Hello reader! On this day last year as I was driving my daughter Sara from Baton Rouge to the MSY airport in New Orleans, I ran an idea past her: Me: I’m thinking about a 20 questions blog series, one post each week for the year, and I’ll interview friends…” She: 20 questions is too long/will you be able to get that many people to interview?/will you be able to do this every week?

Valid questions from a smart girl. While I drove, she wrote the questions as I thought them up. Then we brainstormed a list of cooking friends from the different chapters of my life and the blog series was born. The exercise was just what I needed after spending the second half-plus of 2019 in what I call trauma timeout with my daughter Reilly who had a life-altering accident in May. Having spent most of my life in the kitchen and much of it cooking with friends and family, that ritual was lost (temporarily!) while Reilly healed in three hospitals from May to September.

Now she is healing at home and at 20 months and 21 surgeries and counting, the finish line is coming into view. Much of my healing has been in the kitchen where I can brew coffee in the morning, make meals around the clock, and every week, catch up with a friend and then cook their ‘20 minute’ recipe. Cooking is my therapy! I could keep going with interviewing friends into the next decade. For now, though, I shift my focus to a book to chronicle family and healing post-trauma. Of course there will be recipes to comfort and nourish!

I would like to thank everyone who played along with my interviews and all you readers for joining the fun. We now have a collection of simple recipes and some great ideas for restaurants, cookbooks, cooking schools, family traditions and more! Many many thanks and always Happy Cooking! ~~April

What’s your 20 minute recipe? Fresh squeezed orange juice. I was raised on it and the hum of the citrus juicer gets me giggling! I know a glass of sunshine is on the menu when I hear it. Living in Louisiana has the bonus of beautiful citrus all winter. When my husband challenged that this isn’t really a ‘recipe’ I reminded him of a quote he shared with me years ago from the great Spanish chef Ferran Adrià:

If you go home and you eat an apple, is that cooking? For me that's not because there's no aptitude as far as cooking goes. That might be gastronomy. Because if you want to eat it and enjoy it, make it pleasurable because it might be a really good apple, there might be some gastronomy aptitude there. But if you were to put that very same apple on a plate, for me that's cooking.

What’s your favorite city? Tough question! I love to explore and never dreamed I would leave my beloved Florida where I was born and lived until after college. It’s still home to me. To find myself now living just an hour from one of the world’s greatest food and music destinations is pretty dreamy! I’ll say New Orleans. Oh but I probably need an ocean so maybe San Diego where the weather is perfect and there’s sand, sunshine and saltwater, just a stone’s throw from Mexico.

What’s the best meal you’ve ever eaten in an airport? I had a HOT chicken sandwich with some pretty incredible french fries at Chicken + Beer in Atlanta, with iced tea.

Treasured find in the back of your fridge? Jar of pickled jalapenos from the farmer’s market.

Who taught you to cook? My mom! She was feeding a big family and everyone helped in the kitchen. As the youngest, I was her shadow. I say I was born in the kitchen.

What’s your go-to dish for company? We love to do some good Mexican food and no matter the menu, call it a fiesta! People go wild for the simplest well-cooked black beans and rice. I make them per Rick Bayless. The beans start with some almost-browned onion and the rice first gets sauteed with onion and olive oil before the liquid goes in.

What’s on your cooking playlist? I am the worst DJ! There is a world of amazing music at our fingertips and I’m not that great at navigating it. I do love some NPR and am happy to wash dishes to the tune of The Splendid Table. Also, streaming Mountain Stage always makes me smile! And at this moment it’s Todd Snider singing Sanity and Madness. That sums it up!

Coffee, tea, or Kombucha? Coffee! I’d rather not live without it. Brewing a pot in the morning is like stoking a fire.

Date night--at home? or out? Date night is almost always at home unless we’re traveling, and sometimes even then! Good bread, hunk of cheese, bottle of wine. When our girls were little, we would tuck them in by 8:00 and cook up a little storm together.

Most stained cookbook? I have a well-loved copy of Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen. It’s a textbook of all the ingredients and regions of Mexico and I read it like a novel when Chuck gave it to me for Mother’s Day in….1997! Now I have all but one of Rick’s cookbooks. Yes I am obsessed.

Surf? or Turf?. Surf! My love at first bite seafood was blackened mahi-mahi. I can pass on the mollusks unless it’s chargrilled oysters.

Indispensable kitchen tool? I have a tiny kitchen that’s well stocked with all the tools. I’d be lost without my collection of rubber scrapers and my long OXO tongs. When I moved to citrus-rich Louisiana, I got a Breville juicer that lives on the counter all winter long. It brings me such joy!

Staple childhood comfort food? Mom’s fried chicken.

Who would you most like to share a meal with? past, present or fictional? Long list. I’ll say Molly O’Neill who I have adored since long before she taught me to be a food writer. I’ve shared many meals with her which seems so implausible. She left us too soon. I am so grateful to have her voice in my head and for the community of Cook N Scribblers I met through Molly. I fantasize about a big reunion of all the people Molly could assemble at a never ending table.

Ideal grilled cheese? I’ll go with the classic white cheddar on good wheat with summer tomato. Cook it in the cast iron skillet with plenty of butter.

Favorite pizza topping? We’ve been making a spinach and garlic pizza since we first tasted this combo at Star Pizza in Houston as newlyweds. It’s always a hit! We have the good fortune of living two doors down from an outdoor wood oven. Pizza night al fresco is hard to beat!

Where would you want to take a cooking class? Can I go on a one year odyssey and take classes all around the world?

What’s your Counter Intelligence cooking tip? Cook with kids.

Three things next to your stove? My pretty butter dish from Anthropologie, Tabby’s fleur de lis spoon rest, big pitcher of tools.

Favorite Sports Team? I love my Florida Gators! Living next to LSU is exciting and I’ve become a fan unless they’re playing the Gators. It’s really fun rooting for the Saints, too!

Squeeze a glass of vitamin C and sunshine! Satsumas from the neighborhood pictured here for an almost neon shade of orange and cut in half on my favorite cutting board, a gift from my daughter Emma.

Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

Is it really a recipe?! Absolutely! It’s a day maker, a game changer, truly a luxury!

Gather some fresh citrus into a colander and give the fruit a good rinse. Cut in half through the horizon and squeeze with your juicing device of choice. Sip sunshine. Repeat. Refrigerate any extras in a mason jar for tomorrow morning. Happy Cooking!