Good Ole Southern Comfort Foods & Cocktails

"Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage." Catherine Douzel.

Grab a copy of Screen Doors and Sweet Tea by Martha Hall Foose and head to the back porch with your favorite southern beverage. Settle in a nice shady spot to savor the good ole southern comfort foods and cocktails offered up in this book.

Ms. Foose hails from the Mississippi Delta but has zigzagged across country, working in restaurants from coast to coast in both the north and the south, taking jobs to hone her culinary skills.  Then it was off to France to study as a pastry chef.  Her life’s journey finally took her home where she opened The Mockingbird Bakery, her second business, with her husband.  

Her book, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea is filled with the recipes of southern regional specialties that are beautifully photographed. Each is complimented with wonderful folksy tales of the people that fill her life and inspired the dishes included within.  I recommend reading this one from cover to cover.  Don’t miss any of the stories, food tips and hints for selection and preparation as well as tasty recipes.  I tried making some of the sauces, the bean salad, southern fried chicken, and there are pork chops languishing in my fridge to recreate her Granny Smith Apple stuffed recipe.  The Ponchatoula Strawberry Cupcakes were divine.  Mr. Joseph’s coconut cake recipe in the book inspired me to get out my grandmother’s fresh coconut cake recipe to make for my husband’s birthday.   It is no wonder this book is a 2009 James Beard Award Winner.

 
If you like this book you might also enjoy:

The Southern Plate by Christy Jordan (641.5975 J821s).  Jordan’s book was published in 2010 and is not unlike Foose’s winning style.

Bon Appetit, Y’All (641.5975 W735b) by Virginia Willis boasts three generations of recipes and stories, but for me lacks the instant charm of Screen Doors and Sweet Tea.    

The New York Times food writers Matt and Ted Lee, famously known as The Lee Brothers offer Simple Fresh Southern (641.5975 l4792l), which is upscale southern with a clean twist.  

All the above appeal to me in one fashion or another with their  presentation of the dishes they contain.  It was the mailbox cocktails and the tales associated with them in Screen Doors as I first flipped through the book that drew me in and I knew I was in for a treat and you will be too.