Lisa Brown

“I had to get used to short order cooking here,” said Lisa Brown, when she started at Pizza Palace in Bruce over a year ago with Bill and Voula Kakales.
She is from Calhoun City, but previous to that, spent three years in New Orleans where she cooked at the Hilton. She prepared such dishes as Shrimp and Grits, Gumbo, and Red Beans and Rice.
“Everything is Cajun and spicy. You have to have crab and shrimp in gumbo,” she said, and “shrimp and grits is the bomb.”
At Pizza Palace, her favorites are Chicken Parmesan and the Johnny’s Special pizza with Greek cheese, onions and sausage.

Lisa learned to cook from her mother, Lena Brown of Big Creek. She stayed in the kitchen with her while growing up, “but I still cannot cook those biscuits. I gave up!” Homemade gravy, yes, but not the biscuits.
She doesn’t cook much during the week, but has a big dinner on Sundays.
“Everything I have had a taste for all week, that is what I cook on Sunday.”

“I just cook. I don’t measure. And I am always switching up stuff,” she said.
She likes to cook different things and trying new recipes, and her family will eat them, too.
Google is where she likes to search for new recipes, and she will usually follow one the first time before she changes it.

Spaghetti is the favorite of  son, Dominique Glaspie, and she uses hot roll sausage along with the hamburger meat when making it.
“I had three boys so I had to cook. A box of Hamburger Helper didn’t fill them up,” she said.

Corn Soup
(Chelsea Bryant)
1 pint Half and Half
1 lb. sausage
1 can cream of potato soup
1 can cream of onion soup
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can cream style corn

Cook sausage until brown, then drain. Add Half and Half, cream style corn and whole kernel corn, cream of onion, cream of potato soups to pan. Add sausage, then black pepper to taste. Let simmer 30 minutes.

Quick & Easy Peach Cobbler
2 large cans peaches
Dash cinnamon
Dash nutmeg
2 cups granulated sugar
2 boxes roll out pie crust
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 stick butter
Bring peaches to boil and add in cinnamon, nutmeg, teaspoon vanilla and two cups sugar. Boil 15 minutes. Take pie crust, flatten in pan and sprinkle with cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg. Put in oven and bake for 15 minutes. Pour peaches in pan. Use remaining pie crust over the top of cobbler. Sprinkle top with cinnamon, sugar nutmeg and one stick butter. Bake for one and a half hours on 350°.

Red Beans
1 large onion
1 green pepper
1 lb. red beans
1 lb. smoked sausage
1 lb. pig tails
1 clove of garlic
1 bay leaf
2 Tbsp. cooking oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Rinse and sort beans. Boil pig tails until they come to  about 20 minutes. Drain and rinse. Add chopped ingredients to pot. Let boil about an hour. Add pig tails and smoked sausage. Cook until done.