My Story

Louisiana-born Susan Apple Graass was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show with her award-winning State Fair of Texas’ Blue Ribbon Lemon Cake, baked 3,000 petits fours for the VIP Party of Super Bowl XLV, and competed on the Food Network show, Bobby’s Dinner Battle with Grace-anne Greenblatt where they were awarded “Best Home Cooks of Dallas”.

Susan grew up cooking in her mom, Billie’s kitchen for a houseful of company, raising chickens, gardening with her father, sewing with her sisters, Cindy and Sandra, cooking big pots of Red Bean and Rice, planning family reunions, and visiting her Texas cousins down on Hornsby Bend. Simple times. Good times. The Louisiana lifestyle enriched by the community of cousins, neighbors, and friends . . . real community . . . with lots of love and happy feelings!

During her junior year at Texas Christina University, Susan declared her major as geology. For sure, she was on track to graduate in four years with a possibility of going into business with her father, Boots Apple, a petroleum engineer. During her spare time at TCU, she cooked, sewed, and sketched new fashion designs. When Susan’s interest in Geology began to wane, she enrolled in cooking, sewing and pattern-drafting college classes. It was a turning point. With her original dress designs, Susan launched a startup in her TCU dorm room, sold dresses out of the trunk of her car, and graduated on time. Over a 20-year period, the little startup grew to a thriving apparel business with annual sales of one million dollars.

While cooking for her family of six for 20 + years, Susan blended her passion for cooking and TCU Home Economics degree to test new cooking techniques, ingredients and kitchen equipment. These proved to be helpful in “Getting dinner on the table”.

Over the years, Susan has enjoyed planning neighborhood block parties, celebrating birthdays, planning decorations for VNA’s Celebrity Chef, planning TCU Alumni parties, and cooking with The Boys & Girls Club. These are a few of the ways she has duplicated her fondest childhood memories while striving to unite communities with lots of love and happy feelings!

After Oprah’s show, Susan was inspired to start a blog, www.susanapple.com. In 2018, it morphed into www.mytexaskitchen.com.

Susan Apple Graass has served on the Texas Christian University Alumni Board. She is a member of Junior League of Dallas, National Charity League, P.E.O. and Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Since 2011, her business has been certified with the Women’s Business Council.

Susan loves cooking, baking, designing, gardening, photography, Texas history, discovering restaurants and farmers markets across the country, and spending time with her husband, Jim Graass and their children, James, Catherine, JT, and Ben.

Louisiana-born Susan Apple Graass was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show with her award-winning State Fair of Texas’ Blue Ribbon Lemon Cake, baked 3,000 petits fours for the VIP Party of Super Bowl XLV, and competed on the Food Network show, Bobby’s Dinner Battle with Grace-anne Greenblatt where they were awarded “Best Home Cooks of Dallas”.

Susan grew up cooking in her mom, Billie’s kitchen for a houseful of company, raising chickens, gardening with her father, sewing with her sisters, Cindy and Sandra, cooking big pots of Red Bean and Rice, planning family reunions, and visiting her Texas cousins down on Hornsby Bend. Simple times. Good times. The Louisiana lifestyle enriched by the community of cousins, neighbors, and friends . . . real community . . . with lots of love and happy feelings!

During her junior year at Texas Christina University, Susan declared her major as geology. For sure, she was on track to graduate in four years with a possibility of going into business with her father, Boots Apple, a petroleum engineer. During her spare time at TCU, she cooked, sewed, and sketched new fashion designs. When Susan’s interest in Geology began to wane, she enrolled in cooking, sewing and pattern-drafting college classes. It was a turning point. With her original dress designs, Susan launched a startup in her TCU dorm room, sold dresses out of the trunk of her car, and graduated on time. Over a 20-year period, the little startup grew to a thriving apparel business with annual sales of one million dollars.

While cooking for her family of six for 20 + years, Susan blended her passion for cooking and TCU Home Economics degree to test new cooking techniques, ingredients and kitchen equipment. These proved to be helpful in “Getting dinner on the table”.

Over the years, Susan has enjoyed planning neighborhood block parties, celebrating birthdays, planning decorations for VNA’s Celebrity Chef, planning TCU Alumni parties, and cooking with The Boys & Girls Club. These are a few of the ways she has duplicated her fondest childhood memories while striving to unite communities with lots of love and happy feelings!

After Oprah’s show, Susan was inspired to start a blog, www.susanapple.com. A year ago, it morphed into www.mytexaskitchen.com.

Susan Apple Graass has served on the Texas Christian University Alumni Board. She is a member of Junior League of Dallas, National Charity League, P.E.O. and Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Since 2011, her business has been certified with the Women’s Business Council.

Susan loves cooking, baking, designing, gardening, photography, Texas history, discovering restaurants and farmers markets across the country, and spending time with her husband, Jim Graass and their children, James, Catherine, JT, and Ben.

My Story

Louisiana-born Susan Apple Graass was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show with her award-winning State Fair of Texas’ Blue Ribbon Lemon Cake, baked 3,000 petits fours for the VIP Party of Super Bowl XLV, and competed on the Food Network show, Bobby’s Dinner Battle with Grace-anne Greenblatt where they were awarded “Best Home Cooks of Dallas”.

Susan grew up cooking in her mom, Billie’s kitchen for a houseful of company, raising chickens, gardening with her father, sewing with her sisters, Cindy and Sandra, cooking big pots of Red Bean and Rice, planning family reunions, and visiting her Texas cousins down on Hornsby Bend. Simple times. Good times. The Louisiana lifestyle enriched by the community of cousins, neighbors, and friends . . . real community . . . with lots of love and happy feelings!

During her junior year at Texas Christina University, Susan declared her major as geology. For sure, she was on track to graduate in four years with a possibility of going into business with her father, Boots Apple, a petroleum engineer. During her spare time at TCU, she cooked, sewed, and sketched new fashion designs. When Susan’s interest in Geology began to wane, she enrolled in cooking, sewing and pattern-drafting college classes. It was a turning point. With her original dress designs, Susan launched a startup in her TCU dorm room, sold dresses out of the trunk of her car, and graduated on time. Over a 20-year period, the little startup grew to a thriving apparel business with annual sales of one million dollars.

While cooking for her family of six for 20 + years, Susan blended her passion for cooking and TCU Home Economics degree to test new cooking techniques, ingredients and kitchen equipment. These proved to be helpful in “Getting dinner on the table”.

Over the years, Susan has enjoyed planning neighborhood block parties, celebrating birthdays, planning decorations for VNA’s Celebrity Chef, planning TCU Alumni parties, and cooking with The Boys & Girls Club. These are a few of the ways she has duplicated her fondest childhood memories while striving to unite communities with lots of love and happy feelings!

After Oprah’s show, Susan was inspired to start a blog, www.susanapple.com. In 2018, it morphed into www.mytexaskitchen.com.

Susan Apple Graass has served on the Texas Christian University Alumni Board. She is a member of Junior League of Dallas, National Charity League, P.E.O. and Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Since 2011, her business has been certified with the Women’s Business Council.

Susan loves cooking, baking, designing, gardening, photography, Texas history, discovering restaurants and farmers markets across the country, and spending time with her husband, Jim Graass and their children, James, Catherine, JT, and Ben.