Never before has a featured “Country Kitchen” cook come with the kind of unbridled praise that accompanied Lucine Sessions Bryant’s nomination.

The recommendation came via email from Lucine’s niece, Judy Poiroux. Judy’s maiden name was Sessions, of Sessions Farms in Grand Bay fame, and Lucine is her father’s sister.

According to Judy, when it comes to cooking, nobody holds a candle to her “Aunt Cine.”

“Everything she touches turns into something marvelous to eat, from fried chicken to any seafood from the Gulf to vegetables from the garden,” Judy wrote. “You name it, she can cook it.”

Apparently, that’s the general consensus among all who, as Judy says, “are fortunate enough to be on Aunt Cine’s ‘list.’” As a former son-in-law used to say about Lucine, “She could take a dishrag and make it taste good.”

Lucine—and the name, by the way, is pronounced ‘Loo-SIGH-nee’—says she has no idea why everybody carries on about her cooking so. It’s just how she’s always done it, through decades of putting three squares on the table for a husband and seven children. She also worked in a Grand Bay school cafeteria as the lunchroom lady in charge of baking. In her spare time, she regularly makes casseroles and desserts for church potlucks or ailing friends and neighbors. And, she helps keep the folks at Sessions Farms fed when they’re out working daylight to dark.

Although Lucine lost her husband several years back and a daughter five years ago, her other children—and 17 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren—aren’t all that scattered. Plus, there are scads of the Sessions clan still right in Grand Bay. Among them is Annie Rogers, Lucine’s 90-year-old sister who still works part-time at the Grand Bay CVS. (“I have to take her, though,” Lucine says. “She can’t drive anymore.”)

But enough of the introductory stuff. What you’re here for are the recipes, and Lucine graciously shares some great ones with you. While we can’t promise that your first attempts at these will have everybody speculating on how marvelous you could probably made a dishrag taste, we can safely wager that you’ll be showered with compliments.