"Sylvia's Soul Food" By Slyvia Woods and Christopher Styler, A Wonderful Soul Food Cookbook

In one of my frequent trips to what I call "junk stores", I found a wonderful little soul food cookbook called "Sylvia's Soul Food: Recipes From Harlem's World Famous Restaurant" by Sylvia Woods and Christoper Styler. Sylvia Woods either is or was the owner of a soul food restaurant in Harlem which has now morphed into a soul food empire according to their website. I have found what appear to be puffed descriptions of Mr. Styler which describe him as being a chef, writer, etc. but I suspect he wasn't much more than a ghost writer in this effort. The edition of the book which I found was a hardback printed by the William Morrow Company in 1992. The copies I find on the interet are very different from the plain red cover I found in a Goodwill store for $1.59. They all appear to be paperback with a gaudy photo montage on the cover. When I found the book, I scanned it and realized it has some very interesting recipes which are rarely found in cookbooks published anywhere. I have eaten and loved other people's versions of some of the recipes, never had a few others, and would love to try nearly all of them. This book is a little joy to behold and can be found fairly cheaply on most used book websites. However, if you order it from the used websites, be sure to know in advance if you are getting the hardback or the paperback versions. There is also a second cookbook from the restaurant which I have never seen. I'm surprised I never ran into it anywhere before, at least on the internet. The pork section of the book is a joy to behold especially if you grew up in the south or Appalachia. It contains a recipe for Backbone In Gravy and I have to admit I have never seen a backbone recipe in any cookbook anywhere, not even in one from some little southern church. I grew up on backbones and love them still today. But I have to admit that I almost totally eliminated pork from my diet about seven years ago when I realized that I had a totally blocked carotid artery and was facing a potentially life threatening surgery. As part of an effort to live as long as possible, I changed my diet drastically and took up daily exercise. But I can still exercise fond memories of grease and colagen up to my elbows and back to my ears on occasions. The cookbook also contains a recipe for Pigs' Tails. I have eaten a lot of pig tails in my time and love nothing in the world better than a large restaurant sized pot full of pig ears, tails, and feet cooked along with potatoes,carrots, and an onion or two. I also love that same large pot filled with organ meats at hog killing time. But I stopped that when it came to a choice of such foods or a coffin. But I did dearly love pork livers, kidneys, hearts, lungs or "lights", and spleens or "melts" as we called them when I was a boy. It is fun to find a cookbook and a big city restaurant which is proud of its pig tails, chitlins, and backbones. In this cookbook, there is even a recipe for Fried Chitlins. I have never seen a printed recipe for chitlins in my life. I also have to admit that I have never tried chitlins even though I spent years believing that "no hog should ever have to die in vain" and that we should "eat everything except the squeal". That recipe calls for the chitlins to be "thoroughly cooked to make them tender before they are quickly fried". I will say that in the right cook's hands I would try chitlins. But I have never been in a home where they were being cooked. A variant of the Fried Chitlin recipe is Chitlins and Maw which calls for 2 pounds of pork maw and 5 pounds of precooked chitlins.This is a boiled recipe and I can assure you that with 7 pounds of the two meats in the pot along with several vegetables it won't matter if an extra mouth or two shows up at the supper table. For those of you who don't know the term "maw" it is pork stomach or tripe. I have had tripe on a few occasions in a Vietnamese restaurant I love to visit and I like tripe a lot. In restaurants and butcher shops, tripe may have come from either cattle or hogs. The great recipes just go on and on in this book. The Beef section has Oxtails In Gravy and Grilled Beef Liver. All through my life I have eaten liver from beef, pork, and chicken; and, about two weeks ago I had chicken gizzards which can still be found on the menu of a local Lee's Famous Recipe. I have considered several times to buy an ox tail and cook it at home but never carried through with the idea In the Poultry section, there are recipes for Chicken And Dumplings, Turkey Wings And Gravy, and Roast Turkey. The book has a separate section devoted to Barbecue which has a great looking recipe for Barbecued Pigs Feet. I have eaten pig feet my whole life but never had the barbecued. This one is worth trying! The truncated Fish And Game section of the book is a disappointment after the great preceding sections on Beef and Pork. It only has six recipes but one of them is for Rabbit Flavored And Fried ang another for Hash Venison. But I must ask where are the recipes for alligator, muskrat, ground hog, elk, squirrels, bear, raccoon, and other wild game which many southern cooks are still cooking and eating regularly. The section labled Beans, Potatoes, Rice, And Salads has a recipe for Red Beans And Rice which uses a smoked ham hock instead of the andouille sausage which nearly all other such recipes for this dish use. It might be interesting done with the ham hock. It also contains another chitlin recipe called Rice And Chitlins Perlew which is worth investigating. This section also has recipes for pinto beans, butter beans, and lima beans. Nearly all of them use smoked ham hocks for flavoring. There is a separate section labled Vegetables And Greens which has the obligatory recipes for okra and collard greens. But it also has an interesting recipe for Collard Greens And Corn Meal Dumplings. I have never seen corn meal dumplings in my life and I'd love to try this recipe, or to try corn meal dumplings in the customary way that regular flour dumplings are usually made...like the BIG FLUFFY DUMPLINGS which my mother used to make. Yes, I know that it would be very hard to get fluffy corn meal dumplings since the nature of corn meal doesn't lend itself to fluff. The idea of corn meal dumplings is very intersting to me since one of my favorite occasional breakfasts is corn meal hoe cakes. A favorite supper for me is also fried cornbread and gravy which is made by slicing left over cornbread, frying it in bacon grease, removing the cornbread temporarily from the skillet before making the gravy, and then bathing the cornbread in the gravy. All in all, this book was one of best deals I have ever made for $1.59. If you like soul food, southern food, pork and beef innards and other southern, African American, or Appalachian foods, this is a great book to own.

Reflections On Rereading "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come" by John Fox, Jr.

The first time I read this book must have been at least forty or fifty years ago, maybe even longer. I didn't like it then and I like it even less now. Yes, John Fox, Jr. could write well. But that is not the real issue(s) which I have with this book. It is often described as an Appalachian book since it is set primarily in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. It is also sometimes described as a Civil War novel which is a bit more accurate. But the majority of the book is not about the Civil War, perhaps less than 20%. That is enough to say about my doubts about it being a Civil War novel. It is most frequently described as an Appalachian Novel and has been for nearly all of the 120+ years since it was published in 1903. I disupte the idea that it can be called an Appalachian novel. Yes, it is set primarily in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky in a fictional area that is roughly near the headwaters of the Kentucky River, perhaps in the region of the current Kingdom Come State Park in Harlan County. Yes, many of its characters, including the protagonist Chad Bufford are natives of Appalachian Kentucky. But John Fox, Jr. was not remotely an Appalachian man. He grew up and lived much of his life in the area in and around Lexington, Kentucky, which is not remotely a part of Appalachia. It is the heart of the Bluegrass and Central Kentucky. Fox later moved to Big Stone Gap, Virginia, which is in Appalachia. Upon his death there, he was returned to Bourbon County Kentucky for burial in a family graveyard. Bourbon County is very much in the heart of Central Kentucky. For those who might have a tendency to make the claim that if Fox spent time in Appalachia and lived there at his death it made him an Appalachian, I would ask you if you believed that if you moved to Watts in Los Angeles, California, would it make you either African American or Hispanic? You know absolutely that it would not. Neither did living in Appalachia make John Fox, Jr. an Appalachian. As for the novel itself, I believe, based on my life and experiences as a native Appalachian with a strong base of knowledge and expertise in Appalachian Culture, that "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come" is actually an anti-Appalachian novel. Throughout the novel, Fox will sometimes make a few positive comments about the people of the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky and will, almost immediately, follow those postive comments with very negative statements, stereotypes, and defamations. Those negative descriptors he resorted to include poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, feuding, and a wide variety of other defamatory remarks. The Encyclopedia Virginia website describes the novel as a local color novel which is more accurate than the claim that it is Appalachian. The California Learning Resource Network website describes local color as being: Local color is a literary term that refers to the unique cultural, regional, or social characteristics that are often used to describe a particular place, community, or group of people. Sometimes "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come" is described as being a coming of age novel which is also more accurate than saying it is Appalachian. The novel has Chad Buford, the teenage protagonist, making his first trip to Frankfort, Kentucky, as part of a log floating operation down the Kentucky River. When he arrives in Frankfort with his friends he is soon hopelessly lost in "the big city" and forced to try to make his own way back to the mountains. This type of description of a mountain boy becoming lost on his first trip to town is a typical case of portraying native Appalachians as being inept in urban areas and can be found in hundreds of cheap, tawdry novels today, many of whose authors may well have learned the trick from Fox's work. Miraculously, Chad is rescued by Major Buford who turns out to be a relative who suspects their kinship and takes the boy in with the unspoken idea that if he can prove the relationship he will have the boy educated and made into a gentleman. As the novel progresses, that is exactly what does happen. Major Buford takes him in, he falls in love with the daughter of a general who at least initially either belittles or ignores him for his coonskin cap and backward mountain ways. Eventually, Chad becomes friends with the girl, her two brothers and the entire family of General Dean. Then the Civil War intervenes and the novel turns toward the conflicts between family members and neighbors in both Central Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky. One of General Dean's sons joins the Confederate Army and the other, along with Chad Buford, joins the Union Army. In the mountains, two brothers, both giants, Daws Dillon and Tad Dillon, who also join opposite sides of the war and come to hate each other totally. It is an interesting point that Fox chose to create two giant brothers in the novel since a very famous giant, Martin Van Buren Bates, was born in Letcher County Kentucky, not far from Kingdom Come in Harlan County. Bates lived from 1837 to 1919, fought in the Civil War at 7 feet 9 inches and later toured the world as a sideshow act. It is even possible that Fox met Bates during his time traveling in the mountains to buy land and mineral rights from the locals. I have little doubt that the Dillon boys are both based on Martin Van Buren Bates. The Civil War ends and Chad Buford goes to visit his friends in the mountains who include Melissa Turner, a young woman whom Chad grew up with and who saved his life during the Civil War by misleading Rebel sympathizers who were attempting to waylay and kill Chad. As a result of her winter trek through the mountains to save Chad, Melissa becomes ill and dies. Upon Chad's return to the mountains, Melissa is dead and he doesn't even stay for her funeral before returning to Central Kentucky and then on to an unwritten life wandering the country. This failure to attend the funeral of a close friend is a very basic misstatement of behavior by any native Appalachian, especially in 1865. Another related misrepresentation of life in the time of the novel describes Major Dean's disinterment of Chad's parents to transport their bodies for reburial on his Central Kentucky farm with his relatives. At the time of the novel, nothing was considered more sacred in Appalachian Culture than the graves of the dead. This is just one of many misrepresentations of the Appalachian lifestyle in the middle nineteenth century. While "The Litte Shepherd of Kingdom Come" is an entertaining novel and written in a professional literary manner, it is an insult to every Appalachian who ever lived and loved his/her culture and homeland. If you choose to read it, paperback copies can be found all over the nation. But read it with a very jaundiced eye. It is not what it is often misrepresented to be.

"Bradbury Stories" by Ray Bradbury, Thoughts On Reading 100 Short Stories By The Master

This massive collection of Ray Bradbury's short stories was first published in 2005, seven years before the author's death, and contains an introduction by Bradbury himself. The book is 893 pages and contains stories which Bradubury wrote and published in a multitude of magazines and a few of his own books roughly between the years of 1945? and 2000. Much of the world, even the literary world, think of Bradury as a "science fiction writer" which he was having written two of the best novels ever in that genre, "Farhenheit 451" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes". But Bradury was much more than just a science fiction writer or even "one of the best science fiction writers". It is much more accurate to say that Bradury was "a writer", period, the end. He wrote in many genres, and nearly all genres of stories appear in this collection. If you love the short story as I do, you need to read this book. In terms of time from the first published story in the book to the most recently published story, it covers roughly sixty years in the development of the American Short Story. In terms of genres of short stories, it covers science fiction, mystery,suspense, coming of age, humor, and nearly every generally accepted type of short story in the American oeuvre. My wife and I often read the same books together with me reading aloud while she washes the dishes in the morning, and then I rinse the dishes becasue it requires more motion and she is in a wheelchair. We usually take turns choosing a book to read in the mornings which is customarily a novel with an occasional work of nonfiction. But we have also, of late, decided to read a single short story after supper each night, sometimes from an anthology, sometimes from a complete collection by one author such as this one. This is the most massive collection of stories we have ever attempted and, at one story a day, it naturally took nearly four months since sometimes we are out and about and just don't have time to read a story when we get back home. But this collection was well worth that time. It contains many of the Bradury stories you might have heard or seen mentioned in magazines, books, and on television as being among his best. It also contains some others of his best which don't usually get mentioned in those common settings. In the introduction, Bradury specifically mentions several which I assume he considered among his best, or simply his favorites. One of those is "The Laurel And Hardy Love Affair" about a man and woman who both love a particular scene in a Laurel and Hardy movie, The Piano Movers Scene as it is generally known. They reenact some of their favorite moments from the work of Laurel and Hardy as a part of their love affair and that love for the two comedians helps bind their love for each other together. Actually, Bradury's love for Laurel and Hardy is the subject matter of more than one of his stories. Other stories also highlight parts of the lives or works of other Bradbury heroes, great writers, great actors, great politicians, and all of the stories which fall into this subset are among his best. There are also seveal stories which fall into a genre known as Coming of Age Stories in which teenage boys are the protagonists. Those stories, much like the novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes", leave you believing that Bradbury must have had a wonderful childhood. One of those stories, "All On A Summer's Night", is about a young boy who lives in his grandmother's boarding house with a broad collection of both men and women; some young, beautiful women; some single men who often buy gifts for those young, beautiful women; and one somewhat older, less attractive, female librarian who has helped the young boy to enter the wonderful world of books. That story is typical of several others in the collection which are set in the literary world or feature literary authors or their worksHe watches the older males buy gifts for the beautiful young women on the Fourth of July, heads off to the store to spend his savings on fireworks for the night's celebration, and changes his mind after he gets to the town's commercial district. He decides to spend his savings to buy the ignored librarian some perfume and to ask her to go out with him on the town that night to observe the celebration. It is a touching story and one of Bradbury's best. There are also several stories set in an Irish pub owned by a man named Heber Finn and peopled by a group of local men who typify the Irish whom Bradbury met during time he spent working in Ireland on a movie script. They are a fine group of local characters including a well offman with a fine collection of wine who directs in his will that the wine be opened and at his burial and poured into his grave. Heber Finn and his customers, including the local priest, find a way to both carry out the man's directive and subvert it simultaneously. The humor of the Heber Finn stories is among Bradury's best. The book contains stories which have been published in "Playboy", "McCalls", "Collier's", "Saturday Evening Post", "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", "Harper's", "Weird Tales", "The New Yorker", "Esquire", and at least a couple of dozen others. Few writers in American literary history can say that they have been published in such a wide ranging collection of magazines. But then Bradbury wrote and published over 600 short stories in his life. Who else can say that?