It was about a year ago when I registered the domain name taracooks.com, even though we did not have a web site ready for the public until November.  Well when it came time to renew this year I decided to move it to another web hosting provider because they had a newer version of Wordpress [...]

Every time I see, taste, smell, or make coffee, I am reminded of my Dad – Alton Bybee.  Thanks to Dad, I was familiar at a very young age with different blends and tastes of various coffees – instant, regular, decaf, mountain, Columbian, Uban.
Both my parents were coffee drinkers and my Dad’s livelihood was made [...]

I’ve eaten many a Jello salad through the years.  There’s the popular “congealed” salad, which is OK, but I don’t care for the curds of cottage cheese.  For strawberry lovers there’s the Strawberry Pretzel salad, which is pretty tasty, until the pretzels go soggy.  And there’s also the Strawberry Jello Banana salad. Since dear hubby [...]

I am a little sad that spring is fading into summer.  Spring is my favorite season and one thing that makes it special is strawberries.  I love Tennessee strawberries and all the refreshing dishes that can be made with fresh strawberries.  Although the first strawberry pie I ever recall tasting was Shoney’s with those ginormous [...]

I wanted to thank all of you who visited TaraCooks at Sherlock’s this past Thursday.
I hope you enjoyed the demonstrations and found something sampled worthy of making in your own home. TaraCooks has been asked to return sometime later this year and we will try to get the word out in plenty of time [...]

I’ve made jam only a couple of times in my life – and the jam I made was actually strawberry freezer jam. Does that count as real jam?  This year, after making a second trip to Kelly’s Strawberry Patch, I decided to make the real stuff, the kind that can be stored [...]