Ho-ho-hollandaise

The holidays are upon us. In my family, that means ovens and stoves are on high alert. One of the eight billion reasons I'm sad I won't be going home for the holidays is that I'll miss out on Mom's stollen and Memaw's very Southern turkey and dressing.

I come from a long line of culinary wizards and was drafted for kitchen duty from the time I was old enough to hold a spoon in one hand and a bowl in the other. (I'm 3 in the picture.) I also grew up in a Southern Baptist household, so I attended more than my share of church potlucks and ate more than my share of "Little Old Lady casseroles." If you're from the South (and maybe elsewhere), you know what I'm talking about. "Little Old Lady casseroles" usually contain lots of love and TLC, matched only in quantity by the amount of butter and cream involved in the recipe.

This is not to say that I didn't learn how to cook healthy meals. Mom usually prepared a healthy dinner; we ate plenty of chicken and seasoned, steamed vegetables. And it really got crazy my first year in college. My parents went vegan for health reasons, so I learned how to substitute soy for everything -- right down to the slice of cheese-flavored tofu on a turkey-flavored soy-product sandwich. (Don't knock it till you try it.)

But all that healthy mumbo-jumbo went out the window during family gatherings -- especially during the holidays. Christmas Eve with Mom's side of the family meant ham, oyster soup, cocktail meatballs in homemade barbecue sauce (I'll tell you about that awesome recipe some other time), and cookies as far as the eye could see. Christmas morning meant a family round-table breakfast with sausage and egg casserole, the aforementioned stollen, and orange juice out of teeny-tiny glasses. Christmas day with my Dad's side of the family meant Glorious Potatoes, more ham, chicken casserole, corn and sour cream, and more cookies. When I married Paul, I found out his mom's meals are legendary, too. I've never tasted better made-from-scratch mac 'n' cheese or mashed potatoes.

The Glorious Potatoes recipe sums up everything that's great about "Little Old Lady casseroles": It's rich and cheesy and usually leaves guests begging for more -- or for the recipe. My cousin, Ashley, participated in a recipe swap and got some pouts from friends who were hoping she'd divulge the recipe. I've been asked many times, but I play dumb. Paul knows the recipe and made the casserole while I was out of town, then proudly sent this huge picture of it to me. (He didn't make the prettiest casserole, but man, it tasted good.)

I really didn't do the Suzy Homemaker thing when Paul and I married. I had a full-time job and he was a grad student. That meant we ate dinner around 9 p.m., which gave me little motivation to cook. Since we've moved, things have changed. I'm not working, which means (1.) I have more time in the kitchen, and (2.) it's less expensive to buy ingredients than it is to eat out.

Fortunately, I brought a wealth of home-cooking knowledge with me. Some of it was ingrained over the years, such as how to make a roux. Other kitchen know-how came in the form of a cookbook of family recipes Mom put together when I got married. It's my go-to guide for comfort food. Grandmother Gowen, my great-grandmother, was a sadist when it came to giving out recipes: She always left out one ingredient. I can proudly say I have her complete chicken casserole recipe. I know what made my grandfather's pie crust so flaky, and I also have a copy of the banana bread recipe he dictated to me when I was about seven. (My recipe here.)

One recipe didn't make it into the book: my Aunt Linda's secret, made-from-scratch red-velvet cake. Instead, she bestowed the recipe on me as a wedding gift. I'm the only one in the family who knows it besides her -- even her son and his family don't know. (D'oh - I hope they don't read this!)

Over the years, I've added my own secret-recipe dishes to family potlucks. I make killer chocolate-chip cookies -- just ask Mattie, who's 700 miles away but received a couple dozen via Express Mail. Paul loves my homemade spaghetti sauce, and I'm usually asked to bring my "cheese thingies" (yes, that's what we call them) to family gatherings.

I feel a teeny-tiny bit sorry for people who didn't grow up around Southern holiday cooking. Sure, those people are probably much, much healthier -- but at what cost? Mattie was going to help me make chocolate-chip cookies when he visited in August, but we abandoned the idea after he said, incredulously, "They have shortening in them? I can honestly say I've never cooked with shortening before." (And he cooks a lot.) Then there's the group of guys I went out with the other night who had never had a hushpuppy before. Are you kidding me? I could go on, but the examples make my inner cook break into non-onion-induced tears.

It's one week till Christmas and I have a lot to do. We're not going home for the holidays, but as long as I have enough bowls, spoons, casserole dishes and oven space, Christmas is going to be right here.