Home cooking, International style!

So now that you've had the first taste of our adventures in cooking, maybe we should pause and tell you a little bit about us and this blog.

We met at a Christmas party at St. John’s Catholic Church in Oxford, Mississippi on December 8, 2000, surrounded by delicious food, wonderful wine, good cheer, and the great friends who had introduced us. That first meeting set the stage for a wonderful journey together beginning on our honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta and later traveling across the U.S. and as far away as Singapore and Taipei. We travel constantly back and forth from Oxford, where Joe teaches journalism at the University of Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, where Suzanne works as an international internal auditor for FedEx.

Home cooking is where Suzanne shines, but Joe claims mastery over a few dishes of his own. Music is usually in the background, whether it's jazz, blues, classical or international.

Suzanne's full-blooded Sicilian father and Southern-bred mother ran a small grocery store in Helena, Arkansas, that featured a wide range of Dad’s fresh-cut meats, including Southern exotica like raccoon, chitterlings, pig ears and oxtails! Italian dishes were a staple at the Centenio home. While Suzanne's family in Helena ate homemade spaghetti and meatballs on Sundays, Joe's family in North Carolina ate fried chicken. Joe’s soldier father ran a hospital kitchen in Munich during World War II, managed restaurants after the war, and reigned supreme in all things barbecue. Joe's German-born mother often made mornings special with her “German” pancakes.

We look forward to mixing it up in our kitchens in Oxford and Memphis, home cooking international style! Sounds like fun, huh? Stay tuned!