The first time Meyer Wolfsheim met Jimmy Gatz, the young man hadn't eaten in days. Freshly released from Army duty and on the hunt for a job, the major wore his medal-decked uniform around town not to tout his valor or value - but rather because he couldn't afford civilian clothes.

For the princely sum of just over $4, Wolfsheim stuffed the starving kid full of food and locked in his loyalty for life.
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T+L contributing editors Matt Lee and Ted Lee’s latest cookbook, "The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen" (Clarkson Potter), is in bookstores now. Follow them on Twitter @TheLeeBros.

When we were 11 and 13 years old, our parents dressed us in neckties and blazers and marched us to a French restaurant in our hometown, Charleston, South Carolina. We sulked through dinner until dessert arrived: crème caramel. And in that instant of magical custard, its essence of burnt marshmallow skin made silken-smooth (and grown-up-approved), everything changed. We’d never been to France, but we knew this crème caramel was a journey unto itself, to another place.

Walking home, we conspired to re-create this trip ourselves. We waited until a day when our parents were out of the house, took down Mom’s dusty, stained "Joy of Cooking" from the cabinet above the telephone table in the kitchen, and went to work.
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Ashley Strickland is an associate producer with CNN.com. She likes tackling English toffee, channeling summer with sunflower cheesecakes, sharing people-pleasin' pizza dip and green soup, cajoling recipes from athletes and studying up on food holidays.

There is a grace in the harmony of simple flavors and taking the time and care to introduce them to one another. I like to think it’s embodied in a perfect pound cake.

Take a moment to get to know the grand dame of Southern desserts.
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The Southern Foodways Alliance has a pretty solid collection of community cookbooks in their office—and many more in their staffers' home libraries. Check back often for their Throwback Recipes.

Today's Cookbook:
The Pick of the Crop
Published by the North Sunflower PTA of Drew, Mississippi
First edition 1978

The community cookbook most important to my development as a cook and, particularly, as a Southern cook, is "The Pick of the Crop." It was published the year after I was born in 1978 by the North Sunflower PTA of Drew, Mississippi. I do not know the details of the book’s journey out of the Delta and 100 miles east to the red clay hills of Mississippi in which I was raised, but it was hands-down the most constant source of recipes that sustained my family.

My mother’s copy is littered with her left-handed checks and notes like “try this!,” “soo good!,” or “easy!”. Mark’s Chicken, Cabbage Casserole, and Sausage-Rice Casserole were all in regular rotation on the McGreger supper table, but the first dish that I personally ever became known for was Mrs. Archie Manning’s Chicken Spaghetti I.
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The Southern Foodways Alliance has a pretty solid collection of community cookbooks in their office—and many more in their staffers' home libraries. And the holidays seem like the right time to whip them out and share some choice recipes with you, our readers. So fix yourself an eggnog, pull up a seat, and check back often between now and New Year's for their Holiday Throwback Recipes.

Today's Cookbook:
Talk about Good!
"Le Livre de la Cuisine de Lafayette"
Published by the Service League of Lafayette, Louisiana
First edition 1967; annual subsequent printings 1968–1971

It's game time, folks - and no, we're not talking about the college football post-season. Think wild game from land, air, and marsh: venison, quail, duck, and the like. We're not exactly avid outdoorsfolk here at SFA world headquarters, but you don't have to have a Mossy Oak wardrobe to notice that hunting season is in full swing. And really, we think it's pretty darn festive to serve up a holiday main dish you bagged yourself.
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The Southern Foodways Alliance has a pretty solid collection of community cookbooks in their office—and many more in their staffers' home libraries. And the holidays seem like the right time to whip them out and share some choice recipes with you, our readers. So fix yourself an eggnog, pull up a seat, and check back often between now and New Year's for their Holiday Throwback Recipes.

Today's Cookbook:
The NEW Lovin' Spoonfuls
By John and Ann Egerton and family
published in 1980; 1982; 1984; 2009

In 1980, Southern Foodways Alliance founder John Egerton and his wife, Ann, came up with a much better holiday dispatch than the much-mocked Christmas letter: a hand-typed, spiral-bound cookbook of some two dozen recipes from their family and friends. That was the first edition of The Lovin' Spoonfuls, and the Egertons published volumes 2 and 3 in 1982 and 1984, respectively.

Twenty-five years later, they bundled the original three Lovin' Spoonfuls with an all-new fourth edition. The NEW Lovin' Spoonfuls boasts some 100 recipes, from civil rights activist Rev. Will Campbell's "All-Purpose Sauce" to the late Hap Townes's famous stewed raisins.
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While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Avast, mateys! What, you say Talk Like A Pirate Day was yesterday? Well, you can still enjoy rum drinks, as today is National Rum Punch Day.

Continue drinking like a pirate, as notorious brigands such as Captain Avery and John Rackham have been depicted as fond of punch, Welsh pirate William Davis sold his wife for some punch, and Edward Low once forced a captive at gunpoint to share a bowl of punch.
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Ashley Strickland is an associate producer with CNN.com. She likes tackling English toffee, sharing people-pleasin' pizza dip and green soup, cajoling recipes from athletes and studying up on food holidays.

It’s the cookbook we don’t have to pull off the shelf, because it’s already open on the counter, turned to the beginnings of the next awe-inspiring meal.

It is also the book that provides the Augusta hostess with a week of recipes for the Masters Tournament. But for golfers, restaurants, resorts and families all across Georgia, it’s a scrapbook of the dishes that bookmark our lives.

In January 1988, my Aunt Edna gifted Mom with the green, plastic spiral comb-bound cookbook compiled by the Junior League of Augusta, Georgia, in 1977, creatively titled “Tea-Time at the Masters.” My mother not only rediscovered her favorite squash casserole within its pages (once thought lost forever), but recipes to start and build a family with - apropos, because I was born just a few months later in April.
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Every move of the current President is documented in detail, but historians have to search through journal entries and letters to learn about the daily routines of our First President.

“We know that George Washington’s step-granddaughter, Nelly, wrote that George Washington’s favorite breakfast was hoecakes swimming in butter and honey,” said Melissa Wood of the Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens. The recipe is on display until August 2013 as part of the “Hoecakes & Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington” exhibit at the Mount Vernon museum.

In honor of George Washington’s 280th birthday, four Washington, D.C. chefs were invited to his Mount Vernon home to recreate the first President’s favorite breakfast. Each culinary team invoked its own twist as they cooked modern versions over open fire pits for guests who were touring the estate.
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"Wait - there's an actual recipe for this?"

My husband Douglas paused his furious stirring and spun around from his post at the stove. I pointed to the book his mother, now resting in the front room, had left spread open and bookmarked on her kitchen table.

"Well yeah," I said. "Isn't this what you're using? Onion, cornbread, celery, the egg? It's the same dressing you make for Thanksgiving, and this recipe is pretty much it, right?"
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