In writing this blog it’s tempting to only recount the successes, to post only photos of the beautiful finished dishes and regale you, gentle reader, with semi-authoritative recipes.
In short, it’s easy to make cooking look easy.
But cooking is not easy. Nor is it safe.
…
That’s when I saw the catfish in the Kroger seafood case.
And that’s [...]

By Tonia Moxley
The Roanoke Times
August 24, 2007
BLACKSBURG — As a continuing summer drought drains the natural spring and the plants on Mary Predny’s Ellett Valley farm, one crop seems to drink the heat and sun like water: tomatoes.
And the vines of one particularly hardy, even mysterious, tomato growing on her 1-acre operation is preparing to [...]

By Tonia Moxley
The Roanoke Times
November 29, 2006
Summary: In defense of the global, yet humble, pork rind
VIEW: a .pdf version of this story, page one and page two
This column started out funny.
It was to be a dig with padded elbow in the sides of food snobs who scrunch up their faces and make disgusted noises when [...]

By Tonia Moxley
The Roanoke Times
March 30, 2007
Summary: A slave cooking expert will share some recipes and knowledge today and Saturday.
BLACKSBURG — Growing up, Michael Twitty couldn’t understand why his grandparents grew tobacco and cotton on little plots in the city. Or why “people can remember the name of a watermelon they grew but can’t remember [...]

By Tonia Moxley
The Roanoke (Va.) Times
March 1, 2006
VIEW: A .pdf version of this story, page one and page two
One thing I learned after sliding the first DVD of “The French Chef” into the player: Cooking shows are much more satisfying in color.
Julia Child started out in black-and-white on Boston public television in 1963. While I [...]