Moms, daughters strengthen bonds over cooking lessons

Come supper time, memories weren’t enough for Racquel “Rockie” Sapp. The Snellville mother of three wanted to be able to cook like her mom.

“My kids are getting older,” Sapp said. “I have to learn how to fix them real food.”

Enlarge this image

Phil Skinner / pskinner@ajc.com

A new LifeTime network TV pilot called ‘Mom’s Cooking’ is filming in Atlanta and airs this week. (l-r) Host Joe Corsano jokes with of Taylor Vickers and her mother Mary Keown as they work together in Mary’s Dunwoody kitchen. The cooking show follows daughters as they surprise their mothers and learn how to prepare one of Mom’s recipes.

Enlarge this image

Brant Sanderlin/ bsanderlin@ajc.com

Linda C. Williams watches a monitor as her daughter, JaQuitta Williams is filmed by cameraman Peter Mariuzza during the taping of TV Show ‘Mom’s Cooking ’ at the home of JaQuitta Williams back in September.

Enlarge this image

BRANT SANDERLIN / bsanderlin@ajc.com

Linda Williams and daughter JaQuitta Williams prepared fried corn with fatback, brownies and turkey legs on ‘Mom’s Cooking.’

See recipes Moms shared with their daughters

Starting today, Sapp and nine other adult metro Atlanta daughters will be on Lifetime TV learning the recipes their mothers perfected.

“Mom’s Cooking,” airing at 11 and 11:30 a.m. weekdays over the next two weeks, will show an assortment of mothers going into their grown daughters’ kitchens in Atlanta and New York City to teach recipe favorites the daughters loved growing up.

The show has given these daughters another chance to learn from their mothers.

“She would come into the kitchen with me when she was little,” said Sapp’s mother, Antoinette Valiante. “But now her family depends on her.”

Taylor Vickers of Lawrenceville joked that she missed her mother Mary Keown’s “cooking gene.”

“I would like to be a better cook, and would like to learn” from Mom,” Vickers said.

So in Keown’s Dunwoody kitchen earlier this fall — in front of Lifetime cameras — a grateful Vickers learned to make her mother’s beef tenderloin and carrot cake.

From buying ingredients to sitting down to enjoy the final product with loved ones, the film crew followed the mother-daughter duos through two days of preparation in September and early October.

Jessica Samet, Lifetime vice president of reality programming, said “Mom’s Cooking” is about connections.

“It’s really about the story of these recipes and the bonds between mother and daughter,” Samet said. “I don’t know if there are that many shows on Food Network where you cry.”

A solemn JaQuitta Williams, former WSB-TV news anchor, said she cherished having a moment under the tutelage of her single mom, Linda Williams, to learn “what made her such a strong woman.”

The mom and daughter made the most of the time they spent together at JaQuitta’s southwest Atlanta home taping the show.

“I enjoyed bonding,” the older Williams said, noting the anxiety she’d had when her daughter was battling breast cancer. “This wasn’t always promised to us.”

And the pleasure of their relationship was evident. The pair sang together, threw food at the cameras and joked around as they cooked.

Vickers sad it was nice to focus on cooking for once. Because she is raising her autistic son, Jordan, 15, making big meals is not always a priority.

“I had so much to learn about autism that I didn’t have a lot of time for other things like cooking,” Vickers said.

The producers initially chose New York City mother-daughter pairings, but sought out Atlanta because of the diversity of food and people, Samet said.

“In Atlanta, there’s a wide range of recipes and cultures,” she said. “There’s also something interesting about Southern cooking to the rest of the country.”

Samet said she appreciated seeing mothers eager to help daughters like Rockie Sapp.

“The fact that she almost burned down her kitchen and gave up [cooking] … and her mom was like ‘It’s time,’ ” Samet said. “That’s what this is about.”

Sapp is just thankful for the help. “Otherwise,” she said, “my family’s going to be in trouble.”