From the editor: December 2024
November 30, 2024
Holiday traditions are funny — quirky even, sometimes.
Growing up, I remember my aunt and my mom making Japanese fruitcakes, our annual shopping trip to Raleigh, and driving out to my grandma’s country house on Christmas Eve. The food was as southern as it gets and always included my grandmother’s fried chicken. I vividly recall her well into her 80s, hunched over the frying pan — because she wouldn’t let anyone else make it. The night always ended with my cousins, all older boys, running around outside, likely after consuming too much sugar, and shooting off fireworks — a most bizarre holiday tradition in North Carolina, I admit, but that’s a story for another day.
At home, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, my mom and I baked — sugar cookies, cheese straws, seafoam candy and whatever crazy-complicated recipes I’d clipped from my mom’s stack of magazines that year. Let me tell you, Instagram has nothing on a vintage Southern Living cover laden with holiday cakes, cookies and pies bathed in the soft glow of Christmas lights. I’ve never really had much of a sweet tooth, but those images were mesmerizing — I still dream about a meringue-topped baked “brownie” Alaska we never got to make.
When I got older, I’d have friends over and continue the baking tradition. The desserts never turned out quite like the photos. But eventually I realized that didn’t matter. It was really about spending time together with family and friends. The treats were consumed quickly, but the memories still linger.
Happy holidays, and cheers to 2025! SP
CATHY MARTIN
Editor
editor@southparkmagazine.com
IN THIS ISSUE:
1 – Writer Krisha Chachra and her friend, Verena Martin, in Mayakoba, Mexico
2 – A pastry from Community Matters Café
3 – The site of the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Cemetery off Colony Road, where a proposed restoration project will create a new community space
4 – An eggplant dish at DOZO. Learn how to make their okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancake)
