January 2016

You can make this delicious brown sugar black walnut cake

I love sharing time with my mom, Nancy Suddreth, who is 72. Recently, while we were puttering around the kitchen, she let slip this whopper: “Did you know that black walnuts cost ten dollars a pound?”

I almost dropped a plate. “Ten dollars a pound?” I couldn’t believe it. “Why don’t we just gather them like we used to. I know where a black walnut tree is.”

Find deer sheds in the Appalachian woods

I’m talking about deer sheds, not tool sheds.

When you hear the word “shed,” you probably think of the shack that sits in the back of your property where you store your gardening tools and whatnot. You may conjure up a little house with a smokestack and old barn wood siding where a hunter might stop for a break.

Make this simple Appalachian winter afghan project

A quick and easy crochet project

My friend came to work dressed in the most beautiful shades of blue, gray and off-white recently. It reminded me of the Appalachian Mountains in winter. I was inspired!

an authentic Appalachian wood cook stove

And how to appreciate modern-day appliances

Ask your Appalachian-born-and-bred grandparents: “Before you had electricity, how did you cook your food?”

Their answer undoubtedly will be “Why, on the cook stove, of course.”

A wood cook stove is a stove built out of iron that could house a fire. This stove had many uses, from heating up a chilly house on an Appalachian Mountain morning to warming up our hands after a day of hunting and playing. But its primary use was cooking.