Cooking

If there’s one food that really captures the essence of spring, it’s salad.

A salad is the perfect way to use up leftover grilled chicken or steak. You can also use different types of lunchmeat, such as corned beef, ham, turkey and tuna on your salad. I even like to add various types of beans on mine. Try making your next salad with a sprinkling of kidney beans, garbanzos or black beans for a great tasting and satisfying topper.

Before ever tasting shrimp and grits, I must admit I was more than a little bit apprehensive about it. Grits were something you only ate at breakfast with your eggs and ham or bacon, or so I thought.

I love shrimp, whether it’s boiled, fried, sautéed, baked or grilled. But combining it with grits? “No way,” I said. Boy, was I wrong.

My introduction to cheese while growing up was limited to sliced American cheese, packaged cream cheese and that little jar of pimento cheese spread that everybody had. It wasn’t until I was much older that I was introduced to the world of “real” cheeses like Gouda, Edam, Swiss, mozzarella, Roquefort, Camembert and Brie.

Brie cheese is not usually associated with the soup pot, probably due to its appearance and the fact it might not be, to some, the proper use of such a celebrated cheese.

My grandmother on my father’s side was from the Irish “Kirkbride” clan. I had many aunts, uncles and cousins from this side of the family. With this background, I remember eating many traditional Irish dishes, especially corned beef and cabbage, which we always had on St. Patrick’s Day. But we liked it so much we ate it quite often throughout the year.