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.
By Chanda Temple
When Javacia Harris Bowser walked into her doctor’s office and saw a big box of tissues in January 2020, she knew what words would come next.
She had breast cancer.
The doctor was expecting Javacia to cry. She did not. In fact, it would be some time before Javacia shed a tear over the news of being diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. Instead, Javacia, a Type A person with an award-winning writing background, pulled out a notepad and said, “Ok, what do we need to do?”
By Chanda Temple
“Pat, pat, pat.”
That’s the sound of ground turkey as Mellanie Frazier shapes it into hand-sized burgers.
Filled with fresh pico de Gallo and seasonings, it’s a familiar scene in her kitchen, where she’s made more healthful meals for her husband, three sons and herself since being diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2015.
“In the past, I’ve used purple onions, regular onions, bell peppers, Zesty Italian dressing and a little salt and pepper,” says Mellanie, 48. “Everybody seemed to like them.”
By Chanda Temple
Five wings and sweet potato casserole.
That’s all Kimberly Callines wanted from Piggly Wiggly following her ob/gyn appointment at a Birmingham hospital in February 2022 . In fact, she wanted the meal so badly that she had made up her mind she was going to skip her scheduled mammogram right after her gynecologist visit and head down the street to pick up the Southern delicacy.
But as she stood at the elevator, ready to push the button to the floor that would take her to her car, she changed her mind when she heard God say, “Go get the mammogram.”
She followed orders and had the mammogram. The technician looked at Kimberly’s images and said, “Un-uhh. They may call you back for another mammogram.”
That call back set things in motion that forever changed Kimberly’s life. Additional testing showed that she had Stage 1 breast cancer.
By Chanda Temple
Tomeka Clemons’ breast cancer journey started in November 2023 when she went in for a routine mammogram. She went home, thinking things were OK. Then, a letter arrived in the mail, telling her the mammogram looked suspicious. A second letter soon arrived, asking her to return for a second mammogram of her left breast.
She returned for another mammogram. The radiologist looked at it and told her she was good. She could return in a year for another mammogram. But God saw different, telling Tomeka to seek a second opinion.
Tomeka has what’s known as “lumpy breasts,” and she could feel a small lump in her breast that just wouldn’t let her rest. “Maybe the mammogram missed it,” she thought. She had her mom feel the lump and her husband feel it. And then, she had her gynecologist, who was a breast cancer survivor, feel it.
They all agreed with Tomeka, there was a lump.
By Chanda Temple
“How in the world do I have breast cancer?”
That’s what Marcella Roberts wanted to know after a routine mammogram and later a biopsy showed she had Stage 2, triple negative breast cancer, which is a cancer that is common in women of color and experts have more difficulty pinpointing what fuels it.
Marcella had no symptoms, no signs and no one in her family had had breast cancer. And even though breast cancer can show up without symptoms or a family history, Marcella still wondered, “So, how did this happen?”
But pretty soon, she had to put down that question and pick up the fight for her life.
By Chanda Temple
Six weeks.
That’s all it took for Ebony Arrington Steele’s life to change.
Six weeks after being selected as a co-host for a nationally-syndicated radio show in Dallas, Ebony found herself in the doctor’s office to investigate what felt like a hard marble in her right breast.
She was 35, living her dream but now facing her biggest test: cancer.
By Chanda Temple
Six weeks after giving birth to her second son, Kasandra Brundidge went in for what she thought would be a routine checkup. It wasn’t.
Doctors told her she had stage 0 breast cancer. A month later in November 2007, the cancer had advanced to Stage 2, Triple Negative.
For five years, she had been trying to get a mammogram. But every time she was to go in, she was either pregnant or sick. (She had experienced four miscarriages before her second son was born in September 2007. )
Her diagnosis was crushing news. But Kasandra was determined to fight the disease. She had 18 founds of chemo and then 32 rounds of radiation. Testing also revealed she had the breast cancer gene. In May 2009, she had a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.
