A few years ago, if someone had suggested that I would be brewing tea from orange peels, fig leaves, and the assortment of wild plants flourishing in my yard, I would have giggled in disbelief. My perception of tea was limited to the neatly packaged bags sold at the store, each little bag a promise of convenience.
I still vividly recall a few memorable trips to Great Britain, where I savored the robust flavor of a PG Tips tea bag—moments like that felt exquisitely sophisticated to me! The British, with their ritual approach and passion for creating the perfect cuppa, truly have mastered the art of tea.

Read the full On The Table column in your Thursday Bowie News.

Food is supposed to bring people together.
It sits at the center of our holidays, church potlucks, birthday parties, first dates, family reunions and late-night kitchen conversations. In Texas especially, I feel like feeding people is one of the purest forms of love we know. We celebrate with casseroles, comfort with pies, and gather around smoked meats and shared desserts.
Food is hospitality. Food is belonging.
But for some people, food is also calculation.
Before the appetizers even arrive, some of us are already scanning ingredients, evaluating risk, rehearsing questions, and trying to determine whether asking those questions is about to make everyone at the table uncomfortable.

Read the full feature in On The Table in your Thursday Bowie News.

Long before we understood all the ways a woman can love her family, most of us understood it through food.
Love looked like a sink full of dishes and a mama still standing at the stove.
Love smelled like biscuits in the oven, chicken frying in grease, or something bubbling away in a dented old pot that had probably fed three generations before us.
The women who fed us did far more than cook.
They comforted us, celebrated us, and nursed us back to health. As a member of Generation X, I can ask someone my age how they spent a sick day at home from school. It typically involved a can of chicken noodle soup, saltines, a Sprite or 7-Up, and watching “The Price Is Right” with Bob Barker reminding us to spay and neuter our pets.

Mothers stretched tight budgets and somehow made supper happen whether they felt like it or not. They knew who wanted the corner piece, who hated onions, and who needed pie after a bad day without ever having to ask.

Read the full story in your Thursday Bowie News.

Top photo -Suzanne Storey’s Memaw Lenora Brown Burnett, shown in her kitchen.