High-country cooking fit to grace any table.
Southern Appalachia has a rich culinary tradition. Generations of passed-down recipes offer glimpses into a culture that has long been defined, in considerable measure, by its food. Take a journey of pure delight through this highland homeland with stories of celebrations, Sunday dinners, and ordinary suppers. The narrative material and scores of recipes offered here share a deep love of place and a devotion to this distinctive cuisine. The end result is a tempting invitation, in the vernacular of the region, to “pull up a chair and take nourishment.”
Excerpt from a review: Chicken and dumplings. Biscuits and gravy. Beans and fatback. To any list of wonderful culinary partnerships, add the duo of Casada and Pressley. In “Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food: Recipes & Stories from Mountain Kitchens,” Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley combine wide knowledge, hands-on experience, and a conversational approach into a sure-fire recipe for enjoyable reading and fine dining.
You can order it on the Etsy Channel or find it on Amazon. It will also be available in big stores around the country.
Although I don't cook big meals anymore since I don't have anyone to cook for now, my mouth watered when I read recipes for some of my favorite dishes my mother used to cook. Tipper and I met back in 2007 when one of her twin daughters, Katie, came to our Coffee with the Poets group and read some poems she had written. The girls were still in elementary school then, I think.
Tipper used the downtime during the pandemic to create a very popular YouTube channel called Celebrating Appalachia. She has done so well with it that she quit her job and stays home to do what she loves, gardening, canning, and cooking meals for her family. She posts on her blog every day and does the same with the videos. She is a busy person who loves what she is doing now.
She has a huge following on her blog and her YouTube channel. Her followers say watching Celebrating Appalachia is like being home with Tipper, her husband, Matt, and Katie and Corie. She shares her life and the lives of her family with her viewers and I watch every new video she puts up. Even though I have cooked for more than 45 years, I still learn new things from watching Tipper prepare food in her kitchen.
A bonus is watching the twins, in their twenties now, who make their YouTube videos and they are loved also. You will find them at the Pressley Girls.
Tipper and Jim have been signing books every weekend and their fans love seeing them, talking to them, and giving them gifts. I told Chris at City Lights Books in Sylva to be prepared for a huge crowd when Tipper and Jim are there signing books. Chris didn't know what a following Tipper has and he emailed me after the book signing saying he was glad I gave him a heads up about the crowd that filled his store that Saturday.
Hope you enjoy visiting the YouTube channels and the blog website that Tipper has maintained for many years. Leave a comment if you do.
