Mrs. Whaley Entertains: Advice, Opinions, and 100 Recipes from a Charleston Kitchen - Hardcover

Whaley, Emily; Baldwin, William P.

4.05

58 ratings by Goodreads

9780786219131: Mrs. Whaley Entertains: Advice, Opinions, and 100 Recipes from a Charleston Kitchen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786219130 ISBN 13: 9780786219131

Publisher: Thorndike Pr, 1999

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Book by Whaley, Emily, Baldwin, William

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Review:

Charleston, that slightly starchy though gracious Southern city, seems an unlikely place to have made a heroine of the decidedly unstarchy Emily Whaley. Yet Mrs. Whaley's remarkable garden was a standard stop for many years on the Historic Charleston Foundation's annual garden tour, and Mrs. Whaley (who, despite her gregarious informality, had impeccable Southern bloodlines) was a popular social fixture, having founded the Cotillion, the city's most upscale dancing school. Entertaining was Mrs. Whaley's second-favorite hobby, and Mrs. Whaley Entertains is a slim, delightful collection of family anecdotes and timeless Southern recipes, salted liberally with Mrs. W.'s strong opinions ("Never serve anything to a guest that you haven't made successfully two or three times and made quite totally yours") and abundant good humor ("A good hostess simply wants you to enjoy yourself and won't care a whit if you refuse something as ungodly looking as an oyster"). Emily Whaley died in June 1998; this pleasant guide to Southern hospitality is a fitting memorial. --Barrie Trinkle

From the Inside Flap:

Dig right in to the plucky octogenarian Emily Whaley and her passionate, endlessly quotable opinions on gardening and just about everything else." said The New York Times Book Review when Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden came out in spring 1997. Emily Whaley took the gardening world by storm--and a few other worlds as well.

It turns out Mrs. Whaley, at eighty-seven, had a good deal more on her mind that she had no intention of keeping to herself. Her other favorite hobby--cooking delicious meals and serving them to the people she loved--was ripe for the picking and her opinions on fostering friendship and love as quotable as ever: "What experience has taught me is that people consider it a special compliment to be invited to a meal. But if the hostess is all aflutter like a butterfly caught in a net, then as the Irish say, "I wish I was to home and the party was to hell!"

So, here are all the admonishments of Mrs. Whaley passed along to generations of Charleston hosts and hostesses. Such as "Don't serve guests dishes you haven't made successfully two or three times--and quite lately." And after supper, "leave the dishes on the table, blow out the candles, shut the door and serve finger desserts and coffee in another room...do not let your supper guests help you clean up!"

Here, as well, are her favorite on hundred recipes--regional delectables like "Edisto Breakfast Shrimp," perfect summer party dishes like "Pawleys Island Crab Cakes," fine old-fashioned breads like "Little Thin Cornmeal Pancakes," her variations on old standbys like "Dancing School Fudge," and the recipes painstakingly collected for dealing with what the fisherman and hunter might bring home. Sprinkled throughout are more of her juicy little family stories and her priceless explanations of Southern parlance. For example: "We call it grits when it's in the box at the grocery and these same grits are called hominy when we have cooked it for an hour."

Just as he did in their first collaboration, William Baldwin perfectly captures the Whaley cadence and positive spirit: "I've got to admit that eighty-seven doesn't figure out as middle age. All right, I'm no longer middle-aged anymore. But this categorizing of where old age starts and what it looks like should be kicked overboard.

Mrs. Whaley Entertains indeed.

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