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KARACOOKS
KARACOOKS
Good Food · Honest History · Strong Opinions
  • A raised garden bed, lightly dusted with snow. A couple of brown leaves and some sweetgum balls are nested in the snow.

    My Last Seed Order of the Season

    Bykara February 5May 12 Garden, House & Garden

    The garden is currently covered in a rare Georgia snow. But I’m dreaming of spring and summer already. 31 Packs of Seeds and a $79 Discount Burpee’s BOGO seed pack sale ended this past weekend, and I took full advantage. 31 packs of seeds. A whopping $79 discount on my order. Overly ambitious? Probably yes,…

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  • a bacon wrapped chicken breast on a plate, sliced open to show a filling of cream cheese and jalapeno bits. In the background is a green salad with citrus.

    Jalapeño Popper Chicken

    Bykara February 3February 4 Cooking, Recipes

    Who doesn’t love a jalapeño popper? (For the uninitiated: jalapeño poppers are jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese, then wrapped in bacon and baked or grilled until the bacon is crispy and the cheese is melted. They’re addictive, rich, and the perfect combination of creamy, spicy, and smoky.) Now imagine that flavor stuffed into a juicy…

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  • Michael Twitty at an historical cooking reenactment at Smith Farm in Atlanta. Michael is sitting behind a wooden table loaded with food and ingredients. He's in front of a blazing cooking fire. There is a man to his left who is ready to enact his directions as the head cook in the room.

    What We Owe: Black Southern Foodways and the History We Need to Know

    Bykara February 2February 8 Food, Food & Politics, Personal, Politics

    This is the first in what will be an ongoing series called Food is Political. I thought it was appropriate that this first post come during Black History Month and gives me a chance to talk about attribution, appropriation, and giving credit where it’s due It’s Black History Month. And on this blog, that’s going…

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  • A triptych of images from our dinner at the optimist. From left to right: whole shrimp in butter sauce over grilled bread, a seafood platter with oysters, salmon crudo, crab salad, and shrimp cocktail, and a plate with 2 butter drenched rolls sprinkled with flaky salt.

    The Optimist: The Best Seafood in Atlanta

    Bykara February 1January 31 Food, Personal

    In July 2019, I took Zach to The Optimist for his birthday. It was our first time there, and I’m just going to say it up front: it’s the best seafood we’ve had anywhere. Better than St. Simons. Better than the coast. Better than a lot of places we’ve eaten on our travels. The Optimist…

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  • Friday Roundup #19 (On Saturday, Because This Month)

    Friday Roundup #19 (On Saturday, Because This Month)

    Bykara January 31May 12 Friday Roundup

    It’s the end of January and already this month has been a heck of a year, hasn’t it? I completely forgot the Friday Roundup yesterday. So we’re doing it on Saturday instead. That feels about right for how January 2026 has gone. That’s It. That’s the roundup for this week. Or last week. Whatever. Time…

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  • a pile of chocolate chip cookies on a white plate with a blue design on it. The plate is sitting on a red tablecloth.

    The Cookies I Bake When Everything Is Too Much

    Bykara January 27January 31 Cooking, Food & Politics

    I baked these cookies on Saturday. The day Alex Pretti was shot and killed by ICE thugs in Minneapolis. These are my comfort cookies. The ones I make when I need the repetitiveness. The rhythm. When I need to not think about anything past the next 8 to 12 minutes. I don’t actually make cookies…

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  • Here We F****** Are Again

    Here We F****** Are Again

    Bykara January 25April 26 Food & Politics, Personal

    I had a whole other post planned for today. A fun one. One talking about our favorite seafood restaurant in Atlanta. It was written, scheduled, and ready to go. And yesterday morning cos-playing ICE thugs murdered another American citizen. This time a man. A nurse. 37 years old. A good man. His parents told him…

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  • Friday Roundup #18

    Friday Roundup #18

    Bykara January 24May 12 Friday Roundup

    It’s been a couple of weeks since I did a proper Friday Roundup – last week I skipped it entirely, and the week before that I replaced it with the Renee Good post. And today I got to it late in the day. So here we are, catching up on what’s been happening. That’s it…

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  • A picture from the 1960s. It's a child's playground two seat swing. On the left side is a woman in a blue dress with dark hair, her head thrown back while she's laughing. On the right side is a man in an Air Force uniform with his cap pulled low over his eyes. He's holding a beer in his left hand and smiling.

    What My Mother Taught Me About Cooking (And About Being Fearless)

    Bykara January 21February 2 Cooking, Personal

    She was fearless in a way I didn’t fully appreciate until I was older …

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  • a cast iron skillet filled with lightly browned southern style cornbread

    Southern Style Cornbread

    Bykara January 20January 25 Cooking, Recipes

    This is my grandmother’s cornbread recipe, halved for smaller households. She made twice this amount in a 12-inch skillet, feeding a family of six plus whoever showed up at dinnertime (which in rural Texas was often neighbors, cousins, or people from church). This version makes enough for 4 people, or 2 people with leftovers for…

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  • The New Dietary Guidelines: I Hate Admitting They’re Not Completely Wrong

    The New Dietary Guidelines: I Hate Admitting They’re Not Completely Wrong

    Bykara January 18January 20 Food & Politics, Personal

    I’m going to say something that physically pains me to type: the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030, released by the Trump administration under RFK Jr.’s leadership at HHS, are not completely wrong about everything. There. I said it. I hate it. And now I need to explain why this makes me so uncomfortable. This…

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  • Garden Planning Season: Seeds, Dreams, and My Helper

    Garden Planning Season: Seeds, Dreams, and My Helper

    Bykara January 11May 12 Garden, House & Garden

    As I write this, it’s pouring down rain outside. And it’s WARM. I’m still salty about the fact that it’s January and we have daytime temperatures in the 70s. I really want some winter weather before winter is over. But it is mid-January. Seed catalogs have been flooding the mailbox since before Thanksgiving, and I’ve…

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