Damon Lee Fowler

Even though it's still technically summer for a few weeks longer, the unseasonally cool weather we've been enjoying here in Virginia has brought on a craving for the richer flavors of autumn.

One of the loveliest of those flavors is that classic Mediterranean combination for roasted and pot-roasted meat and poultry: garlic, rosemary, and white wine. It really knows no season, but especially when it's mated with pork, it becomes the very essence of fall and is one of the best ways I know to welcome the season.

My favorite way of pairing pork with those flavors is to coat a whole loin with salt, pepper, garlic, and fresh rosemary, then slowly oven-braise it in the wine until it's fork tender. Read More 

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