I’m a farm-raised Southerner 
who got married for the first time at 41 and started tracking my culinary adventures. I’m probably the only person in the United States with a Ph.D. in English who knows how to churn butter and raised chickens for a 4-H project. (Some of them actually survived.) I’ve been cooking since I was six, when my dad showed me how to make scrambled eggs. (He’s since expanded his repertoire to include spaghetti.)
In this blog, I want to share with you my lifelong love for food and cooking, some family stories, and occasional comments on the bizarre and beautiful journey of living with someone else. Our three cats stroll through sometimes, usually to see if some chicken has made its way to the floor.
While I cover a range of topics, I’m most interested in old recipes–the ones made by our grandmothers and great-grandmothers in the pre-Cool Whip era, when convenience foods took over our cupboards and Jello salads popped up at every church supper. Luckily, we also live in a time when some of the ingredients our ancestors used are making a comeback–heirloom vegetables, locally grown produce, meats from animals raised outside instead of in factory farms. These changes give us a fighting chance of cooking like grandma.
I try not to be a food snob. I have a not-so-secret love of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, Hamburger Helper Lasagna, and Spaghetti-Os, all cultivated by a grandmother eager to sample all the wonders of the supermarket even as she canned and froze her own vegetables and served us raw milk.
We’re also on a budget and try to seek out fresh foods at good prices. You won’t find a lot of expensive items, like wine that costs more than $6 a bottle, used here. It’s a lot easier to produce great food at lower cost when you do the work of chopping and rinsing yourself. I’m also very lucky to live in Atlanta near an enormous fresh food market, where we can get everything from sorrel to broccoli, goat to chicken, and squid to tilapia at reasonable prices. It’s possible we chose our house based on proximity to this market and to Fred’s favorite pub.
I hope you enjoy cooking with me!
This blog is in the process of being moved from thenewlyfeds.blogspot.com, which is being phased out. I look forward to seeing readers on the new site soon!
The Newlyfeds 
I don’t know if you’re still blogging, but if so I saw you that you mentioned a cookbook I have been looking high and low for…The Treasury of Tennessee Treats from Keith Memorial United Methodist Church in Athens, Tennessee. I am from Athens and my Mom had this cookbook at one time but it fell apart and most of it got lost. There was a particular recipe she made that was so delicious that I have never forgotten it…and I am 61 now…she made this when I was still a kid. It was an apple dumpling. If you could check to see if you have that recipe I would be eternally grateful if you could share it with me. You can either email it to me or FaceBook it to me. On FB I am on as Wanda Faye Owens Bax. Thank you for any assistance you can render.
I love your blog! Found it quite by accident, like all good things, as i was searching for a recepie to use some chicken livers and sweet potatoes…whitchbis all i hqd at home to eat that night. Found your delish recepie and started reading your blog. Bravo! I would say keep up the good work, but i see your last entry was jan. 2013. I wm sad you stopped, but kno2 it is a lot of work keeping up a blog.
Thank you for all your posts and for keeping it on-line.
I hope all is well with you and husband!
Thank you for your encouragement! My husband and I are working on developing his business right now but I have not totally given up the blog forever. Comments like yours help, and I hope you find some useful recipes.
I just came across your blog for the first time this afternoon. I see it’s been a while since you’ve posted (which I get); bless the internet for keeping things like this around! I enjoy the voice as much as the recipes. I laughed when I read the second sentence above (“I’m probably the only person in the United States with a Ph.D. in English who knows how to churn butter and raised chickens for a 4-H project.”). Replace the English Ph.D. with one in Communication Studies, and this could describe me. So you are not alone!
Hi Greta – obviously I don’t check my blog very often! Thank you for writing. Where did you get your Ph.D.? Are you still teaching? I used to know a fair number of people in that field. I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and took a couple of classes with John Fisk.
I don’t do the blog much anymore just because I could not seem to figure out a way to post consistently, and I’m doing some other things right now. But I appreciate your encouragement – might get me going again!