ELLISTON — Dave Long can remember when Montgomery County had more than a dozen dairy farms and supported four family-owned feed and flour mills.
Today he can count the number of local dairies on one white powdered hand, and Big Spring Mill, owned and operated by his family since 1935, is the only mill left standing.
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I love Netflix because you can search for little-known food documentaries. Recently, I found a Rick Sebak film that aired in 2002 on PBS stations called “Sandwiches That You Will Like,” and it forced me to ask the question: Does Appalachia, or even my native Southwest Virginia, have a special regional sandwich?
The documentary, which [...]

My granny made big, fluffy cathead biscuits nearly every day of my childhood. But until last week it had been literally years since I baked my own. That’s when I revived the wonderful tradition of breakfast for dinner.
For about a year in the early 1990s, I baked Hardee’s biscuits for a living, and I can [...]

It wasn’t like I didn’t have enough to do yesterday, leaving most everything to the last four  hours before my Thanksgiving guests arrived. I started early, about 8 a.m., and cooked right up to dinner time at 2 p.m.
But somewhere in the middle, between scrubbing the Yukon golds and chopping herbs for the stuffing, I decided [...]

Peacock-Harper Culinary History Friends Group, based in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech, will hold its quarterly luncheon at the Hotel Roanoke at noon on Nov. 30.
The hotel’s Executive Chef Billie Raper will present “What the elite ate in the good old days: menus of the grand destination hotels.” Chef Raper will demonstrate a dish from the hotel’s [...]