About

A warm thank you for visiting my blog!

My name is Melanie Dean Timms and I decided to create this blog to preserve all the family recipes that have been passed down to me through the generations. I also feel like future generations will lose the art of true southern cooking from scratch and what it means to have “Sunday Dinners” with the family, unless we teach them. I hope through this blog, I can keep the memories alive, share my family’s recipes and most importantly honor my Mother “In My Mama’s Kitchen!”

Three generations: My beautiful Mama, my daughter and me on my wedding day!

A little more about my Mama and how I ended up in her kitchen.

My Mama was a true country girl, and like her, so am I. With her first breath, Mama began a life-long appreciation of her deeply-rooted Texas heritage, one founded on the impenetrable respect for God’s handiwork. I am blessed that she shared this innate gratitude with me. Like all of her family, my Mama developed an acutely thankful heart for the wide-open spaces, the animals that roamed it, the families that settled it, and the gifts it offered to those who labored throughout it. Like her mother, my precious Grandma, Mama developed her talent for being a true artisan within her own kitchen. She was celebrated for her culinary agility and her ability to replicate the Southern dishes once prepared by her mother, grandmothers, and aunts. Fried chicken, cornbread dressing, and meringue pies were just a few of the many specialties featured in her kitchen.

My Mama’s sole adult residence—comfortable, warm, and tastefully appointed with family heirlooms—was built on a section of her family’s original farmstead. And in this same house that she meticulously maintained throughout the years, she found great joy planning, preparing, and serving great Southern delicacies. I grew up watching Mama in her special kitchen. When I was younger, I certainly did not possess the depth of appreciation for the legacy she was preparing for me. All I really knew was that I loved the food she prepared. Mama could cook anything!

My Mama passed away just a short while ago, and after her passing, I brought my husband and children to live in the home my mother cherished. It is in her beautiful kitchen that I am daily reminded of how lucky I was to be her child and learn to prepare some of the finest food south of the Mason Dixon. I am humbled that I inherited so many of my Mama’s characteristics, and I’m overjoyed that I have the same love for cooking that she possessed. I feel my Mama’s love all the time, but I feel it most intensely when I’m following in her footsteps and cooking in her kitchen.