The on-going chronicle of all things related to the George and Laura Roediger House (c. 1905) in the historic Holly Avenue Neighborhood of downtown Winston-Salem, NC. More info and pictures can be found at RoedigerHouse.com. [Mobile users: CLICK TO SEARCH the blog.]
Dateline: Sun 28 June. Breakfast for dinner ruled the evening for the final Sunday of June, and I leaned on my faithful buttermilk pancakes recipe for yet another excellent batch of those buggers. It was also a chance to break into my new mail-order jug of dark amber maple syrup, which proved to be an excellent coverer and sweet delight.
"Best Tips for Making Pancakes: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes," by Joanne Ozug on the Pioneer Woman website. [Published 10 May 2017]
You'd have to harken back to those halcyon glory days of college life at Carolina to trace the roots of my friendship with Tim Thomas. We next found ourselves laboring a decade later towards our respective PhDs at the University of Virginia, and we enjoyed many a visit once he had the generous foresight to invite me to offer training when he was an administrator in Shenandoah County. He and his wife Laura and their younger daughter CeCe stopped here last Saturday morning on their way to the North Carolina mountains, and the timing could not have been better, given that Ebbie and Donna were here for their regular Camel City pilgimage.
Such a terrific visit for the whole crew of us, which had to be captured in the usual picture-taking spot in the front foyer. And it seemed like we ought to have a breakfast-y sweet treat to support our gathering at the table for visiting and conversation (even though Donna and Ebbie had already brought great goodies!) but then too did the Thomases arrive with additional treats from their stop at Camino Bakery just up the street. From my own oven I brought out a lemon loaf with a sweet lemon glaze, which generally has proven to be a hit here when I've been smart enough to do exactly what the recipe tells me. As Mondays go, this one was for the record books, all around.
"The Best Lemon Loaf (Better-Than-Starbucks Copycat)," from Averie Sunshine of AverieCooks.com. [Published 15 March 2019 / Updated 16 May 2023]
Homemade buttermilk biscuits, creamy stone-ground grits, scrambled eggs with Swiss and Gruyère, and hot pork sausage patties: that's what made a dinner out of breakfast Friday a week ago, for three of us at the table. It was all pretty scrumptious: the eggs were cooked to just the right texture, the biscuits were tender and fluffy and soft, and that recipe for grits comes out perfect each time. (I do increase the butter and salt over what the recipe recommends.) The misery hit later, when I realized how over-full I felt, but future distress had no impact on the joy of consuming a pretty ideal BFD.
"The Food Lab's Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Culinary Consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Published 07 August 2015 / Updated 19 December 2025]
Guidance from "How to Cook Sausage in the Oven," by Dan Mikesell (a/k/a DrDan) from 101 Cooking for Two. [Last Updated 29 November 2025]
Guidance for making the creamy grits: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.
For last Thursday to be a non-workday for me, it was certainly fully scheduled. Dryer repair to start the day, taking my Camry for servicing, an 11:30 am phone appointment, a noon lunch with a fellow education colleague, picking up the Camry, folding laundry, and two different sets of UNC School of the Arts students (pictured below) tackling prep/tech visits for using the house as a filming location on a couple of upcoming weekends. Making dinner got squeezed into that, and an easy way to pull it off was to make biscuits and sausage gravy. These steaming bowls of savory southern goodness, with just a touch of heat, seemed to satisfy us just fine.
It's already proving to be a pretty busy stretch of weeks and that is impacting my usual focus on meals. After my rushed trip to Richmond Monday and the long drive over to Vance County and back on Tuesday, the simple solution for sustenance Tuesday night was my longtime much-loved childhood go-to of oatmeal, boosted with brown sugar and extra cinnamon, and the unnecessary addition of small butter slabs. There's always a celebration if it's breakfast for dinner, no?
A short overnight in Richmond is what started my week, but before hitting the road last Sunday I made a mid-day meal of buttermilk pancakes. They were accompanied by some leftover bacon from a couple of days prior, and this time I may have steadied my hand enough so as not to overdo the bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup that I poured over top. I'm sticking with this recipe, because it always pleases, even though I know I've got a collection of others that it would not hurt to try.
"Best Tips for Making Pancakes: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes," by Joanne Ozug on the Pioneer Woman website. [Published 10 May 2017]
Saturday was the final full day of Eastern Standard Time for the outgoing winter months, and extras were coming to dinner, which gave me the chance to use up some buttermilk and some bacon and to give in to a hankering for biscuits. The central feature: bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits, all from scratch. The biscuits were a bit malformed but still darned delicious, and it had been a while since I'd made chile-rubbed bacon in the oven. The baked scrambled eggs were light and fluffy and enhanced with a Swiss-and-Gruyère cheeses-to-pleases. It proved to be an unexpectedly filling meal, though, and we were all sort of miserable in a good way afterwards.
"The Food Lab's Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Culinary Consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Published 07 August 2015 / Updated 19 December 2025]
"Chile-Rubbed Bacon," by Rick Martinez. In "D.I.Y. B.L.T. O.M.G.: Bake Better Bacon (Upgrade Idea No. 1)," Bon Appétit, July 2016, p. 44.
"Baked Scrambled Eggs," from Heather Johnson of TheFoodHussy.com. [Published 09 September 2019 / Updated 08 February 2026]
Last week's Monday evening dinner of burgers still allowed for a fun little dessert to be served, and that night I went with an old-fashioned sour cream coffee cake. With strudel both as a middle layer and as a topping, and with thin but soft moist layers of sweet cake between, this breakfast cross-over proved pleasing and worthy of extras before the night was done.
"Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Coffee Cake," from Marzia Aziz of the Little Spice Jar blog. [Published 11 April 2019 / Updated 26 January 2026]
After a good full week of work in southern Georgia and after belatedly letting it catch my eye that this past Friday the 13th was also National Cheddar Day, I satisfied a menu craving and honored that occasion with tomato and corn pie for supper. Because I'm bringing ideas from several recipes together, the result always seems to vary just a bit but I'm also almost always pleased. With the exception of how the pieces absolutely fell apart as I tried to serve each slice, making for an unsightly presentation, it was still all really tasty. My beloved roasted broccoli florets were there as well, plus a smattering of Caesar-topped spring mix.
Pulled together and based on the following evolving recipe history:
Thursday a week ago was a chance for the beloved breakfast for dinner. I've become pretty fond of caramelizing onions, adding in finely chopped bacon, and building up the heartiness with a pretty good pile of shredded Gruyère. Once the egg and cream mixture gets poured over the top, this lovely quiche heads into the oven to cook to a creamy texture in just under 40 minutes. I also made a half-batch of blueberry muffins and had a heaping pile of fresh fruit, too.
Overnight and continuing into that morning, we got more snow. Not a ton: just a good dusting that measured maybe half and inch.
This has been quite a winter for us: an all-day sleet storm which left us with a one- to two-inch ice slab laid over every open surface; then a rare 8-inch snowfall a week later; and then even more snow a few days after that. The extended period of below-normal temps and even quite a bit of time in the teens is also not how it usually goes around here. But what's normal anymore? It's harder to predict when it's still unclear how climate change is going to increase the severity and wild swings of weather events.
Recipe based on "Bacon and Caramelized Onion Quiche," from Mountain Mama Cooks.
"Perfect Blueberry Muffins," from Sue Moran of The View from Great Island. [Published 13 July 2021]
...and then it was Christmas, a bright sunny warm holiday with a quiet city and crows squawking: the absence of muss and dearth of fuss were among the best gifts of the day. At dinnertime I tried to make a menu wish come true: biscuits and sausage gravy. A bit too spicy, after an intended hot sauce shake was more akin to a glub, but that’s what tall glasses of water are for.
I thought it was awesome for Christmas Day to get up to 74°F here. The dogs loved it too.
And the officials at Piedmont Triad International Airport, just across the Guilford County line from here, tell us it was the warmest Christmas ever observed, reaching 75°F, breaking the previous record of 74°F that occurred in 1955 and 2015.
So all that pleasantness allowed for a pretty brisk walk midday through multiple neighborhoods, and then I got out the lawn mower to knock down all the monkey grass for winter. Who needs a White Christmas when there’s yard work that needs doing?
I had a great day in Sampson County offering a session as part of their Assistant Principals Institute, back on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. They were energized and engaged, responsive and receptive, and I was thankful for that time with them. Ah, but it's almost three hours from here to there, so by the time I got home, I used the narrow dinner prep window as a perfectly good reason to make perfectly good buttermilk pancakes for dinner. I try not to overuse this convenient option when something quick is called for and then I'm always glad when that's what gets served up on the supper plates.
"Best Tips for Making Pancakes: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes," by Joanne Ozug on the Pioneer Woman website. [Published 10 May 2017]
The off-year election day found me back at home from what was supposed to be a full week up in Virginia. But one of the schools needed to postpone and it gave me a chance to run back to Winston for two nights. So last Tuesday morning I put some ripe bananas to work for a couple of prized loaves of banana bread, which served as a sizable mid-day snack before I turned my attention to chores and errands.
"Carolyn's Banana Bread," a recipe shared by former neighbor Lori Pilon.
When the time came to prepare one final meal before I packed and hit the road for the week, back on the final Sunday of October, the choice was a bacon, caramelized onion, and Gruyère quiche. It's a quick fix and a tasty outcome, and I had an abundance of fresh fruit to go with it. The flavors were not only on point, but it also had a near-perfect consistency.
Recipe based on "Bacon and Caramelized Onion Quiche," from Mountain Mama Cooks.
With its last appearance here going all the way back to a Halloween slumber party in 2016, Cinnabon cinnamon roll cake was the planned dessert when my UNC chum Kelly was here last Saturday morning. Alas, we were all too full from that breakfast grub so I saved it to snack on later. Ah, but it still proved a useful dessert the following afternoon when another dear UNC friend was here for a meal and hanging out. I botched the cake just a bit but it was still incredibly tempting and good.
"Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll Cake," by Alyssa Rivers and first found at The Recipe Critic in July 2012. [Recipe Updated 16 August 2023]
Last Saturday saw the return of the great Kelly Clark to the Roediger House. A true chum when we were fellow undergraduates and Journalism majors at the University of North Carolina, Kelly makes regularly trips to the area to look in on his folks and, when possible, he generously builds in a visit over here to Winston-Salem. We had to make it a morning meet-up so it had to be breakfast: sous vide bacon, Swiss, and chive egg bites; creamy Southern stone-ground grits; blueberry muffins; and plenty of fresh fruit. We were too full for the dessert I also put together so that will be blogged about later. It's always a pleasure to get time with Kelly.
I made sure departed with the two specimens I'd snagged for him to go with an exhibit he's preparing back home in Maine: the cicada killer wasp and also this healthy praying mantis that almost fell into my lap. Kelly had mentioned both of these from his wish list for display but hadn't gotten ahold of any yet, so I'd been on the look-out.
Based on "How to Sous Vide Egg Bites at Home," from Jenna Passaro of SipBiteGo.com. [Published 08 July 2021 / Modified 31 August 2021]
"Perfect Blueberry Muffins," from Sue Moran of The View from Great Island. [Published 13 July 2021]
Guidance for making the creamy grits: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.
When Thursday rolled around last week, it was time for dear friend Amy to return for an evening of hanging out. She's like us when it comes to giving breakfast-for-dinner an upvote, so it was an easy call to serve biscuits and sausage gravy in well-filled bowls. Oh, a bit salty, as I seem prone to do...but still luscious and comforting on a fall-like but gorgeous night.
Saturday a week ago was another phenomenal weather day in Winston-Salem, perfect for the Hispanic League's Fiesta! Festival that had downtown hopping and very much alive. The meal that day occurred early afternoon, with a breakfast theme: bacon egg and cheese sandwiches, served on brioche buns and well-cheesed by an abundance of Kraft Singles. The thick-cut cherrywood bacon was baked in the oven and finished with a chili rub, and the baked scrambled eggs were zazzed up with some shredded Swiss and Gruyère.
"Chile-Rubbed Bacon," by Rick Martinez. In "D.I.Y. B.L.T. O.M.G.: Bake Better Bacon (Upgrade Idea No. 1)," Bon Appétit, July 2016, p. 44.
"Baked Scrambled Eggs," from Heather Johnson of TheFoodHussy.com. [Published 09 September 2019]
As we concluded our lunch for three last Sunday, it seemed a light touch with dessert might be called for, as well as something that still acknowledged it was the brunch hour of the weekend. To the moment rose the really quite perfect French yogurt cake, a recipe I'd first tried back in 2012 and which has consistently shown up here most often connected to similar mid-day repasts. I'll confess that I do not know why it hasn't stayed in the rotation of late: it's been over three years since I last made it. Guess that helps explain why I needed a second (albeit smaller!) slice so soon after finishing the first generous hunk.
"French Yogurt Cake," by Andrew Knowlton. In Bon Appétit, May 2012, p. 30.
The trend of winning Wednesdays continued this past week with Amy once more here for hanging out and having a spot of supper. And she does not seem to mind if I give in to whatever recipe or dish or item I'd found myself jonesing for: lately, I've had biscuits on my mind. That was a reason to build a "breakfast for dinner" menu, with stone-ground creamy grits, thick bacon slices, Swiss-and-Gruyère-scallion scrambled eggs, and gorgeous buttermilk biscuits with perfect flaky layers. This was a night where no dessert was needed, which made each additional biscuit a less guilty indulgence.
As August rolled toward its conclusion, we were gifted with several days of gorgeous September-like weather, under sunny skies with light breezes and temps in the upper 70s. That made that morning's walk across town to the CVS an incredibly delightful one, clocking in at 3.3 miles.
"The Food Lab's Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Culinary Consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Published 07 August 2015 / Updated 18 February 2025]
Guidance for making the creamy grits: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.
