Damon Lee Fowler

You might well wonder how a Southern boy with an English last name had the temerity to create a pasta dish and name it for a famous opera singer. If you aren't and couldn't care less, just skip to the recipe, which is awfully good if I do say it myself. But if, like most Southerners, you're a little curious (we prefer that to nosy), then here is how such an unlikely thing came about.

When legendary opera baritone Sherrill Milnes retired from singing, he and his wife, soprano Maria Zouves, founded V.O.I.C.Experience, an outreach training program for aspiring young singers. More than a decade later, they started working to bring that program to Savannah, Georgia. It took the form of The Savannah Voice Festival, and my musician husband helped to kick-start it at historic Christ Church, the parish he was serving at the time.

Thirteen years later, the festival is an established part of Savannah's summers. Timothy still produces the sacred music concert, accompanies singers, and offers vocal coaching. Meanwhile, I'm not a musician by any stretch, and my singing is like Scarlett O'Hara with her pistol: I can shoot straight, if I don't have to shoot too far. I'm just there to listen. And to cook.

Somewhere along the way,  Read More 

14 September 2022: Comfort Gratin

It's rare that anything really personal finds its way into these essays. Most of them are about cooking technique, ingredients, method, or the provenance of a particular recipe. First person singular pronouns are kept to a minimum because it's not about me or even what I know. After all, what we know is nothing to take credit for, since most of it came from someone else.

There may be a passing thought on a lesson learned about exercising patience or focus in the kitchen, or perhaps a reminder that the most important thing in cooking is pleasing ourselves and our loved ones. But the most personal any of them ever get is to touch on how a dish makes me feel and/or its connection with someone dear to me.

This one, however, is very personal. Read More 

Among the best things of all the wonderful summer produce that used to come from my mother's now dormant vegetable garden were delicate, sweet summer squash. It yielded our familiar Southern yellow crooknecks by the bushel, but also produced slim little green zucchini in equal quantity, because our whole family loved both.

They're what I miss most from her garden. We cooked them in all the usual ways and never tired of any of them:  Read More