Good Press

Wow. Tonight's dinner was special and awesome. I consoled myself for missing tonight's firemen's parade at the 67th Annual Preston County Buckwheat Festival by making a fully-cooked-just-heat-and-eat glazed ham with from-scratch summer squash cornbread and sweet potato, dried cherry, Madras curry and bleu cheese dressing. (That's dressing as in a casserole-style side dish that can also be used to stuff turkeys and game hens, not salad dressing.) I'll get right to the recipes and photos. Yum! SQUASH CORN BREAD From Taste of Home's Simple & Delicious Sept./Oct. 2008 This recipe makes two -- one to eat now and one to freeze. If you're trying it for the first time, you can halve the ingredients make just one, as I did. I like that it packs in extra nutrition and uses up some summer squash. 5 medium yellow summer squash (about 2 pounds), chopped 2 packages (8 1/2 ounces each) cornbread/muffin mix, such as Jiffy 4 eggs, lightly beaten 2/3 cup 4 percent cottage...

Before Rachael Ray brought her cooking show spots to daytime TV on a network station, before the TV chefs became a celebrity phenomenon, the Taste of Home Cooking School's home economists and culinary specialists were taking their cooking shows on the road. They still are. One week from today I will be sitting in the audience at one in Morgantown, WV. One year ago I was onstage, helping make the show happen. Newspapers and other sponsors bring the shows to venues in their cities. This one happens to be in a concert theater at a university arts center. National food makers sponsor the shows too so their products get plugged in the recipe demonstrations. The home economists that present the shows travel a particular several-state region of the country. They come to town and an advance team of workers from the sponsoring newspaper help unpack their equipment, shop for ingredients and prep all the recipes they'll be presenting at that night's show. They chop, measure and sort s...