039 "I Thought My Mother Was the Strongest Woman in the World" with Cheryl Norris

When Cheryl, an engineer by profession and also the blogger behind Bakes by Brown Sugar, and contestant on Great American Bakeoff Season 4, contacted me, it was the words she wrote about her mother that made me set up an interview as quickly as possible.

Several years after moving to Portland, OR in the 1940’s, Cheryl’s mother was a single parent of 7 kids, a self-employed seamstress, raising Cheryl, the baby of the family, all while also helping raise her grandkids. Cheryl writes, “Despite the poverty, mom always cooked amazing food with the simplest tools. I know her love was expressed in the food that she made and shared.”

Thrilled to welcome Cheryl to the podcast and to share her mother’s deceptively simple Kentucky Butter Cake, so good it’s worth burning your fingers to get the first syrup-soaked piece.