Lisa from Paris, Kentucky, grew up eating a German Christmas cookie at a friend’s house in Miami, Florida. This deep-fried, bow-tie-shaped pastry was made with butter, lemon, and rum, and dusted with powdered sugar. The family called them...
A listener who grew up in Newfoundland remembers her grandfather declaring the fog was thick as burgoo. Turns out burgoo was sailors’ slang for a gray, gelatinous oatmeal—exactly the right image for an impenetrable Newfoundland fog. The word appears...
Chelsea from Louisville, Kentucky, is having a debate with her husband about how to pronounce antenna. She’s from Chicago, Illinois, and he’s from Louisville. She pronounces the second syllable to sound like the word ten, while he pronounces that...
Cathy from Lexington, Kentucky, recalls visiting her grandparents in Pennsylvania and enjoying a special treat: toast with coffee, cream, and sugar on it, which they called something like Hotty Tootie. That name is likely related to hot toddy...
George Ella Lyon is a former Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Her poem “Receiving” is a touching meditation on holding a squirming newborn and the complex emotions it evokes. Martha reads the poem from Lyon’s collection Back to the Light (Bookshop|Amazon)...
Chrissie in Arlington, Virginia, has fond memories of her family playing bridge together. Whenever a trick with four cards that included an ace, a two card, a three card, and a four card was played, her grandmother would chuckle and say, Ace, two...

