Recipes, Gardens, Handcrafts & old-time-Traditions fOR the Meemaw-In-Training™
Hi, I'm Stasia
I'm an American culinary writer, wife, mother, former caterer, and your resident Meemaw-In-Training™.
For more than thirty years, my life has centered around kitchens, family tables, gardens, and the everyday work of caring for a home. I know my way around a roasting pan, can feed a houseful of people without consulting a recipe, and have learned that a homemade supper can solve a surprising number of problems.
There are still plenty of things I don't know how to do.
After moving from city life to country life, I decided it was time to learn them. Canning. Gardening. Needlework and handcrafts. Preserving what is in season. Keeping a better working pantry. Learning the old household skills our grandmothers once considered ordinary.
So I gave myself a title:
Meemaw-In-Training™.
You don't need grandchildren. You don't need a farmhouse. You don't need to know how to make jam or thread a needle without squinting at it for ten minutes.
You just need to be willing to learn.
And if I'm going to make a few mistakes along the way, I may as well chronicle those too.
A Cook Who Keeps Learning
Cooking is the part I've had plenty of practice at.
Before becoming a full-time culinary writer, I spent years immersed in the food culture. My recipes draw from heritage dishes, historical research, professional food experience, and a repertoire I've developed through decades of cooking for family, friends, clients, holidays, ordinary Tuesdays, and more hungry people than I could possibly count.
Every recipe published here is carefully tested and written for today's home cook, with respect for its history and origins whenever possible.
In 2008, I completed formal training at The Protocol School of Washington in Washington, D.C., and became a Certified Etiquette and Protocol Expert. That same year, I founded what would eventually become Home And Feast and, later, American Country Living, bringing together my interests in cooking, hospitality, etiquette, domestic history, and the American home.
Today I live in North Texas with my husband and family, which has given me something I hadn't had in a very long time:
Room to ask, what do I want to learn next?
Apparently the answer is quite a lot.
American Country Living
American Country Living began in 2008 with a desire to preserve recipes and traditions and has grown into an editorial home devoted to the American kitchen and the life built around it.
Here you'll find the recipes I know, the skills I'm learning, the projects I'm attempting, and the stories I think are worth keeping.
We'll cook old family recipes and new ones worth adding to the recipe box. We'll plant gardens and figure out what actually grows. We'll learn about preserving food, keeping a pantry, seasonal cooking, handcrafts, etiquette, American history, and domestic traditions that remain useful generations after they first became part of American life.
I'll show you my successes.
I'll probably have to show you a few failures too.
That's part of being a Meemaw-In-Training™.
The larger purpose of American Country Living remains the same:
To preserve the recipes, traditions, skills, and everyday domestic knowledge that continue to make the American home one of the most meaningful places in our lives, while learning a few things we somehow missed along the way.
You may arrive looking for dinner and leave determined to grow tomatoes.
You may come for a garden article and end up making chili.
You may have absolutely no intention of learning embroidery until I make a sufficiently convincing case involving gingham, strawberries, and a very cute pattern.
That's how these things happen.
Whatever brought you here, I'm glad you found us. 🍓
Hey, Meemaw-In Training™!
Join the Community
Consider this your invitation to become a Meemaw-In-Training™, at any age.
A few times each month, I'll send recipes, garden projects, handcrafts, old-time traditions, useful household knowledge, and reports from whatever I'm currently attempting to learn.
Something good to cook.
Something interesting to read.
Something useful to learn.
Something worth keeping.
Subscribe and tie on your Meemaw-In-Training™ apron.
I'll save you a glass of sweet tea. 🍓
With love,
Stasia
Hey, Meemaw-In-Training™!
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Consider this your invitation to become a Meemaw-In-Training™, at any age. A few times each month, I'll send recipes, garden projects, handcrafts, old-time traditions, useful household knowledge, and reports from whatever I'm currently attempting to learn. Subscribe and tie on your Meemaw-In-Training™ apron.
I'll save you a glass of sweet tea. 🍓
