By Mike DuBose The US Bureau of Labor documented food prices have increased 30% since 2020! Contrary to what politicians promised and with few exceptions, the November 2025 Wall Street Journal reported that food prices aren’t coming down! The USDA reported families spend more than 15% of their income on food (Singles $300-$600, CouplesContinue Reading

By Jennifer Tardy Whenever we eat sugar by itself — especially processed sweets — the body responds in a predictable chemical chain reaction: Blood sugar spikes quickly Insulin surges to bring it down The body often overcorrects You crash Your brain panics: “Quick, more sugar!” Your nervous system interprets this asContinue Reading

Photo: Collards — A field of memories, good eating, and more. By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net Being the chap I was, collard greens’ smell and similarity to the stringy dark-green algae in fish ponds repulsed me. Mom would cook up a mess and sit it before me. I’d dragContinue Reading

Photo: My grandmother and mother’s cornbread mold with an ear of Bradford heirloom corn. By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net Born of fire, master of fire, and survivor of fire, my vintage cast iron cornbread mold fed many a soul. Best I figure it came to be in the 1930s.Continue Reading

Something about a rainy winter day fires up the imagination. For some. By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net I have long admired the work of a fighter pilot turned writer. He wrote under the pen name James Salter. James Arnold Horowitz volunteered for combat duty in Korea and flew moreContinue Reading

By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net Photo: The ash door to the smokehouse in Historic Brattonsville. To some, the smokehouse remains a symbol of the impoverished, rural South. Not me. I see it as a rustic savior, and I thank the late Harry Crews for my column’s title. I recalledContinue Reading

My lost geisha By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net It was the photograph in my father’s war album. Her white kimono. Hair black as onyx. Pale, serene face. Perfect bone structure. Gloss, a sheen upon her hair. On one side, a nameless GI. On the other, my father, not muchContinue Reading