Tuesday after Easter

I remember making Martha Washington candies with my best friend in about third grade in her kitchen. Her mom patiently supervised combining powdered sugar, sweetened condensed milk, chopped pecans and fragrant coconut flakes, rolling them into walnut sized balls. The best part was melting a giant Hershey's bar in a double boiler with a bit of paraffin (it was the sixties, remember) and then taking each coconut candy with a kabob stick and dipping it all the way in. We made what looked like professional candy! A sense of accomplishment and pride filled me.

I remember also at about the same age in another kitchen of another playmate whose mother was from Franklin, Louisiana, seeing her mother take a stick of soft butter and stir in pressed fresh garlic, finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper and then pack a dollop into tablespoon sized wooden butter molds. I was utterly fascinated as she did this and then put them in the refrigerator to firm up. A few hours later when we were served our sizzling steak off the backyard grill, her mom placed a green flecked butter pat onto the noisy hot steak and I watched it melt and inhaled the heavenly aroma of garlicky butter.

After these experiences I was hooked on cooking. It has been a lifelong passion.