Kathryn Tucker Windham
  • Home
  • KATHRYN'S WORK
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • BOOKS
    • TELLING STORIES
    • AWARDS
  • Biography
  • VIDEOS
  • OUR STORIES (Blog)
  • Contact Us
  • Purchase Prints
  • NEW 8 x 10 Prints

Mushroom Soup and Other Indispensable Ingredients

3/20/2017

10 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
(Unless otherwise noted, the Kathryn Tucker Windham blog is written by her children, Ben Windham and Dilcy Windham Hilley.)

Though Mother was the author of several cookbooks, she never taught any of us to cook. She had her hands full as a widowed working mother raising three children, so there just wasn’t time.


Like many of our mothers during that era of convenience cooking, my mother liked to use condensed mushroom soup to fancy up a recipe. Lowly chicken thighs---which, in my grandmother’s house, were politely called “second joints” ----were miraculously converted into fine cuisine with the simple addition of a can of mushroom soup.


When I graduated from college, I needed to know how to cook something, anything, that was guest-worthy. Visiting Mother in Selma one weekend, I told her I needed a simple recipe that was failproof. She reached for her reporter’s notebook and wrote detailed instructions for Butterbean Casserole.


My favorite part of the recipe, besides the fact that it’s in her handwriting, is the encouraging little note at the end.


Maybe I’ll make some tonight….




10 Comments

Buzzards

3/10/2017

17 Comments

 
Picture
(Unless otherwise noted, the Kathryn Tucker Windham blog is written by her children, Ben Windham and Dilcy Windham Hilley.)

Mother loved to collect Southern superstitions. She even wrote and illustrated a little book called Count Those Buzzards! Stamp Those Gray Mules! I think it’s now long out of print, but it was a great collection of superstitions from the South.

Counting buzzards was one thing Mother believed in doing. An old regional rhyme says the number of buzzards you see can predict your future. It goes:

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
And four for a boy.
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for secrets never been told…


If Mother saw only one buzzard, I swear she would pull the car over to the side of the road until another buzzard appeared.


Mother used to talk about the buzzard rhyme in her storytelling sessions. People were intrigued, and she often got correspondence from folks telling her about their buzzard-counting experiences. One of her favorite letters came from a woman in Tennessee who wrote:

​Dear Kathryn,

Every time I see a buzzard, I think of you.


17 Comments

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

    We welcome YOUR comments on our blog posts. You will see a "comments" link at the top and bottom of each page. Feel free to join in! 

    Want to get alerts when new posts are added to this Blog? Visit and "Like" our Facebook page and you will see the new posts there when they are added!
    Click here to visit the new Kathryn Tucker Windham Facebook Page.

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Photo Courtesy of Ted Tucker

    RSS Feed

Picture
Photo Courtesy of Ted Tucker
"Some people are important to intellectuals, journalists, or politicians, but Kathryn Tucker Windham is probably the only person I know in Alabama who is important to everybody."      

​–
Wayne Flynt, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University. 
CONTACT US

​Dilcy Windham Hilley
Email:
dilcywindham@gmail.com

© 2023 - Dilcy Windham Hilley.  All rights to images belong to the artists who created them.

Site by Mike McCracken mike@myworkonly.com
Picture
  • Home
  • KATHRYN'S WORK
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • BOOKS
    • TELLING STORIES
    • AWARDS
  • Biography
  • VIDEOS
  • OUR STORIES (Blog)
  • Contact Us
  • Purchase Prints
  • NEW 8 x 10 Prints