Sweetie's Sweet Potato Casserole
Chef and restaurateur Kelsey Barnard Clark shares her great-grandmother's Thanksgiving recipe.
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Thanksgiving has never been a sit-down affair for chef and restaurateur Kelsey Barnard Clark. When she was growing up in Dothan, Alabama, her parents owned a beach house on the state's Gulf Coast, where both sides of the family would meet up on the holiday weekend. "We didn't set a table. Instead, about 30 of us would eat on paper plates with our legs dangling off a dock," Clark says. "It was a loud, casual, fun, and absolutely magical potluck."
The undisputed star of the show? Sweetie's Sweet Potato Casserole, named after Mildred Rayford Buckhaults, who was called Sweetie by her family (including her great-granddaughter Kelsey Barnard Clark). "My great-grandmother made this every year, and we have all carried on the tradition. It actually tastes of sweet potatoes and is speckled with orange throughout—a refreshing contrast to the very sugary, more processed versions that many in the South typically dote on," says Clark.
Read more about Clark's Thanksgiving traditions and her family matriarchs here.