Stories For and About Living Your Truth
By Chanda Temple
When the corner store on his newspaper route stopped selling oatmeal cookies, Dennis Echoles didn’t get discouraged. He got creative.
He figured if he wanted one bad enough, he’d better make it himself.
That one choice turned into a long life of baking on the side. Today, at 71, the Collegeville native, is not only baking those oatmeal cookies but also cakes, pies and brownies that taste like home.
By Chanda Temple
When Matt Coltrin retired from the Air Force after 21 years, he thought he’d found his next mission and that was to work for a high-paying telework job in Birmingham. It was the kind of role most people would envy.
The money was good. The benefits were better. But the happiness he expected never appeared.
That part would come much later, in a food truck parked on Birmingham streets, where the smell of Creole pork and rice, wrapped in sausage casings felt more like home than any office ever could.
By Chanda Temple
Alabama food stylist Sally Wicker McKay and her mother, Amy Wicker, are winning hearts and bellies on Hallmark Channel’s new baking contest, “Baked with Love Holiday,” which airs on Monday nights at 8 p.m. CST.
The show, which debuted on Monday, Oct. 27 and is hosted by Emmy-award winning actress, producer and entrepreneur Tamera Mowry-Housley, features two cooking challenges per episode. The judges are Irish Chef Anna Haugh and New York Times cooking producer Vaughn Vreeland.
On Oct. 27, the mother/daughter team won the hometown Christmas pie challenge with their peach pie, which Anna said was “really nicely baked. The spices are so important. That’s what gives it length of flavor and complexity. It’s brilliant.”
Sally, who is based in metro-Birmingham, said the peach pie recipe is something they’ve made over the decades for family gatherings.
“We may look calm on the exterior but the wheels are always turning in my head,” Sally said on the show.
