Ferris Robinson
Thanksgiving is upon us and my mouth waters at the very thought of it. Food is at the core of all of my family gatherings, and for the holiday meal, we bring out our best, starting with desserts. I immediately pull out the tattered little white cookbook that is bound together with a thick blue rubber band. The pages of “Never Trust A Hungry Cook” are tattered and sticking out in disarray, and it’s impossible to turn them. Doesn’t matter; that’s where the recipes are that I need. I’m looking for Judy Rowland’s Pecan Pie and Butterscotch Cream Pie from Mary Davis and the Girdle Buster from Susan Cobb. (Did I mention we are heavy on desserts?) I make a list of ingredients for Judy’s Spinach from Judy Street and Jean Richardson’s Spinach Dip (trying to make up for the groaning dessert table with leafy greens) and Smothered Okra from Barbara Murray, as well as Mrs. Charles Gaston’s recipe for Mother’s Turkey Dressing.
The family recipe for boiled custard is in this cookbook. Not that I’m the one to make it. That arduous task falls to my sister, Woo, and every year since my father’s mother died, she has made it. Except for the first year, when my mother tried to make it. She wanted to comfort my father, make a tiny part of his world seem right again. We complimented her on the sweet clotty concoction, and my father was brought to tears by my mother’s loving gesture of making the special dessert. But my father announced that next year Woo would be in charge.
The recipes in this cookbook, published over 40 years ago, before I knew to include a publication date, are not low fat. They aren’t particularly healthy, although with a few adaptations, they aren’t necessarily unhealthy. But they are all really, really good. I get calls a lot from friends who ask me to send the recipe for Honey Mustard Chicken or Mary Davis’s Manicotti. And although the recipes are yummy, the best part of this book is the artwork by the late Laura Evans. We were in college when we gathered at my mother’s dining room table every evening and she sketched the most engaging, hilarious, appealing drawings for every section of this book. The front cover shows a scowling woman with a messy, cluttered kitchen and an overflowing bowl. Apple cores, banana peels and bottles of wine litter the counter. The back cover shows the same intent woman, still scowling, with a beautifully garnished roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. My words don’t do Laura’s work justice. The personality and humor in every single sketch are incredible.
A few years ago, Maddin Corey asked me to republish it, and I did. The new edition is a little slicker than the original, and so far, the pages are all intact, with no rubber bands required. The artwork is still wonderful, and is a treat to pour through even if you have no intention of making a single recipe.
As I turn the ragged, splattered pages brought to life with Laura’s art, I see names of ladies who were so dear to me. It seems like just the other day Cotty Kale and Susie Hunt and Jane Ragland popped by with their recipes for Marinated Vegetable Salad and Lemon Pie and Bacon Stuffed Potatoes, respectively. Those women and several others are no longer here, but it is remarkable to me that the second they received the little hand-scrawled request for their best recipes, they dropped whatever they were doing and sent them.
I will always thank them from bringing out their best, not just for holidays, but most every day of their lives.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of “Never Trust A Hungry Cook – A Riverview Collection.” She also wrote three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. Her website is ferrisrobinson.com and you can download a free pollinator poster there. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.