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Christin

Welcome to Spicy Southern Kitchen where we like the food Southern and the attitude spicy. My name is Christin and trying new foods and experimenting in the kitchen are my greatest passions. I live in Beaufort SC, in the South Carolian Low Country.

I get my love of cooking from my grandfather and my great-grandmother. I have fond memories of standing by her side in the kitchen, watching her use her impressive forearm strength to whip up meringue for her out of this world chocolate meringue pie. I was so young my eyes were probably about counter height.

My grandfather also loved to cook and he was probably one of the few people in the town of Monroe, NC to have a subscription to Bon Appetit magazine in the 70s. He died in 1986 and I often think of how he would have been in his glory with all the specialty foods available today. If he saw something new, he always had to try it.

Interestingly, my grandmother (his wife) did not cook a lick. Of course it’s common nowadays for women not to cook, but it was very unusual for a southern woman of her generation not to cook. She ate like a bird too, and NEVER spoiled her grandchildren with sweets. We were afraid to even ask for a snack.

I’ve been cooking and collecting recipes for as long as I can remember. I cherish my collection of recipes more than any of my other possessions. In fact, I think I might like to be buried with them. Seriously.

Because I have the attention span of a gnat who has consumed a case of Mountain Dew, I rarely cook the same thing twice. If I know how a recipe is going to turn out, it becomes a repetitive task and there’s nothing I abhor more. Housework? Forget about it. To me cooking is best when it is an outlet for creativity. It’s like being a kid again when you get to explore and use your imagination.

I often wonder if I’m doing my kids a great disservice by not giving them the comfort of having predictable meals that they can fall in love with and grow nostalgic about when they are older. My son will often say- Remember that so and so you used to make? Why can’t you make that again? And my daughter is a vegetarian and hardly eats anything except pasta and peanut butter.

My rescue dog, Darla, never complains though and she is my loyal companion, always by my side. When I get some spare time, I enjoy going to our local Humane Society (Darla’s former home) and walking the dogs.

Darla

You’ll find all kinds of recipes here, but many of them using fresh Southern produce (okra, peaches, sweet potatoes, corn, etc), and many of them spicy. I love me some red pepper flakes 🙂

UPDATE 2020: My sweet Darla girl passed away in 2019 and we have since adopted 2 more dogs, both beagle mixes. My mom says Spirit is “Tigger” and Baxter is “Eeyore.” Spirit is bouncy, confident, and happy. Poor little Baxter had a really rough first 6 years and is a little slow and sad looking. We haven’t had him long, but he is starting to perk up a little!

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