My palate and my table are in a state of Corn Utopia this week~ a place where these little kernels are bursting with the sweet flavor of summer.
I borrowed my mother-in-law’s Fitz and Floyd Corn Pitcher, Salt & Pepper Shakers and last but not least, Butter Dish, for summer’s sweetest vegetable~ and the essence of the season~ at its peak of flavor & availability now.
I picked maize-colored placemats with a kernel-like texture at Kohl’s and shucked napkins from the shelves at Beth Bath & Beyond~
An Edible Book Review inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Chased the Moon welcomes you to her newest locale: Walls of Water, North Carolina, where the secrets are thicker than the fog from the town’s famous waterfalls, and the stuff of superstition is just as real as you want it to be.”
I’m long overdue in sharing this book that I read back in April~
I always look forward to Sarah Addison Allen’s books~ I had pre-ordered it, anxious for its arrival. It was waiting for me like a nice, juicy peach ready for me to sink my teeth into, when I returned from vacation. I took these photos and cooked this book back when the azaleas were blooming, and although I had shelvedthis review, I didn’t shelvethis book until after I read it cover-to-cover in two days. . . one day if I hadn’t had to unpack & bathe :-)
My intention was to take a little road trip to tie in to this review, and visit Transylvania County in Western North Carolina ~ the area that the town of Walls of Water is based on, and home to over 250 waterfalls. It became apparent that was not going to happen and though it’s still on my list to visit, it looks more like it will be the fall when the weather is not in the triple digits.
The long-buried secrets and mysteries of The Peach Keeper continued to haunt me to return to it & Walls of Water ever since~ most recently by an article in Our State Magazine.
Full of North Carolina native, Sarah Addison Allen’s trademarks~ magic, small town charm, and FOOD~ The Peach Keeper is easy to devour in one sitting~ and is a great book to tuck in your beach bag or keep by your night stand.
In keeping with this book, I set a simple table where peaches are the stars. Peach blossom-inspired napkin rings from Pier 1, napkins from Stein Mart, Napoleon Bee flatware for the buzzing of the bees & a tablecloth from Kohl’s~
“A cool breeze floated eerily by, smelling of peaches.”
“If anyone had been paying attention to the signs, they would have realized that air turns white when things are about to change, that paper cuts mean there’s more to what’s written on the page than meets the eye, and that birds are always out to protect you from things you don’t see.”
“There was a slight hint of peaches in the air, but it didn’t scare her.”
Tucker Devlin:
“What I know, what I’m best at, is peaches. Peach juice swims in my veins. When I bleed, it’s sweet. Honeybees fly right to me.”
“He looked like the world was a ripe peach and he was ready to bite it.”
There was plenty totempt my palate between these pages~ Oatmeal Cookies with Coffee Icing, Double Chocolate Espresso Brownies, Lemon-Chicken Salad, Lemon and Broccoli Mini-Quiches, Angel Food Cake, Honeymoon Pie. . .but it just seemed criminal not to use peaches in this edible review~
“Cups of lemon crème layered with hazelnut shortbread crumbles, pansies, lavender, and lemon verbena.”
I layered peaches, store-bought hazelnut shortbread cookies, lemon curd & whipped cream~ and garnished with edible violas for an individual, easy trifle~
“Lunch was then served, beautiful food garnished with edible roses and tasting of lavender and mint and lust. People closed their eyes with each bite, and the air turned sweet and cool. The quartet played ravishing melodies that were strange and exotic. There was a curious sense of longing in the air, and everyone felt it. People began to think of old loves and missed opportunities. Unlike most of these functions, no one wanted to leave. Lunch lingered for hours.”
“So it was with Claire Waverley, a beautiful, mysterious caterer who it was rumored could make your rivals jealous, your love life better, your senses stronger, all with the food she created. Her specialty was edible flowers, and once it got out that she had something no one else had, everyone wanted her.”
I highly recommend sipping on a Peach Bellini on a Saturday or Sunday morning as you read this book :-)
Paxton:
“ ‘Can you really make people feel differently with the food you cook, with the drinks you prepare?’ ”
A savory recipe for your peaches~ A Stacked Peach & Mozzarella Salad~
Served with baby spinach and a cilantro-lime vinaigrette~ Delicious & definitely a Keeper recipe :-)
“Just as they turned to walk back up the steps, the scent of peaches permeated the air for a moment, thick and cloying, before it faded into the night, crossing the moon in a wisp of smoke, then disappearing.”
“Resonant with insight into the deep and lasting power of friendship, love, and tradition, The Peach Keeper is a portrait of the unshakable bonds that—in good times and bad, from one generation to the next—endure forever.”
“North Carolina novelist Sarah Addison Allen brings the full flavor of her southern upbringing to bear on her fiction — a captivating blend of fairy tale magic, heartwarming romance, and small-town sensibility.”
Thank you for your visit, I’m happy to be joining :
I wasthrilled to have found lilac bundles at Trader Joe’s about six weeks ago, which was the inspiration for this table~ a surprise as delightful to me as their fragrance~ and the only way to enjoy them here since our climate is too warm for them to grow.
I pulled out my Mikasa Daylight Dinnerware for this table~ instead of dining with butterflies, I’m feasting on quilted fields of flowers with the lilacs~
Little clusters of flowers on the lilacs diffuse their heady fragrance, that I arranged with white hydrangeas and the new, green blooms of Chinese snowball viburnum for a centerpiece~
I love the viburnum’s first lime-hued blooms, that appear before they transition to white. . .their arrival holding the promise of the flowers to come. . .
. . .and whose blooms are the same vibrant shade of the leaves on my Mikasa Daylight pattern~ a hue that reminds me of the energetic, new growth of spring~ trailing across the plates, winding their way inside the bowls & outside the cups.
Since our style is relaxed at the lake, quilts are my table covering of choice~ since they serve double-duty on beds as well as the table and best of all . . .don’t require ironing :-)
A few open-face cucumber sandwiches garnished with the last of the violas (organic!) and basil leaves for fresh-from-the- garden flavor~
A flavorful as well as colorful combination of strawberries, nectarines, feta cheese, green tomatoes, glazed pecans, and fresh basil~ on a bed of mixed baby salad greens~
This 5- Star rated recipe is served with Lemon-Poppy Seed Dressing. Not a huge fan of Poppy Seed Dressing, we enjoy Balsamic or Raspberry Vinaigrette on this salad. Adding chicken from a deli roaster, would make this an entrée salad to be enjoyed in hot weather without heating up the kitchen!
“What makes lilacs treasured is not the years they can accumulate, however, but the beauty of their flowers, which come just as the last memory of winter and its ice and snow and barrenness are passing away in the May sun. They flower exuberantly then, hundreds of cobs of bloom appearing over gaunt, gray trunks. That conjunction is itself an emblem of the renewal of the year, but we wonder whether without the fragrance peculiar to lilacs they would matter so much.”
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, where pages from your book magically mix with the kitchen and your camera~
And Jenny Matlock for Alphabe-Thursday~ this week’s letter assignment is the letter J~
A compendium & all-in-one guide to a Joyous Season, this book covers decorating all through the house, preparing a feast for the senses~ with table settings & centerpieces that are cause for celebration.
More than 340 kitchen-tested recipes
18 complete menus, perfect, for any time of year
Nearly 400 full-color recipes
Over 100 seasonal how-tos and decorating ideas
If you’re looking for inspiration, you can find celebration menus for your family & guests . . . memorable menus with festive updates to traditional favorites~
12 Menus of Christmas for Entertaining with Ease~ with make-ahead options and over 80 recipes. . .
A Beef Tenderloin Repast, Turkey with All the Trimmings, An English Feast, A Roasted Lamb Dinner, A Southern Holiday Supper & A Tuscan Dinner Party to name a few. . .
I chose a few recipes from the Christmas Express section where you can be party-ready in minutes~ with recipes featuring make-ahead or time-saving twists.
Peach and Pecan Tapenade with Goat Cheese~
A traditional French condiment with a Southern twist with pecans and dried peaches. Make ahead omitting nuts, cover & store in fridge up to 2 days. Stir in nuts before serving. If you’re not a fan of goat cheese, you can always substitute mascarpone or cream cheese.
Make the tartlets ahead and freeze them in the plastic trays sealed in zip-top freezer bags.
Countdown to Christmas Dinner. . .’Tis the Season for Family Gatherings & Good Food~
Enjoy Crab & Oyster Bisque, Cabbage & Apple Salad with Roasted Onions, Coffee-Crusted Beef Wellingtons, Cast-Iron Herbed Potatoes Anna, Carrots with Country Bacon, Scalloped Greens, Cardamom-Scented Sweet Potato Pie & Chocolate Tiramisu Charlotte~
Prepare the whole menu, or just pick a recipe or two!
Honey-Peppered Goat Cheese with Fig Balsamic Drizzle, recipe here.
Another make ahead appetizer with big flavor, but you’ll also find make ahead recipes for Bourbon BBQ Baby Back Ribs, Boeuf Bourguignon, Twice-Baked Smoky Sweet Potatoes, & Citrus Cheesecake. . .
A sweet ending to your meal that is sure to tempt your tastebuds~ Cheesecake-Stuffed Dark Chocolate Cake~
I’ve not made this but it is on my list for an impressive dessert. . . while it is not make-ahead, it’s express in the sense that it uses cake mix, canned frosting, frozen cheesecake bites & a jar of caramel sauce.
Gifts from the Heart—share the spirit of the season with cleverly packaged gifts from the kitchen. From the Quick-Fix Food Gifts section, Marinated Cheese & Olives~
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, where pages from your book magically mix with the kitchen and your camera~
I loved this little book and the journey embarked on with ‘Hope and a Hammer’~
I have a love of found objects or fragments with a history that are repurposed, preserved, and elevated to a new and important status. It gives me the warm fuzzies when something is given a second life and I enjoy wondering about its former life, imagining the stories it could tell.
A Very Modest Cottage is an inspiring little book about the author’s rehab journey restoring a small 1920’s tourist cabin. Where others saw a dilapidated, broken shell of building, with rotting log siding and missing roof shingles, she saw potential. Fueled with optimism, fond memories from her childhood, and a lot of coffee, with the help of her brother & husband~ they relocated it 245 miles from its home of fifty years, where it sat next to grandmother’s house, in a small farming community in Illinois.
Believing “when you have an emotional attachment to something, it can never be too far gone”, the relocating to refurbishing process took three short months. Restored to its modest former glory, the little roadside motorlodge cabin now resides on the edge of the woods overlooking a lake in Wisconsin, where it functions as a guest cottage.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
~Thomas Edison
“The risk factor: How many miles could one travel before a 50-mile-per-hour wind force would blow apart an eighty-five-year-old building? Needless to say, it was a long, tedious and worrisome trip.”
“Uneasiness started to set in. Would it slide off the back? Bounce off the trailer? I couldn’t shake from my mind images of chunks of roofing and siding flying onto other travelers’ windshields, wildlife running for cover.”
“Tearing out the old walls is fast, easy, and surprisingly therapeutic. Tools needed: a hammer, a crowbar, safety goggles, and bottle of red wine for when it’s all over.”
Tourist cabins were erected by enterprising farmers and landowners and sprung up in the early 1920’s~ rented by the night for a minimal fees, a step up from pitching a tent, with slightly more privacy. After Tereasa’s renovation, she researched the cabin’s history and found out she had not given her cabin a second life, but rather its fifth.
Summer Agenda:
“Wake up to birdsong. Make some coffee.
Days filled with swimming, boating, fishing, grilling out and being completely and unapologetically lazy.”
“When you only have 121 square feet, it’s nice to have a room with a view.”
To celebrate their rehab journey, they throw a party with all the trimmings~ carving pumpkins, enjoying bonfires, eating s’mores & caramel apples, drinking hot cider. . .
I thought I would do the same at our cottage by the lake for Food for Thought. . .
Mums and Pansies in pots fill the fire pit for seasonal color, they can be relocated for roasting the marshmallows later :-)
My cider is un-spiked, but there is a recipe here if you’re looking for a cider to warm you from the inside out :-)
While our 1 & ½ story, 26 year-old-lake house is a far cry from a 12 x 12 1920’s cabin, it is modest, especially in comparison to the multi-million dollar McMansions on the lake. We spent 20 summers boating, seeking out for sale signs, dreaming & deciding the lake property the house sat on, was more important to us than the house. We did a small cosmetic renovation after being in it for five years~ the most expensive part of which was replacing our old dock, that was threatening to break apart and float away any minute. Regretfully, I did not take before & after pictures, but we managed to obliterate the former owner’s love for ALL things PINK, not the least of which was ceiling fans.
Re-siding, replacing appliances & cabinets and generally removing traces of the 80’s that we could, we were told by several contractors, that it would be simpler to raze it and start over. It is perfect for the two of us to escape to on the weekends~ we are very fortunate and thankful to have a place to ‘wake up to birdsong’ & spend a day being unapologetically lazy :-)
“I would rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
A Very Modest Cottage is part how-to guide, part scrapbook, and part lesson on how with ambition, duck tape and elbow grease all things are possible.
Be sure to visit Food for Thought, and see what everyone is reading & eating :-)
I’m also joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday~
Southern Bouquets **** by Melissa Bigner with Heather Barrie and photography by Peter Frank Edwards
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, where pages from your book magically mix with the kitchen and your camera.
I have more photos than would load easily in one post, so this Edible Review has two parts. There is a link at the bottom that will lead you to part II.
This is my “coffee table” book contribution for this batch of Food for Thought reviews~ I’m a sucker for books with flower eye candy and this one fits the bill, especially since my own yard is past its peak (about 8 years past). I can get a floral-fix, in the comfort of my A/C and dream about blooms, flowering branches and bulbs. Only 128 pages, I would have liked more arrangements, interiors and garden views~ which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. But I am a more is more, not less is more kind of girl. I (and you) should be thankful, because any more pages to this book and this would have ended up being a three-part review instead of two!
North Carolina native Melissa Bigner is editor of Charleston Weddings magazine and senior editor at its sister titles, Charleston and Charleston Home. After graduating from Northwestern University’s journalism school in Evanston, Illnois, she landed a job at Southern Living magazine in Birmingham, Alabama and has been whistling Dixie ever since. She has also written for Southern Accents, Better Homes & Gardens Decorating, Coastal Living, and Cottage Living magazines. She lives in a small cottage in downtown Charleston, SC, where confederate jasmine takes over her picket fence and porch.
Heather Barrie is founder and creative director of Gathering: Floral + Event Design in Charleston, SC. By mutual agreement, Heather and Melissa made a pact to gather blooms from their own yards, friends’ gardens, abandoned lots, local parks & area farms~ staying away from florists’ refrigerators for these arrangements in this book. Combining talents, they celebrate down-to-earth blooms and share arranging advice that allow you to re-create the simple and elegant looks yourself, no matter your zip code.
“Browse these pages to see how a tabletop spread of perky daffodils can sweep out the winder doldrums; how floating a few camilia blossoms adds a touch of easy elegance in any setting; how zinnias are a no-brainer summertime flower for zesting up a party and more. Flower tips, flower trivia, and Southern tales abound here.”
“Look around old homesteads, and even if only the foundation still stands, there’s sure to be a garden growing on, effortlessly stunning and wildly romantic. In my neighborhood–politely called a ‘transistional’ area–I come across centenarian houses that are falling in on themselves, but at their feet, hydrangeas grin, naked ladies dance, daffodils show their brave faces, wisteria sigh, and spiderworts wink at passersby. Someone mothered these plants, and now folks like me are reaping the benefits.”
Hydrangea Heaven is the name given to Atlanta resident Penny McHenry’s garden. Starting with a pair of hydrangea bushes received as gifts a few decades ago, Penny and her exuberant green-thumb multiplied the parent bushes into four hundred flowering shrubs that spilled over to the church lot next door. In 1994 she founded the American Hydrangea Society, and in 2006, the Atlanta Botanical garden named its collection in her honor. ’Penny Mac’ hydrangea was named after her along with ‘Mini Penny’ developed as a tribute to her. Her followers still celebrate at the Penny McHenryHydrangea Festival, in her memory after she passed away in 2006, drawing thousands each year.
Hydrangea Meanings: Earnestness and Understanding
Vase Life: Four days to one week, thereafter they can begin to dry
Azalea Meanings: Fidelity, Passion, Temperance and Womanly
Vase Life: One to two days at most
“When working with flowering branches, place in your vessel first, as the delicate blooms fall off easily and because they tangle, making them tough to maneuver and manipulate.”
Daffodil Meaning: Rebirth
Vase Life: Three to six days
Camellias Meanings: Evanescence and Long-lasting Love
Vase Life: Four days to one week
Roses Meanings: Admiration, Enthusiasm (orange); Friendship, Freedom (yellow); Love (red); Purity, Innocence (white); and Success (peach)
Vase Life: Old, a few days; Modern, up to ten days
Trivia: Tyler, Texas, is known as the Rose Capital of America, as nearly 50 percent of commercial roses in the United States come from that area.
“Heather Barrie–the floral guru behind the bouquets on these pages–runs Gathering: Flora + Event Design in Charleston, South Carolina, and is known nationally for natural arrangements that have a deceptively simple, organic yet elegant style.”
”Morning, Heather and other experts agree, is the ideal time for cutting, though early evening is a distant runner-up if you’re in a pinch. At the beginning of the day, plants are ‘less stressed,’ says Heather, since they’ve had a night to rest.”
Sunflowers Meanings: Adoration and Longevity
Vase Life: Five days to one week
Zinnias Meaning: Friendship
Vase Life: Five days to one week
Barbara Planthold Melera “swapped her corporate togs for gardening clogs” and today beside her husband, runs D. Landreth Seed Company, the oldest seed purveyor in the U.S. ~ founded in 1784. The seed company offers more than thirty varieties of zinnias, in part because of her passion for the humble flower. Barbara remembers at the age of five, the bottom of her “shoebox garden” collapsing when wet, with her tiny seedlings, only a week old.
Barbara says:
”I have a huge soft spot in my heart for all zinnias. That very first experience taught me how abundant life is, how fragile it is, and how incredible it is to watch it unfold. From that first, sweet experience came a lifelong love of gardening and a respect for that most precious of gifts–life itself.”
I thought I would use flower varieties for Food for Thought as my food cues~ starting with my favorite color of Zinnia, Tequila Lime.
Lime Tortilla-Crusted Chicken Tenders, recipe courtesy Southern Living, here
and to accompany your chicken, Black Beans and Mexican Rice~ recipe here.
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, where pages from your book magically mix with the kitchen and your camera.
Rose Mae Lolley, a minor character from gods in Alabama is resurrected and returns in this story that takes off like a shot.
Rose Mae, a survivor of a motherless childhood and an abusive father, is used to reinventing herself. Fleeing from her childhood home in Alabama, she is reincarnated in Texas, as Mrs. Ro Grandee, Thom’s “cool mouthed wife whose tongue would not melt butter”. Her locale and her name may have changed, but now she has traded her father’s punches for her husband’s. Ro is by turns fierce, funny, and flawed. Trying to avoid a fate of death by marriage~ she flees again with her pawpy’s ancient .45 and her three-legged dog, Gretel. Prepare yourself for a roller coaster ride of a story that is highly entertaining~ with twists and turns while Ro/Rose Mae tries to survive her bruises & blows the best way she knows how. . .with her wits, a gun, and some steamy sex.
Jackson has crafted a “riveting read that simply flies off the page with prose as luscious as sweet tea and as spicy as Texas chili. . .”
~Library Journal
”The next thing I knew, I was zooming east down Highway 40 toward home, praying harder than I had ever prayed in my whole life. I called every saint it seemed might do a lick of good. I called them loud, demanding out intervention with the kind of flailing desperation that can rise when even hope has left.”
“Francis, patron of cars and drivers, answered first. He was in the car with me. I could hear him breathing easy in the seat behind me. Then Michael took the seat beside Francis. He’d come to close the eyes of his policemen, making their radar guns heavy in their hands, sending them for coffee at any Dunkin’ Donuts that took them off my path.”
“I recognized Rose Mae, working to save my ass while Ro Grandee, professional nice girl and dedicated victim, hunched and writhed in a lathery panic. Rose knew to press the cool bottle to my eyes to take the swelling down and ease the red. When next I saw Thom Grandee, I could not look like I’d been crying.”
Ro Grandee’s weapons of survival:
“A clean home, good gun sales, better meat loaf, best sex.”
I didn’t have to look very hard for food references in this book, which made Food for Thought easy. Ro is adept at using her culinary skills as her arsenal~ to keep Thom happy and his fists from flying.
“On Wednesday, Thom looked down at the meat loaf on his plate with one lip curling, as if I’d served up possum sushi. It was a beautiful meat loaf, too, made with half ground pork and lots of sage like his mother’s, only I didn’t overcook mine until it tasted like a chunk of mummy.”
Thom is about to come unhinged since he was anticipating chicken for dinner. Compliant Ro offers to make chicken instead while he watches TV, suggesting he take meatloaf sandwiches to work for the week. Using Ro’s suggestion, I thought I would do the same~ My husband is a fan of meat loaf while I am NOT, but I thought I could add some burger toppings to “mask” the meat loaf for me :-)
Thom’s parents, who own a gun shop where Ro & Thom both work, are less than thrilled to have a Catholic for a daughter-in-law:
“Charlotte, who’d been born and raised in a border town, believed it was the excessive Catholic breeding of Mexicans that was wrecking Texas. Joe was a more practical racist, who understood that without illegal immigrants he might have to pay a decent wage to get his yard done.”
“The church had me till I was eight. It’s easier on everyone if I go to y’all’s church on Sundays, what with your folks acting like incense and praying to saints is straight up witchcraft. But you don’t stop being Catholic because you stop going to mass. I may be in your church, Thom, but don’t ever think I’m of it.”
In addition to a racist and a bigot, Joe is a bit of a pervert:
I went with another cornbread reference, though not nearly as colorful~ for my recipe:
This version of this recipe linked above, calls for making this cornbread as muffins. You can also bake it in an 8 x 8 pan (or 8 x 12 if you like your cornbread a little drier, like my husband does). Adjust your cooking time to 30 minutes. Since this is a great side with spicy Texas Chili, I thought this would be appropriate:-)
“I could only make that awful bird noise again, that whooping. I recognized that sound. It was the sound of me not breathing. Not breathing was a hazy place, and pain was a box of kittens who had curled up all around me. I could feel warm, furry pockets of them pressed into my ribs and back and hips and belly where his fists had touched. Still more nested in my hair and wrapped around one shoulder like a stole.”
“I fell down stairs,” becomes Ro’s refrain. The ER nurse that has treated her before, urges her to let her call the police. Still denying it, Ro tells her, “Okay. Have them arrest the stairs.”
“An hour-long blink later, and Thom was there, holding a huge bright spray of wildflowers. His nose was swollen, and I felt instantly, savagely pleased. He looked at me with sorry, bad-dog eyes, ready to pet his Ro, as if she was still spread thick as putty over Rose Mae. He should have known better. We’d been married five years. I wondered how he could look at me, limp in my hospital bed, and not see he’d beaten his girl clean off me. I was Rose Mae Lolley, almost alone in a hospital bed, waiting to be released.”
“The hole in my own slivered rib had stabbed into my lung resealed itself. The hospital pulled my pretty morphine tube, and I started a new, less intense romance with Percocet.”
“I wanted none of Ro’s things touching me, and the long hair my husband loved felt like a most offensive bit of Ro-ness. I strode to the kitchen and yanked my meat shears out of the butcher-block knife rack on the counter.”
“The braided cable of hair looked like a long, glossy pet that had coiled up at my feet. It was sleek and dark, more than a foot long, so thick I doubted I could get my finger and thumb wrapped all the way around it. I looked down at it and felt no remorse. I felt not connection to it at all. It was nothing more than a brown black rope that Thom could damn well never hang me from again.”
“Ro Grandee was harder to peel off myself than leprosy.”
“Daddy had raised me in the house my mother had abandoned, drinking until his vision blurred too much to focus on all the bare spaces where my mother wasn’t standing. He drank so much, some days he had to furrow up his brow and squint to aim his fist proper at me.”
“My nicer memories–shooting with him, piggyback rides, pushes on the tire swing–were buried under the ten years after my mother left us. He’d beaten any chance at auld lang syne right out of me.”
“At night, I’d lie in bed and their angry voices would come through the thin walls, followed by the thump and clatter of his hands meeting her body in hard ways. I’d hear an open-handed slap crack like a distant rifle shot, hear my mother’s body banging into the walls. I’d roll out of bed and creep under it like Gretel in a thunderstorm waiting it out.”
“I’d been someone else, before my mother left. A regular girl, maybe like Bill’s Bunny. Jim Beverly and I had not been friends then. There was nothing in that girl to draw him. I didn’t remember her very well. My mother had left her, so I had left her too, not wanting to be a thing whose own mother couldn’t love her. I didn’t know her, but my mother must remember her and could help me remember, too. If I could abandon Rose Mae Lolley here, the way I’d left Ro Grandee back in Texas, I could start fresh.”
Ro’s mother accuses her of loving her father:
”I shake my head at her, incredulous. ‘Of course I did. I was eight. I loved him when I was nine, too, and he dislocated my shoulder. What other daddy did I have? I didn’t even know there were other kinds.”
Last but not least, dessert~
It seems only appropriate that my recipes for the Cornbread & Lemon Chess Pie came from Southern Living for this Edible Review :-)
This pie was easy & good~ like a giant lemon bar! You can find the recipe here.
I thought it was appropriate to end with this YouTube video of Joshilyn Jackson on her book tour~ titled Eating California. I love her description of the roses & the comparison to New Orleans~ exactly why I read her books~ bull’s-eye accuracy that always makes me smile :-)
Be sure to visit Food for Thought and see what everyone is reading & eating!
