I cannot sharpen a knife. If I ever need a really sharp knife, I’ll go out buy a new one. New knives are sharp right out of the box, but I have never been able to put a keen edge on an old knife. Daddy could. About once a month, he’d get out an old whetstone with three sides and methodically sharpen every knife in the kitchen. More than once, I cut myself just opening the knife … [Read more...]

  It’s hard to screw up a good steak. Unless you cook it until every drop of juice is gone and it’s as dry as shoe leather or if you serve it so rare that it crawls off your plate before you can kill it with a steak knife, most any steak will be good. And well it should, because steaks come from the choice parts of a steer, generally the loin or rib area. Steaks are one of the first things … [Read more...]

I don’t know how many bags of mulch my wife Nancy has used in the last 10 years – probably enough to mulch the state of Delaware. but in the future, we won’t be needing quite as many of those heavy 50-pound bags. That’s because we now have a new Electric Wood Chipper. There is nothing I hate worse than dragging plastic bags filled with twigs and sticks to the curb for Monday morning trash … [Read more...]

I have been cooking barbeque chicken for a thousand years. Well, maybe not a thousand, but at least eight-hundred and fifty. It was the first thing I cooked dating back to my bachelor days. After all that practice, I more or less have it down to a science. The only time I bombed is when I once slammed shut my Weber Grill and tipped it over on our patio – chicken, sauce, ashes and coals - all in … [Read more...]

  “Hello? Fulker Farms? This is the guy in Virginia who buys all those meal worms from you and I’m going to need more. I have three families of cardinals nesting in my yard!” That was more or less my conversation this afternoon with the Fluker lady who ships my worms. The cardinals’ baby food should be arriving in a couple days. Our first cardinal family had built a nest in a … [Read more...]

  We were in Mooresville, NC last week on a short getaway to Lake Norman when I found myself at one of my favorite hangouts – the Food Lion. Food Lion, as you know, is based in Carolina and this is one of their flagship stores. I was there to pick up a few staples for dinner but, as always, I had to do a little poking around, especially in the “Sauce” section where I came across a product … [Read more...]

We had just returned from a long drive home. It was Monday night and we needed something to eat, but not much. UVA was playing and we didn’t want to go out. Since I had to run to the grocery store anyway, I decided to just pick up a frozen pizza. How bad could it be? It turned out to be delicious. It was a DiGiorno. I can’t tell you the last time I bought a frozen pizza. Probably 30 years ago … [Read more...]

I have always known Sara Lee for the delicious frozen desserts. They make the best pound cake ever, as good as your grandmother’s recipe, though I have had a hard time finding it recently. Sara Lee also makes dynamite cheesecakes, pies and other sweets. It was only recently that I noticed they were also in the fresh bread business - big time. And in my humble opinion, they make the best tasting … [Read more...]

  I enjoy cooking on the grill. Like the post office guy, neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet or hail can prevent me from making my rounds to the back patio to cook a steak, some dogs or a number of other charred delights. But what I don’t enjoy is a gas grill that gives up the ghost after 1 or 2 seasons. I have owned 2 or 3 high-dollar, stainless steel grills with all the bells and … [Read more...]