laid by for drop-in guests during the holidays, cheese straws speak closest to my heart. Called cheese “biscuits” in nineteenth century manuscripts and community cookbooks, they’re not to be confused with the cheese-flecked baking powder bread popular today: back then “biscuit” was still being used (as it still is in Britain) in its older form to designate a crisp cookie. Read More 

It may be hard for the jaded comedians of our day to believe, but there actually was a time when fruitcake was well-loved, and got all the respect it really deserved.

Rich with rare and expensive dried and glacéed fruits and nuts, heady with brandy, sherry, and rare spices, it was, until well into the nineteenth century, the ultimate celebration cake for virtually every occasion, even (and especially) weddings, where its fruit-packed crumb symbolized the hope that the marriage itself would be fruitful.

It was, however, at Christmastide that fruitcakes were prized the most. That was partly because their richness befit the exuberance of the season, and partly because they not only kept well, making them the perfect treat to have on hand for drop-in company, but actually got better with age: by Twelfth Night a properly aged fruitcake was even more moist, aromatic, and delicious than it had been on Christmas Day. Read More