What’s Cooking?

courtesy Cafe Cimino Melody Urbanik

If you live in the Mountain Lakes region of West Virginia, chances are good that your dinner is what people are now calling an “heirloom meal”, something your granny or HER granny may have prepared. As Andrew Zimmern showed the nation on his Travel Network show Bizarre Foods, the meals prepared by our rural areas are hearty and very tasty.

Ruby Dean Collins, author of Grandma’s Favorites,  was approached by the Collaborative for 21st Century Appalachia to compile a cookbook of regional recipes. With some contributions of recipes and stories by members of CEOS (Community Extension Outreach Service) and many of Ruby’s friends and neighbors, Mountain Family Treasures, a collection of family favorites has been published.

The cookbook is available by contacting Ruby at ruby.collins@hotmail.com. The price is $15 plus $5 for shipping.

Let me warn you now…..Ruby is an excellent cook. Not only does she have a marvelous business, The Baker’s Kitchen (watch for more on that to come), but she won the People’s Choice award for her Chuck Wagon Stew at the Small Farms Conference Country Roads Cook-Off!!