We broke ground on Mado, the third phase of neighborhood development at Serenbe this year. Focused on health, wellness and aging in place, Mado is hidden back in the woods, which is what I love most about it.

Normally Steve would take his car up there to check on construction and the sales team could show off its progress via electric golf cart. But neither of those are tough enough to navigate well in all the mud, new roads and natural roadblocks like, you know, giant tree limbs.

So Steve bought a Gator, a small all-terrain vehicle made by John Deere. To him, it’s functional—a means to getting where he wants to go. To the rest of us, it’s a cool new toy perfect for joyrides.

I’ve never been an off-road vehicle kind of person, but the Gator is way cool. It’s fast, it’s loud and doesn’t think twice about climbing uphill. The boys in what I call the Tribe—Kara’s fiancé Micah, Garnie’s friend Michael and her boyfriend Matty plus Matty’s best friend Lucas—started coveting it the day it arrived. When our new PR team visited from NYC and DC, Quinn, Garnie and Monica, our marketing manager, took them out for a spin.

Even the cows love it: A few got lost recently and we took it out to find them. Nothing gets away from the Gator.

Steve, the girls and I moved out of what is now the Inn at Serenbe in December of 2005. It started as a farmhouse, evolved into our home for 11 years, transitioned into a bed and breakfast and became, until a few weeks ago, a 19-room inn where people come from all over the world to stay and explore our community.

Over the past five years, demand and desire led to conversations about adding new rooms. Those talks turned into plans and dirt turned into nine additional rooms that opened late last month.

They’ve changed the whole dynamic of our sweet little Inn. I look around at all the housekeepers scurrying about and think, wow, we really are a hotel now. With upwards of 80 employees, it’s come so far beyond what started with Steve and I back in 1996.

Originally Quinn and I tackled the décor but managing everything from window treatments to Kleenex boxes quickly overwhelmed us. Quinn has the dubious honor of being liaison between contractors, decorators, Garnie (who’s in charge of the Inn), Steve and I. I’d mention some decision I’d made about marble bathrooms and she’d say, “Mother, did you allot for it in the budget? And I’d look at her like she’d descended from another planet. “Mother,” she’d say again, quite sternly. “We have to allot for it in the budget.”

One day I visited with longtime Atlanta designer Stan Topol, a dear friend who designed many of Steve’s restaurants in Atlanta and The Hil at Serenbe. On the way back, I texted Garnie and Steve: Why haven’t we called Uncle Stanley to help us? For Quinn and I, it’s a major undertaking. To him it’s old hat.

Stan came on board, waved his wand around and made magic. Then legendary landscape designer Ryan Gainey, who designed the original gardens when it was our home, joined on to do the garden. And just like that, we have 10,000 feet of new space, including a conference room that seats 110 for dinner and 170 theater-style.

This project has been our baby for so long. And the night before we opened it to the public, we stayed there with our babies—the first time we’d slept there together since we left 10 years ago. We toasted to their future with Champagne—the three girls will eventually own it together.

Visitors come and see soft beds and shiny new appliances. I look around and see my family’s past and my daughters’ future.

Kids Cooking Camp at Serenbe probably looks a bit different than other cooking camps. We don’t do pizza bagels. They don’t learn the finer points of macaroni and cheese or take their newfound knowledge of gummy worms sundaes back to their home kitchen.

We do kale. Actually, we did two kale dishes in one day.

Based off the success of last year’s camp, I did two weeks this year instead of one. One day we made create-your-own frittatas with different cheeses, onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, bacon, sausage and— that’s right—kale.

One day we did quick pickles: I set out kohlrabi, turnips and carrots and the kids wanted to know where the pickles were. It was a revelation to them that pickling is a process, not a product—and not always a cucumber.

I even brought back the blueberry cobbler, which was a huge hit last year for two reasons:

1. It’s delicious.

2. It ended with a homemade whipped cream fight on my front lawn. The fat from the cream stained my steps, but it makes for a hell of a story.

For the cobbler, the kids learned how to measure both dry and liquid ingredients and I got to find out who has real whipped cream at home and who has Cool Whip, which I call poison. You know my rule: If you can’t pronounce all the ingredients, you shouldn’t eat it.

But the first day was kale. We made one of my favorite comfort food dishes, sautéed kale over rice. We even did a rice tasting to see which one we liked best for the base (I’m partial to jasmine myself). They gobbled it up with this kale salad with oranges, almonds and a fresh orange vinaigrette.

Kale, orange and almond salad with orange vinaigrette

• 1 large bunch kale, washed, stemmed and torn into small pieces
• 2 navel oranges, pith removed and sliced
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds (pistachio can be substituted)
• Optional- thinly sliced vidalia onion

Place kale in large bowl and toss with the dressing. Taste and add salt if necessary.Divide the kale on 4 plates and top with oranges, onion and nuts

Orange Vinaigrette :

• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
• 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinaigrette
• 1/2-1 teaspoon kosher salt

Place all ingredients in a jar and shake. Or In a bowl and stir well.

Every year since its inception, Serenbe Playhouse does an all-ages play. Playhouse executive director Brian Clowdus started with The Jungle Book in 2010 and has since done The Ugly Ducking, Alice in Wonderland, The Velveteen Rabbit and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This year he chose The Secret Garden, not knowing it was my most favorite childhood play. I still have the book I loved as a little girl.

When I found out he was doing it, I was over the moon. It’s one thing to read it—which I have, over and over—and quite another to see it live. And of course Brian has taken it to another level and beyond.

When he did Wizard of Oz last year, Brian had a permanent yellow brick road installed in the animal village at the Inn where he staged the performance. For Secret Garden, he went scouting with Steve, who of course knew the perfect place flanked by two sister sycamores. With a bench set in-between them, they’re the cornerstones for the gorgeous garden Brian had installed. It’s like theater in the round, but you’re also in a garde.

I’ve seen it twice—on opening day and again on Father’s Day—and both times I felt like I was in a waking dream. Adapted by Rachel Teagle—who truly understood the magic of the story—this production marks the directorial debut of Playhouse artistic assistant Ryan Oliveti. When Ryan read the script, he contacted Rachel and said he wanted an animal in the play, so the robin—the one who leads Mary to the hidden key to the garden—has a speaking part.

I cried both times: The book I loved as a little girl means even more to me as an adult. The message of being transformed by nature speaks right to my heart and reminds me of the parents who tell me their children have gone off ADHD medicine since moving to Serenbe and being more active outdoors. I’m getting choked up again just thinking about it.

And now, thanks to Brian, we’ll always have a secret garden here at Serenbe. A little piece of England where this Anglophile can sit, dream and sip on my version of a Pimm’s Cup—one of my favorite summer cocktails. A little English and a little Southern, it includes Red Rock ginger ale, a slightly spicy Southern soda founded in Atlanta in 1885.

Marie’s Pimm’s Cup

• Serves 1
• ¼ cup Pimm’s
• 1 bottle Red Rock ginger ale
• 2 strawberries, sliced
• French mint leaves

Fill a tall glass with ice and pour in Pimm’s. Fill the rest of the glass with Red Rock ginger ale. Add strawberries and garnish with mint.

The Secret Garden runs through August 16. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Sundays in the English Garden at Serenbe. For more information, visit serenbeplayhouse.com.

My dear friend Nathalie Dupree—author of 14 cookbooks, host of more than 300 national and international cooking shows and recent inductee into the James Beard Foundation’s 2015 Who’s Who of Food & Beverage In America—inhales Diet Cokes. In the four decades I’ve known her, I’ve never seen water so much as touch her lips.

I tell her that stuff is going to kill her. She says, “No it’s not. I’m still here,” and at the next available opportunity, she finds a way to make fun of the fact that I don’t have a microwave.

It radiates the food, I tell her.

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does.”

“No. It really doesn’t.”

And so goes the banter every time she comes up from Charleston to host the Southern Chefs Series.

The beauty of Nathalie is that she’s done this so many times it’s second nature. Her classes are relaxed, fun and full of accessible food that everyone can make at home.

For lunch she did a pimento cheese tart with tomato on Pillsbury dough and at dinner she made a red pepper pork loin with a cold avocado soup that required zero cooking and was done in seconds.

It was delicious. She teased that I added too much salt, but I don’t think I did. Those Diet Cokes must be messing with her taste buds.

Cold Avocado Soup

•  2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled
• 1 cup chicken stock or broth
• 1 cup heavy cream or sour cream
• 1-2 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro or basil
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• Ground hot red pepper

Cut the avocados up roughly and move to a blender or food processor. Slowly add the chicken stock and puree until smooth.

Transfer to a bowl and whisk in the cream and herbs.

Season to taste with the lemon juice, salt, pepper and hot red pepper. Chill in a tightly covered container or serve immediately.

The next two Southern Chefs Series—Ford Fry and Art Smith—are sold out. Join us December 6-7 for Chris Hastings. Call 770.463.2610 for pricing and additional information.

When the girls were younger and all living at home, we had family dinner hour. Every Sunday through Thursday at 6:30 p.m. we turned off the TV, ignored the phone and sat down to dinner together.

We all had busy lives, but when we sat at the table we were there 100 percent. Everyone had to check in and everyone was heard. Tables are the great equalizers. No matter who’s older, has more power or money, when you’re all sitting at the table, everyone’s on the same level.

Our meal was always homemade—never take out. At that point, though Steve owned restaurants, but I really believe that one of the most important things you can do for the people you love is to prepare a meal with your own hands. That’s not to say dinner was elaborate—there was no chateaubriand or tableside Caesar salad presentation. But there was always a protein, starch and either two vegetables or one and a salad.

One of the girls’ favorite proteins, and something I still crave to this day, is cheese soufflé. People are intimidated by soufflés—the name alone sounds impossibly French and fancy—but I’m always like, get a grip, do you see how easy this is? There were many nights when I didn’t have a dinner plan, but I had eggs, milk and cheese.

It’s little more than whipping egg whites, making a béchamel and adding egg yolks. And don’t get hung up on the béchamel part either—that’s just butter, flour and milk. The most complex part about it is the timing. Soufflés bake up beautifully, but they fall quickly. I’d have the table set and everything else ready to go so I could pull them out and put them on the table the minute the time went off.

Now that the girls are grown and having dinner at their own tables, I’ll still bake up a soufflé when it’s just Steve and I, sometimes swapping out the cheddar for a mix of goat cheese and Parmesan. He and I go in so many different directions all day long and it’s nice to sit at the table, tuck into a steamy soufflé and feel our souls with sharing, our minds with conversation and our bodies with food that comes together in minutes and tastes like it took all day.

Fannie Farmer’s Cheese Soufflé

• Courtesy of James Beard
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• ½ cup scalded milk
• ½ teaspoon salt
• Few grains cayenne
• ½ cup grated Cheddar cheese
• 3 eggs separated

Melt the butter, add the flour, and when well mixed gradually add the scalded milk. Then add the salt, cayenne and cheese.

Remove from the fire; add the egg yolks beaten until lemon colored. Cool the mixture, fold in the egg whites beaten stiff but not dry. Pour into a buttered 1 ½ quart mold, and bake 30 to 35 minutes at 375 degrees.