Lorraine Eaton

I was raised in the South by New Yorkers who never knew a grease-splattered stove. But while my parents were pining for hard rolls and bagels (then no where to be found in coastal Virginia), I was over at my best friend Kim Ann's house acquiring a taste for shredded pork doused in vinegar and hot sauce -- her grandaddy owned a barbecue company and there was always plenty of it on hand.

On sweltering summer days, my brother and I rode our bikes two miles to the 7-Eleven store, where we bought bags of salty peanuts, dumped them into bottles of "co-cola" and savored the salty-sweet sensation. And as a college send-off, my dad dumped a couple of bushes of steamed jimmies onto the backyard picnic table, and we had a crab pickin' that lasted into the next day.

I grew up in an Eden, and didn't even know it. Now, I'm the food writer, AKA "staff epicure, at Virginia's largest newspaper. In the "Food Lover's Guide to Virginia," I'm glad to share all the flavors that chefs and cooks across my state are sending out of their kitchens -- from the ramps harvested in the mountains to Brunswick Stew to rockfish fresh from the Chesapeake Bay.