Casey tells it better than I do, so I’ll let her tell you how we met. Every piece that I read on her blog blows me away. She’s an excellent, articulate and thought provoking writer – who just happens to write about food. It makes me happy to read Good. Food. Stories. because of just how well written it is, but luckily there’s also really great recipes and, well, good food stories! Thank you, Casey, for guest posting. I hope you guys enjoy her journey into Southern Decadence. – Amber



Casey from Good. Food. Stories. here, spinning a little tale of booze, bacon, and chocolate. I use those things quite frequently to cope with life’s slings and arrows, so it’s rather convenient that we can combine them into one densely sweet package, eh?

Agreeing to carpool for five hours with someone you’ve just met is a risky proposition. You’re either going to have slumber party-level bonding on wheels or suffer through the most mind-crippling 300 minutes of your life. So let’s take a moment to pity poor Amber, who was stuck playing passenger/navigator to my talkative speed-demon self on our way from New Jersey to Blog & Bake in Norwich, VT.



Oh, who am I kidding? Amber is just as talky as me and from the minute I stepped onto her doorstep and saw an enormous, debonair Maine Coon cat staring at me through the window, I knew we’d be getting along like gangbusters.

Flying up I-91 in our rented Nissan Versa (aka The Plastic Box, as we quickly nicknamed it for its unnervingly flimsy construction), we covered all the bases in record time. Between nonstop tangential blathering, I found out pretty darn quick that Amber loves Texas. And brownies, duh. And some good brown liquor (but not beer!). And pecans.

So now that I know Amber, I pay closer attention to things like the brownies by Kat Kinsman (incidentally, someone who’s also probably a hell a lot of fun to take on a five-hour car ride) accented with bourbon, bacons and pecans in last month’s Food & Wine. To illustrate the difference between the way my mind works versus Amber’s, I almost flipped right past them in my haste to rip out the recipe for Kat’s tomato lemonade. But I’m learning.

My version of the brownies somehow got gussied up with extra pecans in the batter, a generous spread of fudgy frosting, and a tiny hat of pecan brittle on top. What can I say? Amber inspires me to take my desserts a little over the top. The brownies’ taste and texture improve vastly overnight, so delay gratification if at all possible.

Despite the inclusion of bourbon, I have a feeling these wouldn’t be a bad addition to our next road trip. Whaddya say, Amber? You, me, a pan of brownies, a trip to Cabot Creamery?

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