Gina & Pat Neely
Thanks to my Italian heritage, I grew up in a house that was constantly cooking. I consider both of my parents to be excellent cooks, and I like to think that I inherited some of their talent. The cooking dynamics (at least for family holidays) has changes significantly in the last few years, since I have started carrying my own weight with the cooking. I am now responsible for side dishes on Thanksgivings and my Dad trusts me enough to bake Christmas desserts. This past Christmas, we tried making a pumpkin cheesecake recipe that my Dad got from the Food Network show “Down Home with the Neelys” and it was amazing. We were so excited by it that we proceeded to make the Neely’s BBQ sauce, BBQ spaghetti, pulled pork, and chili recipes in the weeks following Christmas. All of the dishes were delicious, simple to make, and all around just fun.
The show “Down Home with the Neely’s” focuses on Pat and Gina Neely. Pat is the co-owner of a number of incredibly popular BBQ restaurants with his brothers in Tennessee and married to Gina, his high school sweetheart. They are an absolute joy to watch cook together. They are not afraid to poke fun at one another, dance around, and even occasionally sing. You really get the sense that they are having a lot of fun with their cooking and that it’s a huge part of their lives. Since my Dad introduced to the show a few months ago, I’ve been bookmarking their recipes like crazy. And the few that I have made, I’ve been able to do on my own, in my apartment (which is most definitely not a fully stocked kitchen), and they have turned out fantastic. I’m used to food shows producing crazy recipes that use bizarre gadgets and never turn out right, so having all these Neely’s recipes turn out great is definitely a confidence booster for me and a testament to their homestyle cooking. This weekend, I’m going to attempt to create the pumpkin cheesecake I made with my Dad for Christmas on my own, but I’m not too worried since I haven’t failed with any of these recipes yet!
If you want to try some of the Neely’s recipes out for yourself, there is a huge selection of them online at the Food Network website. They also have a cookbook out called “Down Home with the Neelys: A Southern Family Cookbook” and their show airs on the Food Network almost every day of the week. Happy cooking!