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By Luann Landon

Published by: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Dinner at Miss Lady's, Memories and Recipes from a Southern Childhood, is part cookbook and part memoir of slower, gentler time in the South. In it, Luann Landon recounts childhood memories of summers she and her sister spent in her grandparents' elegant home in Greensboro, Georgia.

Cookbook Background

Miss Lady, Landon's paternal grandmother, "was waited on by servants all her life and didn't even know how to make a cup of tea, but she had an infallible sense of how food should taste." Murlo, the maternal grandmother, "made everything herself, unwilling to entrust her recipes to someone else's ignorance or carelessness..." Henretta was the beloved family cook and maid, serving the family with obvious love and loyalty.

About the Recipes

The recipes are plentiful, ranging from traditional Southern Henretta's Stewed Corn and Beaten Biscuits to more elegant Galantine of Turkey with Chaudfroid Sauce and Aunt Virginia's Terrine of Pheasant. Landon reconstructs the recipes from memories and many hours spent watching Henretta and Murlo in the kitchen. The stories, Landon freely admits, are from both memory and imagination. Each chapter ends with a related menu and its recipes. If you love the history, culture, and foods of the South, you'll enjoy this cookbook.