These last 10 years, I’m tasting a lot of flavors in foods that weren’t there before.  I taste almond flavoring in some French vanilla coffee creamers. I taste caramel flavoring in cheap bourbons. Just minuscule amounts, you know, too little to be listed in the ingredients.

And I can taste — even smell — chicken broth in Uncle Ben’s rice once it has cooked. Am I crazy — don’t answer that. Is it just me, or can other people taste the faintest hint of chicken broth in Uncle Ben’s freakishly white, fluff, regular grains?

Tupperware Avalanche has become Kraft Garlic Cheese Roll Central against long odds. Despite lifelong Southern-ness, a love of cheese grits, and two previous posts on Kraft Garlic Cheese, I hadn’t ever purchased it. My mom used it, and millions of other Southern moms use it, but I just never had occasion.

(If you’re new to the Kraft Garlic Cheese Roll story, it was unceremoniously discontinued around the 2007 holidays by some sharp business minds at Kraft.)

A dear friend read one of the previous posts on the story, and sweetly bought a roll of it for me, which I hoarded in the fridge for four months. (Oh stop making the “ewww” face — as if processed cheese EVER goes bad. It probably would have been just fine in the cabinet for four months. Ewwww.)

When just the right occasion arrived, I made cheese grits. Mmmmm. Waaaaarm. Cheeeeezy. Griiiiitty. I had never used Kraft Garlic Cheese roll to make them before, and I admits, it’s seductively easy. Too late I discover this.

Just as a note, “Kraft Garlic Cheese” is the most logged search term on this blog. So it’s possible you reached this page looking for a substitute for the discontinued Kraft Garlic Cheese rolls.

If you reached this page looking for a substitute for Kraft Garlic Cheese roll, try this recipe I found on the Kraft chat boards. I modified it so the roll sizes match the Kraft 6-ounce roll.  

Garlic Cheese Rolls

1 1/2 pounds sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 pound processed cheese product such as Velveeta

3 ounces cream cheese

1 teaspoon seasoned salt

Garlic powder to taste

Soften cheeses and mix all together well. Shape into six rolls and wrap securely in foil or plastic wrap.

To reach the Kraft kitchens and request they revive Kraft Garlic Cheese roll, call 1-800-847-1997 and follow the prompts.

Despite lifelong Tennessee residence, I’d never visited the Great Smoky Mountains, unless you count an overnight in Gatlinburg with a youth group. It’s the most-visited national park, but I never had the opportunity to go.

That changed last year, when I was included in an annual hike with a great group up Mount Leconte to spend a night at the lodge. The company, the scenery, the whole experience all left a deep impression. This year, I remembered to bring a camera.The wooden cabins and lodges and the alpine climate are like nothing else in Tennessee, and it feels like a Swiss mountain town. It’s quiet and peaceful and the air is sweet.

There’s very little plumbing — you fill a wash basin from a pump — and no electricity. Cabins are lit by oil lamp, heated with propane and the staff cooks with propane, working by lamps and headlamps. There’s aggressive bear activity in the area, according to the park service. (And since I slept on the floor by the door, bear thoughts were never far from my mind.)

In March, when the season begins, a helicopter brings a massive load of canned and other packaged food to the site. (If you’re willing to spend a week unloading, the lodge offers a week of free room and board.) During the season, llamas trek up the mountain to resupply the lodge, bringing fresh eggs and (just a guess) more wine.

Bears, propane, canned food: Seems like a challenge to cook in those conditions for 40 people twice a day. So it’s a pleasant surprise that the food is good, and it’s even better this year than it was last year.

The meal starts with soup, which was a really good creamy chicken and wild rice this year (vegetable last year).

You can see the glass of wine, refilled frequently by the extraordinarily efficient, patient and physically fit staff, and the thermos of butter lugged up the mountain by one intrepid hiker, who declared that the sensation of cold margarine squishing through her teeth at last year’s meals was something she simply couldn’t repeat.

Main course: beef with gravy, green beans straight outta the can, skillet apples.

For the meatless, black beans. There was chocolate birthday cake this year and last year, freshly baked by the staff.

I didn’t know what to expect from the food. Probably basic hiking food, maybe glorified Rice-A-Roni and oatmeal, rather than flowing wine and chocolate cake. And if there’s just nothing else you can eat on the table, there’s a basket of cookies.

But honestly, here’s the real dessert.

About 12 years ago I wrote a story for the Nashville Banner on Nancy Johnson of White House Tennessee, who seemed at the time to be the winningest-ever state fair entrant.

In 1991 she entered 23 categories of pickles, preserves and baked goods, winning 13 of them. In 1992 she entered 34 categories and won 25 prizes, which she called “a good year.” In about 1997, she won $300 in prize money: $125 from Pillsbury’s pie contest and the rest from competitions that paid from $3 to $15. Do the math: that’s a lot of winning. Her biggest year was ‘75, when bumper crops in the garden let her enter 30 canned goods, along with nine baked goods. She won almost every category.

She was a great interviewee and a fascinating cook with a sure eye for a winning recipe. Everything she made, from biscuits to salsa, was first-rate. I still haveand use three of her recipes. One is a two-alarm, very limey salsa that stands up well to canning. The second is a matchless blueberry muffin with a butter-and-sugar-dipped top. And the third is the best damn apple pie you’ve ever had, I don’t care who you are. It’s won prizes from Tennessee to England to California.

This year I made Nancy Johnson’s Apple Orange Pie for the family Labor Day/August birthdays gathering. I used an apple I don’t see often, Wolf River, which I only ever find at the Howells’ stands in Green Hills. Wolf River is an early apple from South Carolina. I really love the flavor. It’s slightly flattened like York apple. This year they were a little underripe. I’ve never cooked with Wolf River apples before, only eaten them fresh. Fortunately, they cooked really well, holding their shape and texture and developing a nice flavor.

I always make the same pie pastry — 10 tablespoons of butter and shortening, 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 4 tablespoons ice water — but this time I used too much shortening and the crust was very soft. You can see on the finished pie where it settled around individual pieces of apple, rather than acting as a lid. When cut, the pieces didn’t hold their shape — they were more like a cobbler. But it was still the best apple pie, I don’t care who you are.

I’ve been thinking about Nancy a lot lately, so when I go to the fair, I’ll have to stop at the baked goods and pickles to see whether she entered anything.

State Fair Winning Apple Orange Pie

4 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice (or cinnamon)

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

3 or 4 large cooking apples

1 (2-crust) pie pastry

1 egg white, beaten with 2 teaspoons water

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. Stir in the flour and the spice, Add the sugar and juice. Bring to a boil, remove from the heat and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel and grate or chop the apples.

Arrange the pastry in a pie plate. Spoon the apples into the pastry. Pour the butter mixture over the apples. Top with the remaining crust, sealing the edges. Brush with the egg white mixture. Cut steam vents. Bake for 45 minutes. Makes 8 servings.

Fourth of July celebration in the Whitland Avenue neighborhood. We like it for a lot of reasons. It’s a chance to see people we like and hardly ever see. This year, the weather was pleasant. Our friends have a fun party with lots of kids running around, popsicles, and a bouncy castle.

I was lucky enough to be asked to judge the food contest. It’s always fun to meet the other judges, who are sometimes friends, sometimes restaurant people or both. The competition is respectably stiff, with lots of well-prepared and well-presented entries. There are two categories: Great American Picnic Food and Desserts. It’s all about execution: this year, a simple but perfectly executed cucumber salad won, along with a pretty butterbean and tomato salad (blurry photo below) in the picnic division, beating out competitors like a mango and shrimp salad and a pesto and sun-dried tomato pasta.

An apple pie in an unbelievable homemade crust won the Dessert category. The runner-up was a chocolate latte meringue pie, a little bit of innovation that was done well. Excuse the blurry photo — it was the kind of party where I ran into a friend’s sister, borrowed her camera for ages, couldn’t really work it well, then asked her to go to a lot of trouble to post these photos. Seriously, you’ll never come across a better group of people. I wish the Whitland picnic were a commune.

But mostly the day was about the Declaration of Independence, rousing patriotic music, politicking, and talk. Lots of talk and visiting, which I can never get enough of.

Squash bread so good the cat ate it — several people wanted the recipe. I found it in a community cookbook last year — maybe Encore Nashville. The recipe called for zucchini originally, but since our organic box of vegetables from Delvin Farms has included about three big squash a week for the last three weeks, you can see where this is going.

Myself personally, I love squash cooked just the plain Southern way, with a chopped onion and a pat of lard margarine butter then served with plenty of black pepper. I tried serving it twice: once before Child, and once After Daughter. There was screaming both times. So I’ll be a retired widow before that side dish ever happens again, and by then, my meals will consist of Slim-Fast and a Rye Manhattan. Until then, squash must be managed: disguised as a fritter, minced for stir-fry, layered in the bottom of lasagna, and made into quick breads and cakes.

This recipe calls itself a quick bread but it’s really a one-bowl loaf cake, since the original called for 2 cups of sugar. I cut that to 1 and it’s still plenty sweet. Whole wheat pastry flour makes up about 3/4 cup of the total. I use only about half the oil and it seems fine, unless you like a really rich, slightly oily cake.

Butterscotch (Squash) Bread

* 3 eggs
* 1 cup cooking oil
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 cups grated zucchini

*1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

* 2 cups flour
* 1/2 cup oats

* 1 (3-ounce) package instant butterscotch pudding mix
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• Beat the eggs, oil and sugar in a large bowl until light in color and somewhat thickened. Add the squash and vanilla and mix well.
• Combine the remaining ingredients and mix well. Add to the squash mixture; mix until no white streaks of flour remain.
• Spoon the mixture into 2 8-inch loaf pans or a single 10-inch springform pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes; remove and cool completely. Freezes well. A lemon-juice-butter-confectioners sugar glaze is nice. Makes 2 loaves or 1 cake.

I’m about to break Rule Number 2 of food writing: “No animals and food on the same page.” Sanitation thing.

I say this to prepare you for the photos you’re about to see. We have a strange cat, who came to us after a death in our extended families. She was one of a pair of rescued cats, and when the other cat met his maker, Gray Cat’s personality began to blossom. She’s very affectionate and well-socialized. She likes to be near people, meaning she stands directly behind or beside people, so you have to watch before you step. She wants to sit either on your person, or at the same height. So chairs at our house tend to be in pairs so the cat can sit with us. We call her “Bar.”

She understands the change of voice tone that signals a question, and will answer, because she assumes you’re asking whether she’d like a little of the gourmet canned cat food. Sweet Cheeks and I were playing 20 Questions. I was in one room and she was in another, shouting questions over the rattle of pans. Sweet Cheeks would lob a question, the cat assumed the question was directed her way, and mewed. Over and over. Hysteria ensued.

Lately, the cat is behaving strangely. Exhibit A: Usually an indoor cat, she’s spending day and night outside. Her coat is a little shaggy-looking and unkempt, and she grooms constantly. Exhibit B: Her appetite seems off, and by “off” I mean in every way.

For better light, I went outside to photograph Butterscotch (Squash) Bread (another of my deceptive foods) But what else are you gonna do with all those yellow squash in a squash-hating household?

From here, the photos tell the story. That’s a gray cat ear in the foreground.

You can clearly see the bite marks in the second-to-last photo. I guess the butterscotch flavor really does cover up the squash taste.

Oh, and Rule 1 is, “No diseases or body parts on the page with food.” You’d be surprised how many hospital auxiliaries do cookbooks to fund a kidney center. It’s the sidebars that get them every time.

I’m learning a lot, watching the world through the experience of my very old grandmother. It’s true that every day is a gift, and you can learn something every day. But sometimes it’s hard to be grateful for that gift when the day brings pain, or loneliness or isolation. And things you learn, you might just as soon not know.

She never complains, but it’s clear that for her, life is not about the adventure anymore. It’s about managing a body that’s deteriorating.

My gran has just a few friends left, and last week, one of them passed away. The funeral was held at a very large local church, then the family and close friends drove to the cemetery for the interment.

What happened next is something I’ve never heard of: the church put on a luncheon for the family and anyone else who cared to attend. Tablecloths, flowers and authentic Southern church lady food like orange sherbet jello, broccoli slaw, hash brown casserole, orange fluff, and that cake with the vanilla pudding and pineapple in the frosting. Also, the best coconut cake I’ve ever had in my life.

Usually it’s up to a family to make its own meal arrangements after a funeral, at just the moment they most need the care of their faith community. It was a deeply moving gesture, clearly developed by someone who knows what it’s like to want to linger with old friends after a funeral. It made a very old lady a little less lonely and it fed her a meal when there’s so little else that can be done to comfort her. I can’t think of a better definition of the word “gracious.”

Call me Poke Sallet Annie.
Because of the great green biomass invading the house, I decided to make the Greek greens pie called hortopita. We like it a lot, and although it’s a little involved, it uses up every green thing in the house. That’s because it traditionally calls for seven types of greens for a range of textures from buttery to chewy, and flavors from mild to sharp to fragrant and a few bitter. The greens should include mint, basil, oregano, dill and cilantro give every bite a slightly different flavor. I like that in a dish. It’s like the unexpected party.

I thought there would be enough greens because, as I mentioned, there are so darn many green things in the fridge. Even the second, auxiliary fridge that smells funny and usually just holds beer or hors d’oeuvre has been pressed into service to warehouse green stuff. But when the greens were stemmed, torn and were cooked down, there weren’t enough.

So when I was in the seldom-visited way back part of the back yard, trimming a shrub that impedes my view into my neighbor’s window, I spotted poke sallet by the fence. Well, I was as excited as my friend cookeatFRET is when she’s expecting an expensive foodstuff in the mail. A good-size patch of poke sallet just a couple inches high!

Poke sallet is Southern enough to have its own festival.  Which makes it part of authentic redneck heritages like my own. You have to know a couple of things about it before jumping in, though.

1. It has a pink stem. (I tell you this because I know you’re wondering how you can tell whether a particular weed in your backyard is poke.)
2. It’s often found along fences. (You don’t want to know how it gets there. Let’s just say it’s a natural process.)
3. Pick it when it’s less than 18 inches high because there’s a toxin in the leaves (Wikipedia says it’s phytolaccatoxin and phytolaccigenin) and as the plants get older, there’s more of it.
4. Boil the leaves in two or three changes of water. (They must be really alkaline or really something, because they actually clear up the discoloration in an aluminum pan.)

(Digression here — skip right over it if you like: You’d think I’d grown up way out in the country, as much as I know about poke sallet, but I promise I’m a suburbanite all the way, with the paved driveway and swim club and Corian countertops and everything. I guess I learned about poke from my grandparents. Not that they were farmers — they were an engineer and a social worker.)

So I mixed the boiled, chopped poke with all the other greens, 2 eggs, a little yogurt,  some sauteed onions, green onions, garlic, shallot and a little cheese. Hortopita is also good for using up cheese ends and bits.

Then I made this unbelievably easy olive oil pastry that rolled paper thin. My friends, I tell you here and now, I’ll never make a butter-and-shortening pastry crust again for a savory pie. This one mixed easier and faster, didn’t toughen, rolled into a wafer-thin sheet without tearing, pulled off the marble slab in one piece and didn’t harden in the fridge. Not as tender as a butter-crust but altogether a better experience.

Here’s the ready-to-bake hortopita.

And here it is cooked, cut, partially devoured, and dashed outside for a quick photo before the light became too dim. As the alligator said to Poke Sallet Annie’s granny, “Chomp.”

We were going to be really, really late to a potluck last week, and I knew it beforehand. I wanted to take something that everyone would love, so they would be happy to see us, instead of annoyed that we were late. So I made deviled eggs.
It was my first batch of deviled eggs ever. That’s because I sincerely dislike them. I’m not even a little waffley about the matter. Eggs are kind of ~eh~ for me anyway, and deviled eggs embody all the things that make me pull a face. The smell, the rubbery whites, the … Sorry.

    But a distant relative of mine — my step-half-sister-in-law’s mother — who is a wonderful Southern cook, once told me that you simply cannot prepare a large enough batch of deviled eggs to meet the demand. “They’ll eat every last one you make, no matter how many,” she said.

I’ve always wondered what the devilish part of deviled eggs is. If cleanliness is next to godliness, what is next to devilishness? Is it the mustard? That hardly seems worthy of the name “devil.” Here’s a Southern transplant who uses Tabasco — that seems more satanic, anyway, than mustard.

    A cookbook I’ve been working on lately (Junior League of Greater Ft. Lauderdale) included an interesting deviled egg recipe that looked like it might conjure a little underworld-y heat. Instead of the usual suspects, the filling included horseradish. I added a spoonful of a hot Russian mustard. Those Russians, they know from hot mustard. Then I decorated the little cholesterol boats with olives, a twinkling of dill and little chive appendages. I figured the olives would warn away little kids. The chives and dill were just for personality: some looked a little like lawns, or smiley faces, or Mr Potato Head. You want people to know they’re getting something a little out of the ordinary, right?

I didn’t taste one — you can put lipstick on a pig and all that. We arrived well into the dinner hour, and everyone had fixed a plate. I was a little worried I’d have to take the devils back home. But my stephalfsisterinlaw’smother was right — 20 minutes later there was nothing left on the dish.