Recipes Country Kitchen 2012 Neighbors January

Country Kitchen 2012 Neighbors January

Country Kitchen 2012 Neighbors January

When I was younger, all my friends said they would never marry a farmer, but I felt exactly the opposite,” says Patty Marsh of Limestone County.
“I moved around a lot as a child, and here was Alan, living and working on the same place he’d been raised, and that kind of life with roots really appealed to me,” she explains.
Marsh is chairman of the Limestone County Women’s Leadership Committee, and she says the Farmers Federation has been a part of her life as long as Alan has.
“In many ways, we’ve patterned our lives after Alan’s parents’, and their passion for agriculture definitely inspired us. We started in the Young Farmers program, and we’ve wanted to be a part of the good work the Federation does from that point on,” she said.
And Patty likewise embraced the Marsh family’s recipes and cooking skills as she had those of her own family.
“I’ve always cooked, but it hasn’t always been a pretty picture,” she jokes.
“There was a time when I thought I was going to blow the house up trying to can (preserve), and I’d be on the phone with mama asking her if the jiggle of the jars boiling sounded right. The best way to describe my cooking now though, is simple. Gone are the days of soaking and sorting beans Life can get complicated, so it is best to keep things simple. You know, when the kids were small a lot of time and love went into everything I cooked. As they got older and the farm got larger, I dropped the time thing and just put a whole lot of love in my cooking, so now it is simply cooked with love,” Patty explains.
The epitome of good manners and modesty, Patty insists that her cooking is nothing special, but she hopes the recipes she shares will serve as a sort of “thank you” to the people who have influenced her cooking.
“To those special people who recognize a recipe they gave me, I hope they know how much it meant to feel their confidence in my ability to cook their recipes,” she said. “For my family, I hope they’ll think about how happy I am to cook the things that make them happy.”