Rebecca Lang: Around the Southern Table and Sweet Potato Casserole

Holiday season is in full swing in my world, and while the food and cooking are not the only focus, they have always brought me great joy. For me, getting in the kitchen to cook and serve big holiday meals has always been a pleasure and a worthwhile gratifying form of work. Not everybody feels this way, and thank heavens for that! Those of us who love the food and cooking part need people, lots of people, to come over and sit down and eat what we’ve cooked up. My friend Rebecca Lang ‘s beautiful, practical and delightful new cookbook, Around the Southern Table: Coming Home to Comforting Meals and Treasured Memories  centers us on a powerful, moving truth: sitting down to eat at the table with people we care about matters. While the book positively glows with gorgeous images of irresistible food, I love her invitation to notice the gift of sitting down to eat, of having food to cook and people to share it. She writes movingly from the heart about the tables in her own life, and all that has happened around those tables. Read  her essay HERE:

After being a fan of Rebecca’s, I loved meeting her at the BB&T Charleston Wine + Food Festival in 2011. I count on her book Quick Fox Southern: Homemade Hospitality in 30 Minutes or Less  for busy weeknights and sudden covered-dish supper inspirations. I love her attitude toward food and cooking in general and Southern food in particular. She seems to love what her grandmother did without putting old-time kitchen ways into a museum or a temple. She cherishes her beloved maternal grandmother’s antique oak table with abundant leaves for extending it, but it’s the people and the moments that matter. Reading her words reminded me of precious tables in my life: the formica-covered kitchen tables in my grandparents home, the card tables where the kids were seated during the big dinners of my childhood, woven mats spread out on the kitchen floor in Thailand, even the t.v. trays in the den with the plaid sofa and the wood paneling. Spectacular meals, modest ones, hilarious ones —  Decades, many decades down the road of my life,I still remember meals and people and occasions clearly, long after menu details have faded away.

This fall Rebecca came to town on her book tour for Around the Southern Table. In addition to teaching cooking classes and television appearances, she was Guest Author at a Cooks and Books event at The Granary in Fearrington Village.  Co-hosted by Fearrington House Restaurant and McIntyre’s Books, the events include lunch, a signed book, and the opportunity to listen and visit with the author over a meal.  Fearrington’s award winning Executive Chef Colin Bedford and his team served up a memorable luncheon from the pages of Rebecca’s book.

Forgetting my plans to write about the feast, I dove right into my Marinated Asparagus and Pecan Salad,  eating it all it up without taking a photo for you to enjoy here. Thinking fast, I maneuvered my copy of the book, open to the photograph of that very salad alad as featured in the book. Bonus! You can pretend you too got to enjoy Rebecca Lang talking about the book as we sat right there at the table with her, enjoying her recipes.

The Main course? Got it. From then on, I was focused. Atlantic Shrimp on Yellow Grits. Magnificent, as tasty as it was lovely on the plate.

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie made for a marvelous finish to an exquisite meal. Rebecca’s company and conversation made it even more satisfying.

My favorite aspect of sharing this meal with Rebecca was hearing details and stories about how she got started in her work in the world of food. This involves my hero and friend Nathalie Dupree, whose new book you will be hearing about here soon. Read the introduction to Around the Southern Table, written by Nathalie, to learn the the story. Read this, too, for more on that story, from Rebecca’s wonderful, excellent-recipe-filled blog.

I’m writing this post with Thanksgiving on the near horizon, and for me, sweet potatoes have been crucial beloved items on the Thanksgiving table, all my life. Each year I read numerous disdainful references to sweet potato casseroles with mini marshmallows on top. I silently pretend that I too, am shocked, SHOCKED! at the persistent affection for this dish around the land. But there it is, in Rebecca Lang’s lovely, elegant book, photographed handsomely and spoken of with pride! Yes! Me, too! I made her recipe, and mine is not as pretty but it is mighty tasty.  I think stirring in or sprinkling on chopped pecans and raisins would be a good thing to do, and I might at a tad bit more sugar myself. So glad I have this book for this week, for all the rest of this year, and for the new year(s) to come. Here’s to good times at your table1