Someone—Rusty Spencer doesn’t recall who—gave him the recipe for Calico Beans about 15 years ago. He’d like to thank the person. “It is a sweet chili that tastes great and has always been a hit at neighborhood and family get-togethers,“ said Spencer, who lives in Henrico County.

Achili’s worth, many believe, can be found in its “gravy,“ the dish’s liquid foundation. “With this vegetarian chili recipe,“ writes Jason Guard, aka RVA Foodie, “you’ll get a soul-warming gravy that goes great with cornbread, and you’ll find a uniquely memorable texture in the form of tenderized peanuts.“ When I put out a call for favorite chili recipes, Guard, who maintains a food blog—http://caramelizedopinions.blogspot.com—came through with Peanut Chili, a recipe he discovered some years ago in Vegetarian Times magazine and has adapted over the years.

Reader Mahlet Bluford wrote awhile back, asking for a recipe for corn pudding. “I am looking for Ukrop’s corn pudding recipe or one similar to it,“ she wrote. “I make corn pudding, but I can never get the consistency quite right. My corn pudding is tasty, but liquid from the corn and milk fills the dish once I scoop the corn pudding out for serving.“

Jinfeng Han’s Chinese New Year’s Baked Salmon

When the words don’t come, Richmond author Mary Burton turns on the oven. “It’s my delaying tactic,“ Burton said with a laugh about baking. “The running joke is, you can tell how the writing’s going by the number of cupcakes on the counter.“ Burton, who has written historical romances and these days focuses on romantic suspense novels, came up with a recipe for lemon-cherry teacake cookies while working on “Christmas Past,“ a novella for “Silver Bells,“ a collection of four short novels by Burton and three other authors. “Silver Bells” spent several weeks on The New York Times best-seller list.

Sally Newton offered a family favorite for a request from reader Rebecca McGeorge for raisin cookies with a biscuitlike dough. The recipe came from Newton’s mother-in-law, Violet Newton, who lived in New Hampshire and always kept homemade cookies on hand, which, Sally Newton said, “probably accounts for her four children and three grandchildren being ‘cookie monsters’ today.“

Recipe exchange