You'll want a sip of 'Sweet Tea'

We hate to say "we've known it all along," but the folks here in the food section have been pretty high on Chapel Hill resident Jean Anderson's "A Love Affair With Southern Cooking" since Andrea Weigl wrote about the book in December. The food world agreed at the prestigious James Beard Awards a few weeks ago, handing the book the top spot in the Americana book category. The stiffest competition came from North Carolina expatriate James Villas, with his ode to Southern eating, "The Glory of Southern Cooking.

Last year at the Beard Awards, Charleston's Matt and Ted Lee grabbed cookbook honors with "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook," a straightforward look at Southern cooking. Looks like a pattern of good eating to me. Is another award-winning Southern cookbook lurking for a shot at next year's awards? It might just go by the title of "Screen Doors and Sweet Tea" by Martha Hall Foose. (Clarkson Potter, 2008, $32.50).

Unlike the books above, which take in the whole of Southern cookery, Foose focuses on what she knows and loves: the Mississippi Delta. For those of you who don't know Mississippi, the Delta is cotton country and, lately, one of the great catfish farming regions. It is also home to the Viking Range Corp., where Foose serves as the executive chef of the culinary school. The Delta runs from Greenville to south of Greenwood and is flat as flat can be except for the Indian burial mounds. It is also a strangely different land than I thought it would be, and Foose's book captures the Delta with intensity.

She weaves in stories of family and friends with escapades and a history of the Old Delta and its new influences. Her recipes reflect this as well: from the hilarious "Mailbox Cocktail," where one folds down the door of the mailbox to use as a table for your cocktail while visiting with the neighbors, to a recipe for Apricot Rice Salad that she developed to honor Mrs. Ethel Wright Mohamed, a woman who not only married a Syrian peddler in very white 1920s Mississippi but also became a world-renowned artist, using embroidery as her medium.

The book offers finger foods, salads and soups, and has strong chapters titled Field Peas, Greens, Sides and the Like, and Martha's super strong suit, Hot from the Oven and The Sweetest Things.

Martha has started and run two bakeries -- The Bottletree in Oxford, Miss., and the Mockingbird Bakery in Greenwood. Both have received national acclaim. Sample her Apron String Biscuits, Plucking Bread, Sweet Tea Pie or The Devil's Own Red Velvet Cake, all sure to please.

Each recipe not only works and tastes fabulous but also carries the extra benefit of telling a tale. None of the recipes is particularly difficult, and the ingredients are easy to find -- at least in our neck of the woods.

If your family tree has firm roots in the South, Foose's writing will make your memories flood back. If the South has become your second home, then this cookbook may help you understand these quirky and unique folks you've settled around.

In the South, we are blessed with many great writers and storytellers. I'm thankful for such folks as Anderson, Villas and Foose, who have chosen to share their literary skills along with their love of food, kitchen talent and sense of place. Pass me a plate, please.

Recipes

Comeback Sauce