LUCIE WINBORNE

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30 BOOKS AND 30 THANKS: FANNIE FLAGG

My only knowledge of Fannie Flagg prior to picking up a copy of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe was as a panelist on the Gene Rayburn-hosted TV series Matchgame. “What, she writes, too? How cool!” I had no idea then that she had battled dyslexia or how it stalled her potential career as an author. I didn’t recall her from other TV series. I just knew she’d come out with a book I fell in immediate and permanent love with.

Fannie Flagg

Here’s what I love about Fried Green Tomatoes, Ms. Flagg. I know you must have heard from so many readers through the years. I know you’ve published other books, celebrated so many milestones. But in all the years I’ve read and reread FGT, I don’t know that I ever really took time to think about why I love it so much.

It’s really so simple. You spoke to the human condition. That’s all. And it’s everything.

There’s drama and humor and romance and pain and joy in those pages. Love and hate, desire and deceit. You nailed every emotion in every situation as if you’d lived it yourself—the sweetest gift of a born storyteller—eschewing political correctness (was that even a thing when the book was written?). Words that would never cross our tongues are dropped as casually as a used handkerchief, even by those whose actions belie their basic belief in equality, because they were part of that time and that place. The South in which I was raised and have spent most of my life, that I love even as I can never escape an underlying sense of shame and embarrassment at its ugly parts, is a character as real as Idgie and Ruth and Big George and Evelyn Couch.

Oh, Evelyn. Do you know, Ms. Flagg, as I’ve aged I’ve found that I identify more with certain characters than I did at first reading. And I’m guessing I’m not alone. I wanted to be barefoot Idgie in overalls, playing hooky from school (and getting away with it) when I chafed at the bonds of being a good girl. Other times, I wanted to be “sweet to the bone,” beautiful, universally beloved Ruth. Still another day, I wanted to boogie on the wooden floor of the River Club and Fishing Camp with Eva Bates and her cronies until the rafters shook and the blue lights danced.

And then there was Evelyn Couch. Dear Evelyn, with whom I mourned when her mother’s life support was turned off, whose confusion my own soul mirrored through what we’d now call her midlife crisis. I knew what it felt like to wonder where you fit in the world, even when I was a couple of decades her junior.

So real. All of them.

But it wasn’t just your meticulous research, or your fearlessness in portraying realities of the Jim Crow South, or your no-holds-barred humor, that enticed me and so many other readers. I didn’t fully realize until I wrote this post that it was the underlying thread connecting, in some fashion, every single character who makes an appearance on the FGT stage.

Love. Just love.

Love is a pretty powerful force in the little town of Whistle Stop. At times it makes even good churchgoing folk do some drastic things. Steal. Murder. Hide a murder. Lie under oath. Oh, I’m giving away too many spoilers! No more. And even though it can’t make everything fair or right or keep hearts from breaking, it works magic—sheer literary magic, in your storytelling hands.

So thank you, Ms. Flagg. Thank you for loving those unforgettable characters as much as you did, so we could love them too.

How about you? Have you read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.

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30 BOOKS AND 30 THANKS: MISSY ROBERTSON

I first encountered Missy Robertson on the TV series “Duck Dynasty,” and though I never caught the show on a regular basis, each time I stumbled across it I ended up laughing at the antics of the Robertson clan while admiring their work ethic and openness about their religious faith. I was particularly curious about the Robertson women. As matriarch Miss Kay once remarked, “It’s always something when you’re married to a Robertson.” I could well imagine that—but what was it really like to be married to one of those bearded, camo-clad, duck-hunting boys?

Consequently, after enjoying the very different but equally entertaining tales in patriarch Phil’s Happy, Happy, Happy and Uncle Si’s riotous Si-Cology 1 , I thought it was time to hear from the female side.

Missy Robertson

Blessed, Blessed . . . Blessed: The Untold Story of Our Family’s Fight to Love Hard, Stay Strong, and Keep the Faith When Life Can’t Be Fixed follows Missy’s story from sheltered, structured girlhood to her introduction into the our-door-is-always-open Robertson clan and sometimes arduous road to and through parenthood. Missy and her husband Jase have three children: sons Reed and Cole, and daughter Mia, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, a condition presenting far more ongoing challenges than I would have imagined. As Missy says in the Introduction:

“. . . Jase and I have endured more sadness and difficulty than many people realize. Through every circumstance, we have leaned on our faith, and we have found God to be completely trustworthy and faithful. We know what it’s like to hear bad news. We know how it feels to pray that God will do one thing in a situation, only to realize He has done something else. We know how easily each member of a family can be thrown off balance by one person’s challenges, and we are well acquainted with the financial strain of a major medical situation.”

Here’s part of what I wrote to Missy.

I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes glimpses into the Robertson family values, duck call business, and unique demands your husband’s profession occasionally presents to a marriage. As your story progressed, your openness, vulnerability, and gift for vivid description took me into clinics and hospital rooms and classrooms with you and Jase and Mia. I felt your fears and your anger, your moments of denial and despair as deeply as the warmth of loving support from your extended and church families. From first page to last, your family’s dedication to hard work, fiscal responsibility, good parenting, and daily, sometimes hourly choices to trust God, at times nearly awed me. It is easy to feel as if we know a family from the tiny glimpse we get of their lives on a screen in our living room, when of course the off-screen reality is so much more complex and messy. Thank you for taking us into your world and giving us a glimpse at what it truly means to be “blessed.”

Do yourself a favor and check out the engaging voice of Missy Robertson . . . then don’t be surprised if you find yourself “blessed” as well.

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30 BOOKS AND 30 THANKS: YAEL ECKSTEIN

Wife, mother, author, activist, speaker. Beautiful, thoughtful, articulate, prayerful. These are all words that come immediately to mind when I think of Yael Eckstein.

Yael Eckstein

The daughter of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein (1951-2019) wears many hats, with the newest being that of President of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews following her father’s unexpected passing. I was somewhat familiar with the rabbi’s work and dedication to bridge-building between the two faiths from both TV commercials and my mother’s financial support of Holocaust survivors through the IFCJ, and later came to admire his daughter’s equally caring presence through her Facebook posts. Some were informative, some were shocking. Some were saddening, others simply sweet. In them she shared not just her heart but her family, and her love and hopes for Israel.

And it was through Facebook that I learned she published Spiritual Cooking with Yael in 2014.

I was, frankly, intrigued by the title at once. “Spiritual” cooking? What could that possibly mean? Cookery was, to me, a necessity, and not that interesting unless I was trying a new recipe. Once I had, it was relegated to the mental back burner as a success or failure or something in between. I had a small collection of cookbooks—only taking up half a pantry shelf—but this one promised to be different. Nevertheless, it was only last Christmas that I finally got around to requesting a copy.

From the Introduction:

Cooking three meals a day, day in and day out, can become drudgery. But it is possible to elevate the act of cooking, to imbue it with great significance. It is possible to use cooking as an opportunity for meditation, self-reflection, and spiritual growth. If we use the time that we’re cooking to pray and reflect, that energy flows into the food that we serve our families and our guests.“

And here’s part of my thanks to Yael:

I received your book as a Christmas present from my brother, and immediately started flipping through it to find recipes I’d like to try. Since I’ve never been much of a cook myself, and am a working woman, I appreciated the simplicity of the recipes as well as their variety. I’ve tried various chicken, salad, and soup dishes, with only one “failure” so far (I think something was lost in the directions!), and the only reason I haven’t made more is, well, because we eat a lot of frozen food at my house! But I love your approach, your personal notes above the recipes, your oversized and colorful illustrations, and your heart.

And if I still haven’t learned to “elevate the act of cooking” or “imbue it with great significance” (I must be honest—about the only thing I pray while making a new dish is that it comes out correctly!), well, there’s always tomorrow. Thank you, Yael, for this lovely work.

How about you? Have you ever found spiritual significance in cooking, or is it too often an act of drudgery? I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts and experiences.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll check out this slim but delightful contribution to the annals of cookbooks.

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30 BOOKS AND 30 THANKS: REBECCA M. HALE

It was winter, and I longed for the warmth of sunshine on my face, the grainy squish of sand under my bare toes, and the tang of sea salt in my nostrils. Then one afternoon I opened my email from freebooksy.com, with the usual tickle of anticipation for the day’s complimentary ebooks . . . and saw Ode to a Fish Sandwich, the first volume in a series called Quirky Tales from the Caribbean. What could sound more delightful in a season of cold and darkness?

Okay, let me insert a dose of honesty here. Though the calendar was indeed set to winter, I live in Central Florida, where days of what other folks consider true cold can be counted on less than ten fingers—and there’s a reason it’s called the Sunshine State. I won’t even mention the fact that I live an hour from the closest beach.

Rebecca M. Hale
(Copyright 2010 R. Parker Blackburn)

But I not only rather like fish sandwiches, the idea of one being good enough to inspire an ode, much less a novel, caught my fancy. Add in “quirky” (I have a lifelong fascination with the unusual and weird) and “Caribbean,” a place I have yet to visit even though I’m deeply in love with the idea of it, and I was hooked like the original titular fish before I’d read a complete chapter.

It’s impossible not to pity a man who is jilted by his lady at the altar, but I found myself cheering Dr. Walcott Emerson Jones on his unexpected decision to pull a Carrie Bradshaw and go on his honeymoon alone. To a couples resort, no less! But how would our fish-belly-white, studiously sun-avoiding dermatologist hero actually make out in such a setting—not to mention climate? And how did a sandwich fit into his adventure?

Once again, I’m not going to give away too much of the plot, but here’s part of what I wrote to New York Times bestselling author Rebecca M. Hale:

I was tickled at how the good doctor’s occasionally hilarious sunscreen obsession inspired Winnie’s remark that he “probably glows in the dark”; impressed by how your gift for painting a word picture took us straight into Delilah’s Beachside Diner, the painstakingly manicured resort, the prickly sugar cane. I felt the heat with the locals and the sweating doctor. Smelled that grill-seared fish—and wanted a bite! (“A hearty chunk of protein, dusted with savory salt, tinged with the sweetness of the sea.” Yum.) I loved the way you set up a hint of danger in the Introduction, kept your chapters bite-sized with just enough hints of warning to keep us moving at a rapid clip while wanting more. Human foibles and longings were believable and relatable (well, most of them!). And that oh-so-satisfying-she-got-what-she-deserved-yet-still-mysterious ending. Thank you for giving me such a satisfying read and taste for more Quirky Tales from the Caribbean. I’m looking forward to checking out Volumes 2 and 3.

Are you in the mood for an entertaining, laugh-out-loud, keep-you-guessing-till-the-end beach read this summer? Do yourself a favor. Pick up a copy of Ode to a Fish Sandwich and pack it with your “White Wally”-approved sunscreen and picnic basket. Then settle in for a good time . . . preferably with a fish sandwich of your own.

Though I can’t guarantee it’ll be as good as Winnie’s.