Dedication

This cookbook is in memory of my mother, Janice Threadgill Watlington, whose mastery of the culinary arts was complete. As a minister's wife, she cooked on a short budget, yet nobody noticed. Guests were frequently at her table, and she always had several dishes in any church or family pot-luck dinner. Through her travails as a missionary wife, she incorporated dishes from Perú into her repertoire.

I grew up with her cooking, and enjoyed it immensely. I have strong memories of dinner time. I took her skills for granted until exposed to the harsh realities of leaving the nest. I quickly decided that if I wanted to keep eating in the style Mama had raised me, I'd have to learn how to cook from her. I started collecting her recipes and techniques in college, and continued until her death. I strive to someday be anywhere near her level of competence and comfort in the kitchen.

This cookbook is an attempt to collect together her recipes, from a multiplicity of sources:

• An unpublished manuscript found among her cookbooks, with sixty recipes that she had entered into her Mac. These were all included.
• Recipes she had included in Church cookbooks over the years. The cookbooks include:
  • Potpourri: St. Luke's United Methodist Women Cookbook, 1990 edition
  • Best Recipes - 1982. Frayser Heights United Methodist Women
  • Kitchen Ade: Malesus United Methodist Women Cookbook, 1975 edition
  • Well-Blessed Recipes: Women's Society of Christian Service, Malesus Methodist Church, Jackson, Tennessee, 1966.
  • Cook Book: Compiled by the Jolly Jills, Camp Douglas, Wisconsin. 1952.
  Frequently these recipes track the evolution of a recipe. In these cases, the latest is presented here.
• Her recipe boxes, a collection of recipes on 3 x 5 cards and clippings from labels and newspapers
• Recipes handed down verbally, which Mama never wrote down because she had made them thousands of times

A number of these recipes are attributed to my eldest sister, Martha K. Morris, and some are from my sister, Mary E. Sieger (even if not directly acknowleged). Over the course of decades, the master started to incorporate the best work from her students.

--- John A. Watlington

© 2006, John A. Watlington. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

wad@alum.mit.edu