Hey there, I’m Julia, and welcome to Dowling Oaks. I’m glad you stopped by for a visit!
Cooking is something I’ve loved ever since I can remember – No, seriously!
My earliest kitchen memory is me standing on a chair just mixing random ingredients together. I couldn’t even read or do math yet, but there I was making stuff like I was a boss. How my mother had the patience to let a 4 year old do her thing in the kitchen, I’ll never know. But I’m so glad she did because it instilled a lifelong love for cooking.
I like to think she saw a little of herself in me. You see, like most people do here in the South, I come from a family of awesome cooks. Nobody held a candle to my grandma’s black walnut pie. And Aunt Dorothy? Her specialty was peas and dumplings with buttermilk cornbread. And Momma? Well, any dish that she served up was downright delicious.
As I got older, my love of cooking never waned…until I found out I was gluten intolerant in 2012. Cooking didn’t have the same appeal after that because I couldn’t use staple ingredients like flour, condensed soup, and pasta and other good stuff that make up the bulk of homestyle Southern cooking.
In the years since, though, I’ve learned how to make my old favorites gluten free.
I learned so much more than cooking when I was in the kitchen with the women in my family. It wasn’t unusual to get advice about life and maybe a bit of juicy gossip thrown in for good measure, too. 🙂
That’s what I hope Dowling Oaks will be for you, a place to gather, cook a great dish, learn something new, and sit and chat with a good friend.
Most importantly, I want to thank you for taking the time to visit Dowling Oaks, read my ramblings, and maybe even try one of my recipes. It means the world to me and I wouldn’t be here without you.