Damon Lee Fowler

This page has been rather quiet this spring, mainly because there hasn't been a lot of cooking going on in my kitchen that I've not already shared. While our new life in Virginia has not been without adventures, they've not been of the culinary kind. I've been excavating and discovering our own Secret Garden.

Our house sits on more than an acre of land, which nowadays can be called a "garden" only in the very loosest sense of the term. Mind, it wasn't always that way: Read More 

All my life, the way holidays were celebrated has been determined by family obligations. Easter was the lone exception. It was the one holiday with no prior claims on it, the one where we could create our own traditions.

For most of my time in Savannah, I've hosted Easter dinner in my own home or at the very least have planned and executed it from the kitchen of a friend.

Last year laid waste to that tradition.  Read More 

I always have lamb at Easter, following the older tradition even though most Southerners have ham of some kind, and now my household is divided between the ham and lamb camps, so I usually have both. This year, someone else is bringing the ham, so I’m doing a simple butterflied leg of lamb Irish-style, in honor of our Irish priest associate who’ll be joining us for dinner. Read More 

If you’re doing a ham for Easter, you’re pretty much home free from here, but if you like to have lamb for the feast, as I do, you can’t cook it ahead unless you just want to have it cold on purpose.

Fortunately, a boned and butterflied leg cooks quickly with a minimum of last minute fuss.  Read More 

One of the loveliest things about a feast day, I always think, is the leftovers. Bits of roast to eat cold with horseradish sauce or warmed in its gravy, cold ham and asparagus, potato gratin or baked macaroni, both of which warm-over so nicely. Soup that can be warmed or thinned with milk and served chilled, either as is, or with other things added to it. Read More