Throughout her over 50-year career as a teacher, administrator, professor and consultant, Dr. Hattie N. Washington never forgot her humble beginnings as a country girl; who to this day, loves to cook. Coming from a long line of great cooks, she learned how to cook by watching her stepmother, aunts, and cousins, who taught her well.

This wonderful new cookbook is a companion book to Dr. Washington’s best-selling memoir Driven To Succeed: An Inspirational Memoir of Lessons Learned Through Faith, Family and Favor, where she mentioned many of the down-home dishes from her early childhood living in the Meherrin, Va., and eating most all of her meals straight from the garden, orchards, barnyard and pasture. This cookbook shares just how to cook some of Dr. Washington’s favorite mouth-watering recipes from her own personal collection, tried and perfected over the decades as a requested “Must” at family reunions, Thanksgiving and other dinners, social gatherings, faculty meetings, etc., as well as shares special and selected recipes from other family members, friends and from living abroad in Greece & Scotland (which she refers to as “Beyond”).

Whether you are an experienced cook yourself or a novice, don’t worry. She walks you through how to cook such succulent dishes as her fried apples, homemade hot buttermilk biscuits dripping with freshly churned sweet cream butter, crackling sour cream cornbread, golden brown fried chicken, scrumptious blackberry and other fruit cobblers, mouth- watering rice and bread puddings, and, of course, her stepmother’s “Ole-Fashioned Traditional Christmas Fruit Cake”.

She also shares a few special anecdotes about some of the dishes that bring back pleasant nostalgic memories of her bygone days that went in greater detail in her memoir (which you must get to add to this collection). A plus is her Resource Directory in the back of this book that has valuable information, articles, websites and other pertinent food-related “Stuff: This & That”. So, sit back and prepare for your mouth to water and get to cooking her southern comfort food dishes and beyond! Enjoy!