Necessary Goodness: Delicious Cuisine for Gathering and Entertaining 2023

In Necessary Goodness, four cooks and authors impart experience and wisdom gained from a half-century of cooking. The contributors include a white house chef, presidential diarist, former director of presidential personnel, and an award-winning author and government official. The book is especially useful to women and men who lead busy lives and seek ways to make everyday life as simple and enjoyable as possible for their families and loved ones.

The contributors to this book are from diverse backgrounds, with a few common denominators - a love for good food, for cooking, and for sharing our love of cooking with others. In Necessary Goodness, you will meet Charlie Santoina Redden, Jr., aka "Master Chef Charlie," the first Certified Executive Chef in the history of the White House Presidential Food Service. A retired Navy Culinary Specialist, Chef Charlie credits invaluable mentors for his career guidance the culinary field.

Eartha S. Dunston is an award-winning author, a career public servant, and a quintessential southern cook. Her culinary journey began with her standing in a chair at the stove helping her father stir up a traditional southern breakfast at the age of three. Her maternal grandparents were both professional cooks. She learned her way around the kitchens where gumbo was made from fresh-caught Gulf seafood. Eartha is known for serving up traditional southern Sunday meals for her family and friends.

Janis F. Kearney and Bob J. Nash are native Arkansans whose love of cooking began in their respective homes; Janis, in the small southeast Arkansas delta town of Gould; and for Bob, a place considered the cross between the south and the west, Texarkana, Arkansas. Janis actually became her mother's helper in the home and the kitchen at the age of nine; helping her mother care for and cook for the large number of Kearney children. Bob's cooking began during his teen years as he began to seek work to make extra spending money.

The recipes are a cross between meals found in America's south, middle America and the East Coast. The recipes include:

SOUPS, SALADS & CHILI

Cream of Lobster and Crabmeat Soup

Seafood Tri-colored Pasta Salad

BREADS

Southern Jalapeno-Onion Cornbread

Sweet Butter Dinner Rolls

ENTREES

Grilled Teriyaki Lamb Chops

Chicken Breast Stuffed with Lump Crabmeat

Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Grilled Vegetables

FISH AND SEAFOOD

Arkansas Delta Fried Catfish

Easy Shrimp Creole

Southern-fried Mackerel Croquet

Grilled Sword Fish Steaks with Mango Salsa

SIDES

Bourbon Baked Beans and Smoked Sausage

Bahamian Macaroni and Cheese

Southern Style Seasoned Collard Greens

DESSERTS

Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Lemon Icing

Apple Pie Topped with French Vanilla Ice Cream