As someone who loves to cook, Sundays are my time to prepare my food for the week. I love the smells and colors of the kitchen.

I have a few favorites in my kitchen. My big black cast one frying pan that belonged first to my great-grandmother, then my grandmother, my mother, and now me. Someday it will be my daughter’s and then my granddaughters. I have thousands of dollars worth of professional cookware but cast iron is still my favorite. 

I love my chef’s knives which I sharpen on my father’s honing stone and store carefully in teak sheaths made especially for each knife by a cabinetmaker friend of mine.

I love my custom made baking sheets I had one of the guys in my shop make for me 20 yrs ago. Thick stainless steel that heats so evenly that if one biscuit is burned on the bottom, you can count on them all being burned exactly the same.

From years of use, my wok has acquired the color of ironstone, a shiny grayish black.

These are the tools of my hobby.

At the moment, the house is filled with the aroma of peppers and onions cooking slowly in the cast iron pan. Green, red, and orange peppers and a giant Vidalia onion. Soon, I’ll add some beautiful fresh white mushrooms and brown mushrooms from a local mushroom farm and then later, a little of what I call my Harvest Sauce that I canned at the end of the growing season. A tomato based concoction with whatever needs to be picked before frost added in. Later in the week, I put this over fresh made bread or maybe a little Mostacholli.

There is stew meat braising in the oven but soon I’ll move it to the stovetop and add some carrots and onions and a little of the harvest sauce. Tonight I’ll add the rest of the veggies and top it will some dumplings.

I have cranberries on a slow heat so the smell of these beautiful red jewels and the orange zest adds a tart aroma to the mix. This will be for Thanksgiving (if there is any left by Thursday)

I have a couple lbs of fresh carrots cooking slowly in Guinness with some cloves, mustard seeds, and pepper corns.

Later today I’ll make some pepper jelly to add to the Thanksgiving table. I love the clear green color and tangy flavor.

I’m ready for the week.