Table Talk

Join me to talk entertaining, gardening, Southern recipes and timeless decorating. And meet the makers behind our collection of handcrafted beauty.

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Mary Mack's Squash Casserole

No matter how many times I serve this on my screened porch in Sewanee or even at a more formal dinner with sliced tenderloin (on which occasion I might call it a gratin), I’ve never known this recipe to fail. And I’ve never known people not to ask for seconds. I hope you’ll enjoy incorporating it into your summer repertoire. It’s a sure thing.

Valentine's Day Strawberry Cake

Don’t let the down-market ingredients fool you. This cake is the height of refinement when served with a garnish of fresh berries in season. No one would ever suspect Jell-O to be a primary ingredient. First published in the ’80s in Mississippi Magazine, this recipe has been a favorite of my family for ages.

Easter Brunch Perfection: Mock Cheese Soufflé

Easter lunch is always one of my favorite meals of the year. There’s nothing more joyful than gathering the last of the daffodils from the yard and arranging them with Lenten rose and other tender spring blooms on a table festooned with bunnies and eggs and the collected memories of Easters past. And a menu of spring lamb, fresh asparagus and various lemony and other sugary desserts feels like one more way to welcome in spring.

Seven Tips & Tricks for Forcing Bulbs Indoors

Spring is a notorious tease. As February gives way to March, the daffodils in the South are beginning to show their color, but more days than not, the temperature is still below 40, and my recent trip to Boston reminded me that my friends in the Northeast still have a good bit of winter to slog through.

Boxing Day Boeuf Bourguignon by the Fire

Wherever you'll be on the 26th, this recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon from the New Basics Cookbook (a must have!) never fails as the perfect accompaniment to an evening by the fire or around the kitchen table with the folks who mean the most to you.

Cheese Dreams and Other Preludes to Thanksgiving

By the time the first course was put out - the most delicious sauteed oysters on buttered toast points - we were all well and tipsy as I recall. The remainder of the meal, delicious I'm sure, fades in memory. It's the cooking with friends, the prelude to the main event, that stays with me even now. So I leave you with the recipes for cheese dreams and sauteed oysters on toast, both favorites in Julia's extensive repertoire, and now, lucky me, in mine too.

Red, White & Blueberry Crisp

My mother is a master cobbler-maker and can turn just about any summer fruit into a heavenly combination of sucré and salé - sweet and salty (and tart) - that elevates the palate and, as my late stepfather used to say, causes the eyes to roll back in the head in ecstasy. Even Julia, not one to give up culinary compliments freely, honored Mama by including her blackberry cobbler recipe in Julia Reed's South, a badge of honor Mama wears proudly.

Cabin Fever Supper: Mama's Chicken Pie

This delicious chicken pie is a simpler variation on chicken pot pie and much more delicious.

Black Eyed Peas & Cornbread

Usher in the New Year with black eyed peas for good luck...and this cornbread for the simple fact that it's delicious!

Autumn Sunday Lunch at Brookside

Of the many gifts Julia gave me during our long friendship, one of the very best was an introduction to Libby and Ben, two of the most talented people I've ever known. Like so many of the folks Julia brought into our lives, Libby and Ben have become the dearest of friends to Jon and me. That doesn't mean we aren't a little bit in awe of their prodigious talents. They can both do anything. Capable doesn't begin to describe it.

In Praise of the Cheese Board

In the age of Covid, the popularity of the cheeseboard seems undiminished.

Julia & Keith on Father's Day Gift Giving

Father's Day is coming up, and there's still time to shop our uncommon collection of handcrafted gifts. Here are a few that we love for the Daddies in our lives.

Honoring Graduates Without a Graduation Ceremony

Here, Julia and I share a few recommendations for those resilient graduates in your life who are making the most of this rite of passage, even if they’re collecting their diplomas in a drive-by ceremony.

Julia's Cocktail Concoctions

During these past several weeks, we've had Zoom cocktails, solo cocktails, socially distant cocktails. Below, Julia has concocted some of her favorites -- for now and later -- in our handsome Reed Smythe & Company glasses.

Julia & Keith Share Their Mother's Day Gift Ideas

Below, Julia and Keith choose gifts to honor their own mothers. We hope they'll inspire you to do the same.

The Art of Sheltering in Place

In this time of social distancing, I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandmother, who died four years ago at the age of 95, and whose voice I keep hearing in my head when I start to feel anxious. Despite all the confusion and fear in the air these days, Nanny—were she alive— would have recognized the gift of grace in all the turmoil, taken a break from the news, and headed to her bed with a stack of books at hand. She was into social distancing long before social distancing was a thing.

Julia's Seafood Gumbo

I've been making this gumbo ever since I was in college and found a similar version in a Junior League cookbook, the name of which now escapes me. When I lived in New York in the 1980s and '90s, I served it along with a bucket of Popeye's fried chicken to my Yankee friends, who found both things wildly exotic. The okra added in the beginning gives the soup body, while the okra at the end provides texture. The all-important addition of andouille lends a deep flavor to the broth. If you can't find andouille, Polish sausage will do.

Julia's Milk Punch

I adore a properly made Bloody Mary and I would not turn down a refreshing screwdriver, but there is no better hangover cure on earth than a milk punch. Addictively tasty and immediately restorative, it is a staple in bars and restaurants that understand such things (Galatoire's offers up an especially good one, as does Commander's Palace), and de rigueur at daytime Mardi Gras gatherings.

The Crabmeat Caucus: A Brief History

I can see it even now, all these years (and, in those days, a good bit of Jack Daniel’s) distant: a seemingly bottomless silver bowl, sitting on Julia Reed’s dining table at the far end of her spectacular double-height-ceilinged apartment on East 78th Street in New York. Bill Clinton had just been re-elected; Osama bin Laden was a familiar name in only the most elite policy circles; there was no email, and to “cc” someone still meant trying to find a sticky piece of carbon paper.

Summer Squash Casserole

My friend Nancy Peterkin’s squash casserole has made the rounds! Nancy, a justifiably renowned Houston hostess and a cook of uncommon talents, gave my mother the recipe years ago and since then, I’ve published it in the food column I used to write for the New York Times Magazine and two cookbooks, including Julia Reed’s South. I’ve also tinkered with it over the years and served it at more parties than I can count. The shindig I’m hosting this coming Labor Day Weekend is no exception.

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