Powell's Q&A

Robert St. John

When making a pot of beans, most Southern cooks will fill the pot with water, drop in a piece of bacon, and turn up the heat. Deep South Staples takes that preparation one step further by offering a pork stock to add to the beans. A step is added, but the final result is worth it. When making the green-bean casserole that is ever-present at Southern social events, instead of dumping a gelatinous can of gloppy cream of mushroom soup into the mix, the book offers a mushroom b?chamel sauce. Again, one extra step, tons of extra flavor.

We've grown too accustomed to grabbing a paper sack at the drive through, bringing it home, eating it in front of the television, and calling it "dinner." This book takes the reader back to a simpler time when families actually ate together.

The meatloaf in Deep South Staples is the last meatloaf you will ever need and the banana pudding is out of this world. My family's entire Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve menu is included featuring the most amazing sweet potato dish ever developed... no marshmallows.

The book also includes 100 cooking tips, retro photography, and a few humorous essays on food, the South, the beauty of fondue, and my wife's cooking abilities (or lack thereof).

Introduce one other author you think people should read, and suggest a good place to start.
Rick Bragg, All Over But the Shoutin' — post-modern Southern literature begins and ends with Rick Bragg.

What is your favorite literary first line?
While we're on the subject...
Last week Rick Bragg read the first chapter of his new book to a friend of mine. The book is about his father. Recalling this event my friend quoted the first line of the book. It was a humbling experience. If I write another forty years I will never come up with a first line as good. The book isn't due in to the publisher until July, so I can't quote the first line, here. Do yourself a favor and buy the book when it is released, only then will the answer to this question be revealed.

Describe the best breakfast of your life.
Last year I was traveling through the South on a cooking-demo/book-signing tour. The morning after a Nashville demo I was invited to breakfast at a friend's period cabin in the woods outside of Franklin, Tennessee, near the trailhead of the Natchez Trace. The breakfast consisted of country ham, red-eye gravy, scrambled eggs, garlic-cheese grits made with extra sharp cheddar, two versions of beaten biscuits, saut?ed apples, cream-cheese pound cake, banana-nut bread, freshly squeezed orange juice topped with a scoop of orange sherbet, and the absolute best sausage I have ever — or will ever — put in my mouth.

I don't exaggerate when I say that it might have been worth the drive from South Mississippi just to eat the sausage. It came from a friend of Southern food historian John Egerton's in Kentucky. John is most definitely a man who knows his sausage. It was perfection. As far as my sausage eating goes, the buck stops in Franklin, Tenn., by way of somewhere in Kentucky. I have reconciled with my stomach that I will never again eat sausage as fine.

The cabin's candle-lit table was set with seven homemade jellies, jams, and preserves. The meal also included sweet potatoes. I had never eaten sweet potatoes for breakfast. Our host peeled the sweet potatoes, cut them in half lengthwise, placed them in a casserole with butter, brown sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon (maybe a clove), and baked them — flat side down — basting with the liquid from the pan. They, like the sausage, were unforgettable.

Why do you write?
To get it all out of my head. I enjoy the moments when an unexpected sentence, thought, or phrase comes from nowhere. It is fleeting and sometimes I can't type fast enough to get the thought on paper. I call those instances "little gifts" and, to me, they are what's best about writing.

Who's wilder on tour, rock bands or authors?
Four words: Led Zeppelin and The Who. That was five words, wasn't it? Nevertheless, I'll put John Bonham and Keith Moon's groupie deflowering proficiencies and talent for hurling televisions out of the Hyatt House's eighth floor windows up against any writer on the New York Times Bestseller's List, past or present.

Dogs, cats, budgies or turtles?
Budgies and turtles? What, no hamsters? I'm a dog guy. My wife is a cat person. Noted Mississippi writer and lifelong Democrat, Willie Morris, once wrote a very funny letter to the editor of his local paper detailing the aspects of dogs and cats and their relationship to the political arena. He opined that dogs were Republicans and cats were Democrats. If that is the case, I would say that budgies are members of Perot's Reform Party — small, squawky, and the perpetual runner-up. Turtles are Libertarians — slow, just, and — fables aside — not one to ever win the race. The hamster is an ardent Green Party loyalist.

In the For-All-Eternity category, what will be your final thought?
"Damn, that went fast."

Make a question of your own, then answer it.
Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

A: In 1966, I wanted to be Darrin Stephens, not only to be married to Elizabeth Montgomery [Samantha Stephens on Bewitched] (my first love), but to be in the advertising business. The pitch to clients appealed to me at an early age.

On July 20, 1969, I was in Yankee Stadium watching a double-header between the Yankees and the Washington Senators when Bob Sheppard's voice boomed over the PA, "America has just landed on the moon!" Everyone stood and cheered. Both dugouts emptied onto the field. The game was momentarily stopped. Yankees hugged Senators. Grandfathers hugged grandsons. New Yorkers actually hugged other New Yorkers. They played the national anthem for a second time. We all sang. My grandfather cried. I went home and removed the Peter Fonda/Dennis Hopper posters from my wall and hung every National Geographic poster of space and the moon I could find. I wanted to be an astronaut until I found out how they have to go to the bathroom in space. Also, I never cared for Tang.

In 1973 I wanted to be a member of Led Zeppelin. When I realized that I was never going to replace Plant or Page, I hoped that maybe I could write about them. Cameron Crowe is still a hero of mine.

After graduating high school in 1979 and flunking out of a few universities, I fell in love with the restaurant business. The writing came later. I'm currently waiting on the next phase.

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