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 

My mother’s wedding china still stands as it did in my youth, in neat stacks in her dining room hutch. Rimmed in gold and sporting a pair of pink-tinged gardenia blossoms at its center, it was old-fashioned, feminine, and just plain “girly.” Yet it was the very essence of elegance and sophistication to my child’s mind. Read More 

This past weekend The Savannah Voice Festival debuted, and for the next two weeks, the steamy Lowcountry air will seem a little less heavy as it is filled with the glorious sounds of Fifty-three promising young performers who have gathered in our little town to study with more than two dozen seasoned singers, coaches, and accompanists. Read More 

Sometimes the very best cooking is barely cooking at all. That’s partly because the most important skill in any cook’s repertory is that of knowing when to stop.

For example, one of the best of all possible ways to sauce pasta, whether it is fresh egg noodles made at home or dried factory pasta, involves no cooking at all: it is simply tossed with just butter and freshly grated Parmigiano.  Read More 

If you are of a certain age, you remember it simmering for hours on the back of the stove, thick with tomatoes, redolent of garlic, oregano, and sometimes an adventurous splash of wine, filling the house with its rich aroma. It came to the table ladled thickly over a bed of fat, slightly overcooked spaghetti, dusted generously with grated cheese that came straight from a green can. Read More