I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to cook. When small, I used to climb up on a chair and watch my grandmother making Poor Soup or red beans or breaded tomatoes. “How come you put that in there?” I’d ask, wondering at the giant scoop of bacon grease that went into just about every savory dish. “There’s nothing like bacon grease for bringing out flavor,” Grandma would say. I’ve thanked the Lord a hundred times that no one knew anything about cholesterol back then. I can only imagine what I would have missed. Grandma was the one to teach me to cook. As she got older and…

As I’ve been in manic decluttering frenzy the past several months, I’m happening upon a whole lot of possessions I didn’t know I possessed. One of those items was a box full of silver spoons (as in real silver). I believe I inherited them from my Grandma Peggy, but I can’t be certain of that. The spoons were pretty badly tarnished and I was debating as to whether to give them away to someone or clean them and use them, since Dave and I together seem to go through all of our spoons each and every day. That and mugs. You would think we’d be mature enough to rinse and…