Leftover Sweet Potatoes

The new Jill Conner Browne book American Thighs came out in January, and it's a small, warmed-up portion of what she's dished out so exuberantly over the past decade. She gives a few new recipes in a chapter in the back and says of one dish "I will eat this, gravy and all, completely cold out of the refrigerator the next morning," and that seems to me an apt comparison to her book. If you haven't heard of the Sweet Potato Queens before, you should go right out and get a copy of The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, but if you've read it, you don't need to be getting up out of your comfortable chair and braving the March winds to go find out what all else she has to say. Pretty much what she's saying is that it's still possible to enjoy life even if you're a baby boomer and therefore over 50 years old now.

The previous books were enjoyable even if you weren't a baby boomer, but this one has a kind of "we're all in this together" feel that I didn't identify with at all. This woman is still of the era in which women wore "outfits" and got "hairdos." She explains a few amusing southernisms--Ron and I both enjoyed her explanation of the phrase "she didn't want to be ugly to anyone" because that's a phrase we haven't heard in a while, living in Ohio. My daughter and I enjoyed her description of what it was (and still is, unfortunately) like to try to buy clothes that conform to a school dress code when you're at least eight inches taller than other girls. And she still writes entertainingly and doesn't mince words:
"Most 'therapy' amounts to expensive self-indulgence for those of us who have used up our free resources by wearing all available friends and family slap OUT with our never-ending whinings about our Situations, and now we would prefer to pay large sums of money to a stranger who is willing (for a price) to endlessly listen to our endless crap---as opposed to just, say, DOING something DIFFERENT."

Those of you who enjoyed Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood might enjoy this latest offering from a southern writer of that generation, as the publishers have probably noted, since there's a similarity to the cover pictures:

Sweet Potato Queens

I love the idea of the Sweet Potato Queens. They think that if you want to be Queen of something, like a St. Patrick's Day parade, you should get yourself a crown and something to ride on. But the Sweet Potato Queens are baby boomers, and so their wishes include inexplicable stuff like majorette boots and a "full viking kitchen" (just imagine my mental picture when my eyes first passed over THAT phrase).

Odd wishes aside, though, the author of the Sweet Potato Queens books, Jill Conner Browne, is a good storyteller. She recycles tried and true themes, such as that a woman who is accused of a sexual transgression by her man should go on the offensive, a theme first sounded in literature by the Wife of Bath. In true southern style, many of her stories involve food, and she includes recipes. I actually keep a copy of her first book, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, in my kitchen so I can find the recipe for "death chicken" when I get a hankerin' for it.

I recommend her first four books highly: The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, God Save the Sweet Potato Queens, The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook (And Financial Planner), and The Sweet Potato Queens' Field Guide to Men. I do NOT recommend any of her novels. I also would urge you to pass over The Sweet Potato Queens' Wedding Planner and Divorce Guide and The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Raising Children for Fun and Profit. This last title is her most recent, and like the wedding planner, it seems to me to be an attempt to cash in on her previous success. There is one good line in the book about raising children, and it is this: "If worry burned calories, there would be no fat parents, that's for sure."

The only use I have for the book on raising children is if you know anyone who justifies leaving a baby to cry himself to sleep by citing child rearing "experts" or beating on a child by citing the Bible, she has some dandy (and quite logical) things to say on p. 92 (crying) and p. 224 (beating).

Here's a little of the flavor of Jill's story-telling, from her first book:

One time one of the Queens, Tammy, and I were out for our early-morning walk around the track at the Y where we work out. Tammy was in a major funk about something, and I'd been practically tap-dancing around the track, trying in vain to perk her up. I was pulling out all my best stuff, and nothing was working. And then I glanced off to the right, behind Tammy, into the parking lot of the hotel at the other end of the track. Under the brilliant beam of the streetlight stood...a nekkid man. Now I say nekkid because that's what he was. There's a profound difference between naked and nekkid. Naked is proud, noble, graceful, without shame or the need for it. Nekkid is, on the other hand...well, it's nekkid.
And so I said to Tammy, "There's a nekkid man." We paused momentarily while she turned to look.
She nodded in agreement. "There certainly is."
He was just strolling along, not a care in the world, not a stitch on. He made no effort whatsoever to conceal his parts, although I saw nothing worthy of so ostentatious a public display. About this time he looked our way. Tammy said cheerily, "Hi!"
"Hi!" he said. "How are ya'll this mornin'?"
"Oh, much better now, thank you," she replied, the absolute soul of politeness. The nekkid man seemed to appreciate her gracious attitude.
You see, in this very small verbal exchange, Tammy upheld not only the sacred doctrine of Southern hospitality but the very highest standard of the Sweet Potato Queens. She spoke kindly to the man, regardless of his race, creed, color, religion, social status, or appearance, which was nekkid. I was proud to call her my friend.

The audiobook version of The SPQ's Book of Love is read by the author in a well-enunciated voice and (surprisingly) not too much of a southern accent for general audiences. It's a great mood-lifter for when you're driving around and need a laugh. Like my audiobook of David Sedaris' Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, however, you don't want to be driving the kids around while listening to most of this stuff.