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Happy Marriage Oyster Stew

Until I went from spinster to wife, I had never eaten fresh oysters. I grew up in small-town Missouri and the closest I ever got to an oyster before marriage, was picking it out of my Grandma Lula Mae’s Thanksgiving dressing. Knowing what I know now, I’m not sure which shoe bottom Grandma scraped the oysters for her annual “ode to the sea” dressing from. Every great cook has one misstep, and Grandma’s oyster dressing was her achilles heel.

Inspired by Family Recipes

Written on a one-ply napkin, whispered in an eager young ear or four hands working together on a shaky kitchen table. This week on Salted and Styled, we are inspired by the treasured family recipes that are secretly passed from generation to generation.

A Lesson in Geography and Modesty

There’s nothing like a worldly person to remind you you’re not.

When I meet Merveille Kasongo, her body language reads like one of those signs on the back of a semitruck that warn: “Stay back 200 feet.” Her arms remains locked at her sides and without smiling she looks directly at me with big dark eyes lined with lashes so thick I wonder how they could be real. My brassy American sensibilities are, of course, injured.