I grew up on a sprawling farm in Maryland (a little over six hundred acres, hence the name) with three sisters. What's that like, you ask? My mother milked a cow twice a day, and in the summer we could eat most of our meals from our well-tended garden. We had chickens for eggs, cows for milk, cheese, and yogurt, and lots of acres to roam and do things like build forts, go stream-walking, and trap fireflies.

Here are some of the things we'd make at home:  French fries -- hot and greasy and shaken with salt in a tall paper bag, vanilla ice cream churned by hand in an old wooden contraption packed with rock salt, the best thin crust pizza, pasta dough tinged bright yellow by fresh egg yolks, and seedy sesame crackers. We had all the best things: Chocolate graham crackers, and perfect birthday cakes, and strawberry milkshakes. 

I'll tell you about some of them here, and about some of the new things I am cooking and trying and eating in lots of places far from home.

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