Category: Family Recipes

Sally Baker-Williams
Durham, Arkansas

My gram made this chili sauce which is sort of a cross between tomato jam and a tomato relish every summer. Spending time with my Gram in the kitchen, just the two of us was something I coveted. My love of not only cooking but food preservation goes back to these times in the kitchen with her and with my mother. When I preserve food I feel a deep generational pull, even if I am using a new recipe. My ancestry of strong women are walking the kitchen floor with me.

Delaney Willard
Cassville, Missouri

For decades, my mother hosted those she loved impeccably well. She even won local recipe contests in my home state up North until they asked her to stop entering and give someone else a chance. One of her signature desserts was French Silk Pie.

Sadly, she was diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s a handful of years ago and in confidence, her prize winning recipes began tasting a little…off…to those who knew her cooking best. In September of 2020, she called and asked me for the recipe of her famous French Silk Pie, a recipe deeply ingrained in her mind and heart until the present, sadly.

I graciously gave it to her, extremely thankful for this recipe book she wrote by hand for me when I graduated and moved out on my own back in 2001. I suppose the torch – or beater – has been passed on to me and it’s now my turn to make her Famous French Silk Pie for her.

Melissa Hall
Fayetteville Arkansas

I was born in Fayetteville in 1968, and grew up regularly visiting both sets of grandparents in Benton County. My Grammie Katy and Granddad Harvey lived in Vaughn, Arkansas and had a tiny grocery store. In their backyard they tended a large garden with freestone peach trees around it. I have wonderful memories of sitting on a fence row dripping with fresh peach juice as my Granddad Harvey peeled them with his pocket knife and handed them to us. He also grew peanuts, harvested, roasted, and ground them at home. This is the recipe my Grammie Katy used to make peanut butter cookies. The deep freezer chest on her back porch was always full of homemade, cooked, and frozen cookies ready to thaw or eat frozen (in the summertime, mmmmm). The peanut butter ones were my favorite. This recipe card was hand written by her; she died in 1997 at the age of 86. She was born and raised in Hindsville, Arkansas.

Kathryn Birkhead
Springdale, AR

The recipe in the church cookbook says Grandmother Cookies, but we always called them Grandma Cookies. My mother made these cookies, just like her mother did before her, and I have no idea where the recipe came from before that. They’re just a little different from any other cookies I’ve ever had, probably because of the nutmeg sugar, and I love them with a cup of tea. Daddy loved these and always wanted Mother to make sure they got really done. He didn’t like it if they were even a little bit gooey. (The recipe above this one for Nut Crescents is really good, too!)