Dalton mom and daughter featured on cooking show on Wednesday

Jamie Jones

When Lori Beth Edgeman was in elementary school — maybe 8 or 9 years old — she got caught up in the Christmas spirit. She wanted to buy her friends and family expensive presents.

Her mother, Caren Sikes, had another idea. Instead of spending a great deal of money on presents from stores, they would make a family recipe that had been passed down through the generations and give them as gifts.

Edgeman was a bit distraught, thinking her friends and family wouldn’t want teacakes for Christmas. But after they tasted the “biscuit-like sugar cookies topped with yummy homemade icing,” as Edgeman describes them, the teacakes became an instant holiday hit.

“They went over so big that her friends started wanting them the next month,” Sikes recalled. “By the time Christmas came around the next time, they had been talked about so much that she could not wait to make them. So I drove her around to deliver them Christmas week — I’ll never forget the way she did — she got out of the car and skipped to every door.”

Now, their love for cooking will be featured on television. Mother and daughter will appear on an episode of Lifetime’s reality show “Mom’s Cooking” Wednesday at 11 a.m. The series, which debuted on Monday, takes viewers inside a mother’s kitchen to show how to cook a favorite recipe from childhood. The teacakes recipe was created by Sikes’ great grandmother but it has been tweaked over the years. Sikes also teaches Lori Beth how to make biscuits and gravy and sausage on the show.

Not only will the Dalton natives appear cooking in Sikes’ home in the Murray Hill historic district, other parts of the town may be featured. The camera crew came to Dalton in September. While here, they followed Sikes and Edgeman around the Green Spot supermarket as they shopped for ingredients. The crew also taped other scenes from around Dalton.

Edgeman, now 33, isn’t a stranger to television. She’s had a prolific acting career, appearing in “3: The Dale Earnhardt Story” as Latane Brown, the first wife of the NASCAR racing legend, “Warm Springs” and “A Dance For Bethany.” Her latest role is in the CBS Hallmark Movie of the Week “Front of the Class,” which debuts Sunday at 9 p.m.

Edgeman admits she doesn’t watch much reality television — she does enjoy shows with a story such as “Extreme Home Makeover” — and said being on the program was “very different” than her acting experiences.

Edgeman’s talent agency told her about the show, so she wrote a letter about cooking with her mother and sent it to Lifetime. A few months later, she received word she had been picked.

“This is a very sweet show in telling mother/daughter stories and why they have bonded in the kitchen, what makes their relationship special,” Edgeman said. “That’s why it called out to me. It was also something sweet to do with my mom.”

Since Sikes had never appeared on television, she’s anxious to see how the show plays out and jokes about not embarrassing herself — or her family. Kerry Sikes, Edgeman’s father, will watch the show along with Caren and their daughter Wednesday morning.

“We just wonder what we’re going to be like,” Sikes said. “My husband just laughs. He says, ‘Well, Caren, just think about it: They tape for two days and 10 minutes will be commercials. It’s only 30 minutes, surely out of two days there will be 20 minutes of something.’”

One scene Edgeman and Sikes hope makes the cut are four generations, including Sikes’ mother Avanelle Ivester and Edgeman’s infant daughter Emery, sitting at the dining room table. They would love to show Emery the footage when she’s older.

And they also look forward to showing Emery how to make the teacakes.

Lifetime is on Charter channel 30 and Optilink channel 36.