Screen Doors and Sweet Tea

Last week I came across a blog mentioning the new cookbook, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook, by Martha Hall Foose. Since then, I have read a couple of feature articles about the book in area newspapers. The book’s title was most intriguing and I immediately ordered the book. It was delivered yesterday. With not much time to look over the book, being that the historical society’s monthly meeting was just an hour away, I placed the book on my coffee table for me to inspect more closely when I returned from the meeting. Coming home, I opened the book and before I knew it, the midnight hour had already passed.

This superb cookbook is a unique and generous blend of wonderful recipes, colorful stories, and useful cooking tips – definitely not your average cookbook. This attractive book is lavishly illustrated with beautiful full color photographs complimenting the wonderful recipes and stories.

Mississippian Martha Hall Foose is a gifted chef and storyteller. Simply put, she invites you into her kitchen to share recipes that bring alive the landscape, people, and traditions that make Southern cuisine an American favorite.

This 256-page hardcover book has such wonderful recipes as Yazoo Cheese Straws, Sold My Soul to the Devil-ed Eggs, Watermelon Salsa, Three-Day Slaw, Paper Sack Catfish, Field Peas with Snaps, Sweet Potato Biscuits, and Black Bottom Pie. There’s even a Sweet Tea recipe (voted best in the Delta).

On a lazy Mississippi summer day, pour yourself a big glass of iced tea, and head to the porch swing with this book in hand. It will be quality time well spent. This book will be at home not only in the kitchen, but on the living room coffee table as well.

Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook
Martha Hall Foose
Hardcover, 256 pages
Clarkson Potter Publishers, New York
ISBN: 978-0-307-35140-1