OP: My Mother's Southern Desserts
William Morrow and Company Inc., New York, 1998. Hardcover. Near Fine.
James Villas, the longtime food and wine editor at Town & Country magazine—prolific, award-winning, and highly opinionated—joined forces with his mother, Martha Pearl Villas, for My Mother’s Southern Desserts (1998) to share her baking arsenal. The implication here is that every gathering is an occasion and every occasion requires dessert.
Fortunately, such a philosophy gives any cook plenty of practice and opportunity to exchange ideas. The inherent social component of every recipe is reinforced by the sometimes enchanting and sometimes spicy headnotes, which reveal who shared the recipe with whom, which family member likes it best, or for whose funeral the dish must be served.
The desserts are all appealing and speak to a different era with a sense of timelessness. To name a few (nearly) at random:
- Boozy mud pie—the inherent sexiness of which makes it ideal for Valentine’s Day, according to Mother
- Banana-rum ice cream
- “Get well” baked custard, a tried and true remedy, put to work for at least four generations
- “Emergency” lemon buttermilk wedding cake—makeable just hours before a wedding because store bought would simply not do
- Coconut pound cake
Delectable desserts and good reading.
Our copy would be described almost as new, save for one page, the half title, being cleanly torn out. Otherwise, appearing unused.
