"A hefty, handsome, often funny and poignant cookbook."          ----Rheta Grimsley Johnson, syndicated columnist for King Features Sample Story As Cold as Molasses in January When I was growing up on a farm in central Virginia, traditional breakfast foods were always bountiful. Fresh ground sausage and hickory smoked bacon with eggs fresh from the henhouse provided a hearty start to the day. The breakfast memories that come most readily to mind, however, are the special times my Grandmother gave me molasses in January. Actually, the treat was not pure cane molasses, but King’s syrup that she poured from a red half-gallon tin with a big lion’s head pictured on the front. Depending on how cold it was, the syrup would either huddle in the corner of the plate or spread widely across its surface. My Grandmother would fleck bits of butter into the syrup and place a hot-from-the-oven, homemade biscuit beside it. The warm biscuit was perfect for “sopping” up the syrup and melting the butter on top. Even today when I hear the phrase “It’s as cold as molasses in January!” I feel warm inside remembering my Grandmother’s kitchen and the sweet conspiracy we shared on a few cold winter mornings. Dr. Wilsie S. Bishop is Dean of the ETSU College of Public and Allied Health and a native of Appomattox, Virginia.