Friendship cake

Author

Lynne Hinton

Call Number

• FICTION HINT (CEN)

Publication Information

San Francisco : HarperSanFrancisco, c2000.

Physical Description

x, 210 p. ; 22 cm.

Summary

How many Southern women does it take to put together a cookbook? Five, in Hinton's sincere but frothy debut novel, in which several female congregants of the appropriately named Hope Springs Community Church in North Carolina decide to create a cookbook; each has her own special recipe to share and a story to tell. On the cookbook committee are pragmatic Margaret, whose down-home wisdom makes her the community confidant; 63-year-old Louise, nursing the unrequited love of her life, another woman, through Alzheimer's; Beatrice, with a finger in everyone else's pie; Jessie, the only black woman in the all-white congregation; and Reverend Charlotte Stewart, their first woman preacher. The project originates as a form of female bonding through food, but as the committee holds meetings to review their progress, a lot more is stirred up than soups and stews. Also on the table are death and sex, friendship and love. The characters introduce themselves in the opening chapters, and their voices are like a potluck dinner, unsophisticated and oddly comforting.

Notes

Includes recipes.

Contents

• Recipes: Old favorites: Margaret's sweet potato casserole
• Louise's old-fashioned egg custard
• Beatrice's prune cake
• Jessie's pecan pie
• Charlotte's banana pudding
• Relishes and pickles: Rose Mary's squash pickles
• Earnestine's corn relish
• Fruits and vegetables: Lucy's pears in port
• Dorothy's fried grits
• Peggy's fried okra
• Meats: Twila's chicken pie
• Britanny's tender beef stew
• Desserts: Dick's Mexican wedding cookies
• Roxie's angel food cake
• Elizabeth's Christmas Moravian cakes
• Lucy's friendship cake
• Real friendship cake.