Boston Baked Beans (my way)

My grandmother, while not from Boston, makes incredible baked beans. Every Christmas Eve, she hosts a buffet dinner and alongside the honey ham, parker house rolls, petit fours, Jelly Cake, potato salad and deviled eggs are her baked beans set on an old cast iron trivet in the antique clay pot she's been making them in since the 40's. Her beans are soft, a little sweet with an almost syrupy sauce. They go down easy.

Tasty Side: Warm Potato Salad with Cider Vinaigrette

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If Mayonnaise addiction were recognized as a sickness, then my mother would be in Mayo Anonymous. She'll eat mayonnaise in staggering amounts (Hellmann's of course) on everything from the normal - chicken sandwiches, potato salad, deviled eggs - to the severely abnormal - green salad, steak. Steak? Yes, in fact she'll eat mayo with any kind of meat if sour cream isn't available.

Tasty Sides: Southern Skillet Corn Bread

In college, one of my closest friends was always talking about these aunts and uncles that weren't actually related. I was totally confused since I grew up in a town where every relative lived within a five mile radius. There were so many of us, I didn't even know all of them and was often introduced to new cousins in random places such as the local Safeway or the country club.

Tasty Sides: Sweet Potato Latkes

I didn't celebrate Hanukkah until I met the hubby and even then it was more of a hey! Let's go eat some latkes sort of affair. Of course, as a convent school girl from Virginia, I hadn't eaten latkes before and let me tell you, it's a crying shame it took me 22 years to try them. Of course, my sister in law is Belarussian and she use to make potato pancakes, which are incredible, but they aren't latkes. They're in their own category and I plan on begging for the recipe soon.