“I tell my daughters that when I go, they’ll know the good recipes by the dirty pages. —Kim McKinney”
That’s the quote that launched Dirty Pages, a recipe storytelling project celebrating our well-loved recipes with their splatters and stains. We know they make good dishes, because they’ve been handed down to family and friends. But they also act as maps, their scribbles in the margins helping connect us and tell our stories.
The Dirty Pages project has produced three exhibits. The first exhibit (featured in The New York Times) lives in the permanent collection at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans. The second exhibit, Dirty Pages: 10 Roads to Nashville, was featured at Casa Azafran. Now the third and most recent exhibit hangs at The Nashville Food Project.
To celebrate it, we’re hosting a “Dirty Pages” Community Potluck this Sunday, Feb. 16 at 1 p.m. If you’d like to join us, please bring a dish to share that serves about 8-10 people. We’ll have lunch and conversation and a bit of show-and-tell time for those who would like to talk about their recipe.
The event isn’t ticketed, and it’s open to all. Space, though, is limited, so please RSVP here. We hope to see you Sunday!
Also, please stay tuned for an exciting Dirty Pages-themed Simmer dinner next month!
In the meantime, TNFP staff shared their Dirty Pages in a team building meeting recently. Here are a few excerpts:
Julia Reynolds Thompson, Director of Garden Operation
Recipe: The Reynolds Family Eggnog
I chose the Reynolds Eggnog, which is a recipe my family makes every year. My great-grandfather, Edward Reynolds, had grown up in Pembroke, Kentucky, which is just on the other side of the state line. He grew up on a tobacco farm, but he and his brother hated tobacco farming, so they decided to leave Kentucky and go to Dallas. They lived in the YMCA there while they looked for work. They ended up in the clothing business and eventually they owned their own men’s clothing store, which was also passed through the family. I remember growing up playing inside the racks of clothes.
I like this recipe because I feel like it is a thread that connects all the way back to my great-grandfather and his journey from Kentucky to Texas. My family, growing up, felt very Texan. Everyone is from Texas and has been there a long time. But now that I live in Tennessee I like having that trace of story all the way back.
It’s a really simple recipe. It has four ingredients: a dozen eggs, 12 tablespoons of sugar, a pint of bourbon and a quart of whipping cream. We still make it every Christmas.
Bianca Morton, Chef Director
Recipes: My Grandfather’s Yeast Rolls
My grandfather baked something every meal—yeast rolls, fresh-baked breads, cakes, fried pies. I did not inherit that skill.
Every holiday he always brought fresh-baked, melt-in-your-mouth yeast rolls. He brought some for dinner and packaged some in gallon-sized Ziplock bags for each family to take home. We fought over them.
My first Christmas after graduating culinary school, I cooked a big, fancy dinner, my first one trying to impress everybody. Watching him eat, he was so happy and excited, and you could tell he was proud. Here’s the tear-jerker: He had a massive stroke that night. That was the last time I saw him smile. I spent the next two weeks caring for him in the hospital. He couldn’t communicate, but he looked at me and squeezed my hand, and it made me feel invincible, all his love. I’ve been chasing that, and every holiday I’ve been trying to make these rolls. This last Christmas, 18 years since he passed away, my family was like, “I think you got it.”
Tallu Schuyler Quinn, CEO
Recipe: Mama’s Marinara Sauce from Dom DeLuise’s “Eat This...It’ll Make You Feel Better” cookbook
My dad bought me this cookbook by Dom DeLuise. When I was young, maybe 8 or 9, I thought Dom was a chef, but I understand now he was just an actor and maybe not even a good one.
My parents wouldn’t let my brother and me buy a lot of stuff when we were kids, but they would pretty much always say yes if it was a book.
I remember making this marinara sauce with my dad and what a mess we made. When I was growing up, I loved food shows like The Frugal Gourmet, Julia Child and any other food show on the television. I vividly remember an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when he visited a Pittsburgh bakery and learned how to make sourdough pretzels. Later on in life, I loved Food Network shows like Molto Mario, Nigella Lawson and Barefoot Contessa. I am now a mother to children who love watching Mind of a Chef, America’s Test Kitchen, and The Great British Baking Show.
My 7-year-old daughter is strong-willed, capable in the kitchen, and wildly creative. She makes grocery lists every week, begs me to “mise en place,” wants an internship at The Nashville Food Project’s kitchen, and recently made flyers for a pop-up bake shop at our house called “Lulah’s Larder.” In other words, every page is a dirty page in Lulah’s world. The scope of her big ideas overwhelms me, and now I know that’s how my own mom must have felt as she figured out how to give me the space I needed to be me. Maybe still does. I obviously know that Lulah is not me, and she is not mine, but the congruence and similarity of the kitchen obsessions settle over me, and that where I go when I reflect on this dirty page from my past—it connects me to the mystery of my own life; I’m so grateful for that.
Grace Biggs, Director of Food Access
Recipe: Chicken Noodle Soup
This is my mom’s chicken noodle soup and her mom’s, and it’s one of my favorite early memories. The noodles are the main event of this recipe. My mom made the dough from scratch, rolled it out, and cut the noodles dumpling-style. They would be laid out taking up the whole kitchen table, which was most of our kitchen, for hours. My sister and I would sneak dough off the table, and she told me she added the note later to “double the recipe” because of “sneaky fingers.” My grandmother would make it when we were sick and bring it over in Mason jars. I’ve adapted my own version of the original recipe over the years by adding veggies and sometimes even curry, but anytime I make it I feel connected with them.
Elizabeth Langgle-Martin, Community Engagement Manager
Recipe: Wassail
Wassail is something that my family drank every holiday season, and I always remember that we had enough of it to share with other people—that it could be a gift at a time that could be stressful. It was fun for our family to share. We would fill up big Mason jars and give it to teachers and neighbors. And I have funny memories of lugging big, hot sloshing posts of wassail to family gatherings—inching down the road and hoping that it’s not spilling out in the back.
It’s a twist on apple cider, and it’s something a lot of my friends know as our family holiday beverage. My siblings and I still make it in our own spaces.