When we were very little, my mama would tell my bobbleheaded brother and me that we would know when our birthdays were approaching by the explosion of butter-yellow daffodils (my brother’s) and the emergence of scarlet-striped pink tulips (mine) in our front yard. 

Here in Savannah, I know, not by the tulips, but by the sudden scattering of neon green lizards from my tomato bush and the intoxicating smell of Miss Anne’s lemon tree blossoming next door. 

My brother and I would ask for pineapple upside cake or lemon pie for our special days — funny, tropical requests from two kids who spent most of their childhoods in Kansas. We relished every tangy, sweet-tart bite as a sign of warmer weather and the squirt gun fights and swims at the neighborhood pool that would soon come with it.

Even though I don’t own a Super Soaker anymore, I still enjoy pineapple upside cake or a lemon/lime pie on my birthday, even if I have to make it myself. 

The recipes for lemon or key lime pie in all my cookbooks and spring issues are tempting, but I always end up making the recipe my Mississippi-born grandmother passed down to my mama after she discovered key limes while living in Florida. Depending on what taste you’re going for, you can use lemon, lime or key lime juice, and it turns out perfect every time.  

Crust

• 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons butter

Filling

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup lemon, lime or key lime juice

Meringue 

This year, I used the meringue topping recipe from the Glass Onion that includes a cornstarch stabilizer, which will help your mile-high meringue hold up until after dinner. 

• 6 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch 
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine crust ingredients in a food processor and press into a 9-inch glass pie pan. Bake for 6-8 minutes. 

Whisk filling ingredients together in a mixer or a large bowl and pour into pie crust. Bake for 6 minutes. Set aside on a cooling rack. 

For meringue, beat egg whites in a mixer until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until peaks start to become stiffer. Gradually add sugar and beat until “moderately stiff peaks” form.

Combine cornstarch, water, vanilla and salt in a saucepan. Cook over low heat until a thick gel forms this should happen in under 5 minutes depending on your oven. 

Spoon cornstarch gel into egg white mixture and beat until very stable and glossy peaks form. Spoon over pie and use offset spatula to make mini peaks. Bake for 3-6 minutes or until meringue is slightly toasted. Sprinkle with zest. 

It was a nostalgic ending to a dinner of ribeye alongside a romaine and homegrown chard salad with Bethesda Farm radishes and pecans Farmer Joe gave me as a birthday gift and new Vidalia onion-cheddar hoecakes.

Since it’s radish season here in Savannah, I’ve been bringing home beautiful bunches of the French Breakfast variety that students grow on the farm at Bethesda Academy. When it seems like a  “treat yo’ self” moment, I break out a Ziploc baggie for some DIY butter piping and sprinkle with sea salt and chives that I’ve grown in a repurposed beverage bucket.  

There’s just something about sliced scarlet radishes topped with a twirl of salty, herby butter that seems exotic and indulgent to me. 

 I’ve also been roasting Easter Egg Radishes with split baby Vidalia onions to eat alongside all the meat I’ve been able to grill since spring (more like summer: part one) has arrived. 

On a side note, if you couldn’t tell already, I have a problem when it comes to tea towels. If you love the crazy- cute butter-print one above, you can find them at ShopSCAD, which sells student-created work. 

I have come down from the North Carolina mountains, a land of craft beer, stunning panoramas and trout for breakfast. And if I learned one thing while I was staring at nature’s purple, er, blue, mountains majesty while sipping killer IPAs, it was that two days is not nearly enough time to take advantage of all Asheville has to offer. 

A Southern-Fried Chicken BLT with Salsa Verde Black-Eyed Peas at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. I have to say my favorite part of lunch was the complimentary biscuits with buttery-sweet Tupelo honey. 

A Sir Ryan the Pounder Session Ale, and a 1519 Pale Ale at Wicked Weed Brewing, which receives extra cool points for having both a fire pit and a cornhole setup. 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good picture of my meal at the dimly lit The Admiral in West Asheville where I had Fried Quail with a Texas Pete Glaze and Blue Corn Waffles over Sauteed Spinach. Afterwards we went to the legendary Thirsty Monk for some Belgian brews at their downstairs bar, which is completely devoted to the country’s beer. If you’ve never had the pleasure of sticking your nose into a tulip glass of Triple Karmeliet, I can only describe it as what I think Beyonce’s hair probably smells like.

The next morning we ate what I can confidently call one of the best breakfasts of my life at the Early Girl Eatery: mountain trout with eggs, stone-ground grits and biscuits. If only I could start everyday off that right. 

Behold Biltmore, which is 8,000-acres of breathtaking scenery, architecture and staircases. Just the drive up to the house and a stroll through the first third of the gardens completely justified the Disney World-expensive ticket prices. The house itself would make a great set for a Southern version of Downtown Abbey. 

We decided to eat our last Asheville meal at the White Duck Taco Shop in the River Arts District. We went whole hog since the most creative tacos you’ll find in Savannah are at Taco Bell. I ordered a Bangkok Shrimp with pickled cucumber and carrots and a sesame glaze along with a Duck Mole taco topped with crema, lettuce and rhubarb.

Justin with his Super Saison at Wedge Brewing Company, our last stop in Asheville. Both it and the Hellesbock Lager I tried were fantastically drinkable yet nuanced. 

Did I mention they give you a big galvanized bucket of peanuts to shell while you drink and gaze across the river? Who could ask for more? 

It’s spring time in Savannah, which means two things.  

One, I will be spending tonight and every weekend till October falling asleep to the sounds of the “Cha Cha Slide” and “Play That Funky Music” courtesy of the wedding receptions held at the historic, uninsulated venue behind my house.

And two, I just finished my second year with the Savannah Music Festival, which means I’ve eaten almost exclusively Lance cheese crackers, granola bars, Parker’s pimento cheese sandwiches and the occasional leftover artist catering for the past three weeks.

While working 15+ hour days means being away from my kitchen more than I would like, it’s worth it to hear musicians and groups like Dr. John, Vincent Segal, Mike Marshall, Emmylou Harris, Julian Lage, Daniel Hope and Lake Street Dive. (Side note: if you haven’t heard Rachael Price’s voice, fix that.) And producing great education programs like Swing Central Jazz and Acoustic Music Seminar soothes any separation anxiety I might have in regards to my Vitamix or cast-iron skillet. 

Still, it’s good to be back at my counter, especially with a bag of Sadandy Peas courtesy of the one and only Farmer Joe of Clark and Sons Organics. I’m quite the superfan of his Pink-Eyed and Crowder Peas, so I thought I’d give these a try. 

Simmered with chicken stock, Vidalia onions, thyme, garlic, pimento powder, white pepper and molasses, they turned out to be the perfect side to a pork rib chop and pickled carrots for my first post-festival dinner.  

I used Hugh Acheson’s recipe for Gingered Pickled Carrots, one of my favorites. When we all caught wind yesterday that he is bringing an Italian restaurant here to Savannah, we were all about as excited as this lady who found out she won $40 million instead of $40,000. 

Since I’ve spent many nights shoving anything I can find like a piece of leftover chocolate cake and some cheese cubes into my face backstage just for the sake of sheer sustenance, I throughly appreciated sitting down at a table for some proper protein. 

In other happenings, I’ve decided to commemorate my turning a quarter century this month with a trip to the oft-spoke of Asheville, North Carolina to see what all the mountainous hullaballoo is about.

I’m planning on stopping by the Tupelo Honey Cafe, Curate Tapas Bar and Highland Brewing Company. If you have any other suggestions, send me an e-mail or post a comment!

I can’t believe I forgot to share these Instragrams I took a few weeks ago when I visited my grandfather who lives outside of Orlando, Florida. 

It’s definitely not the first time I’ve been to his modest, buttercream-colored house in a particularly sandy subdivision of Sanford, a jumble of orange groves, wildflower-dotted toll road onramps, trailer parks, gated tile-roofed mansions, chain restaurants and live oaks.

The past few visits, I would focus in on his ailing blue-eyed cat, his anemic azalea bushes, his arthritic movements. But this time, I didn’t. Beneath his neighbor’s leaning grapefruit tree, in his storage room and on pieces of typewritten paper, I found pieces of my Gramps and his humble home I hadn’t seen before. 

Like these fuzzy, yet brittle, weather-worn lichens subsisting on air and rays of sunshine. They reminded me of him. 

In the kitchen, he and my mama taught me how to segment a grapefruit with a serrated spoon. I twisted my face after slurping each piece from the tarnished silver, and he would laugh with labored breathing.

I still have one of those grapefruits wrapped in a plastic Publix bag in the fruit drawer of my refrigerator. It stays sentimentally numbed to time. I wish I could keep him that way too.    

In addition to readily-available pimento cheese sandwiches, real-deal BBQ and proper iced tea, one of the many perks of living in the South is having a farmer’s market in February.

While others are crossing off the days until their market’s opening in April or even May, I’m gleefully throwing brussels sprouts and pecans into my basket like it’s an endcap clearance sale on travel-size toothpaste and fancy shampoo at Target.

So here are my latest finds, photographed in cute dishes and vessels I don’t get to use hardly enough. 

I hate to pick favorites, but I have a special place in my heart for Farmer Joe of Clark and Sons Organics at the Forsyth Farmers Market here in Savannah. Not only does he hand out such compliments as “you look like new money,” but he also grows the best pecans, collards, field peas and strawberries. You can’t help but buy a bag of his pink-eyed peas after he jokes that he missed them, and that’s why they’re not black-eyed. 

I’m looking forward to sprinkling his pecans on many a spring salad and roasting them in the oven with his brussels sprouts (pictures above), balsamic vinegar and bacon, Barefoot Contessa-style.

For the upcoming March/April issue of Savannah Magazine, I talked to farmers Relinda Walker of Walker Organics and Bo Herndon of Herndon Farms about the Southern belles of produce, Vidalia Onions. Even though they may take different approaches to growing them, I respect them both equally for the backbreaking work they do in cultivating Georgia’s state vegetable — one I thoroughly enjoy throwing into just about everything I make at home from pickles to shrimp etouffee. 

I love “Lil Bo’s” from Herndon Farms, which you can find at Fresh Market, roasted alone or with a garlic-lemon chicken. 

I feel the same about these rainbow carrots from Relinda’s farm. They have a subtle, almost herbal-sweetness that works perfectly in almost-springtime cooking. 

Finally, I found some of the season’s last strawberries, which I’ve been slicing up for salads, pies and smoothies. They’re awfully pretty in this Depression-glass berry bowl I found in a cabinet at my grandpa’s house while installing his toaster oven.