Damon Lee Fowler

My late Baptist-preacher father used to love relating the story of a minister who one bright Sunday morning delivered a rousing sermon on love, and then repeated it word for word the following Sunday. And on the next one. And again on the one after that. Finally, a deacon cautiously approached and, after complimenting the stirring words of his message, gently pointed out that it was the same sermon the preacher had delivered every Sunday for at least a month.

The preacher smiled, nodded, and said, "Well, yes it is. I'm glad you finally noticed. I had to keep repeating that message until I thought you all were hearing it."

Well. Here we are four days from Thanksgiving and here comes the same sermon about homemade broth that y'all have heard from me dozens of times. Read More 

One of the most essential elements of Thanksgiving dinner, the one on which the rest of the meal rests, is the one that is the most often neglected: the broth. Each year, of the big packaged broth companies hawks its chicken broth with a warm, fuzzy thing about how caring cooks who love the process always rely on packaged broth to boost the flavor of their best dishes. Read More 

Today, let’s talk about the foundation on which the entire Thanksgiving dinner will rest: broth.

The most neglected pot in far too many American kitchens is the stockpot. At Kitchenware Outfitters, the kitchenware store where I work and teach, we sell a respectable number of these pots, but inevitably the words “cooking pasta” or “spaghetti sauce” or “chili” or “stew” come up, accompanied by a lot of questions about other possible uses for this tall, relatively narrow pot. Read More