Amy C. Evans - A Good Meal Is Hard to Find: Storied Recipes from Deep South

DEDICATIONS

For my grandmother, Alla Grace Browder Riley;

my mother, Mary Ann Riley Evans;

and my daughter, Sofia Grace.

-Amy

For my mother, Cynthia Yandell Vaughan Foose,

with admiration and love.

-Martha

I STARTED MAKING PORTRAITS OF THE LADIES, as I like to call them, back in about 2006. I remember being in my Oxford, Mississippi, studio, working on one of my usual still life paintings of vintage objects, when it occurred to me: What if I created a story to go with these crazy collections of seemingly mismatched things? I had never been interested in giving my work anything more than simple descriptive titles before that moment, but it started to make sense that dreaming up a story for my quirky picture puzzles would add another dimension to themand offer up a good reason for a few petit fours to appear in the same painting as a can of hairspray.

As soon as I committed to the idea, the stories spilled out like buttons from a jar. Later on in the series, as I began painting on bigger panels, I started to include vintage fabric patterns in the composition as a way to set a ladys life story in a particular era. After a while, I managed to amass a motley cast of characters that spanned generations. Strong women who dont mind eating alone and can do for themselves. Quirky gals who have oddball habits and are stuck in their ways. Good talkers who like to eat cake for breakfast and will gladly accept the offer of a well-considered cocktail. It turns out that The Ladies are an awful lot like the women I get to call my friends.

One of those strong-willed, food-loving, super-hospitable friends is Martha Foose. On one of my visits to Marthas home in Greenwood, Mississippi, I walked into her kitchen, and there was a half-eaten strawberry cake on the counter. It didnt take but a minute for us to sit down at her kitchen bed, as she calls it (a generously padded banquette that anchors two sides of her breakfast table), to enjoy hefty slices of pink cake, along with jelly jars of bourbon to wash them down. I havent the slightest idea what time of day it was. It could very well have been midmorning or midnight. What I do know is that sitting in Marthas kitchen is one of my very favorite places to be, and its where I spent many hours over the course of our collaboration on this book.

Martha and I first met in Greenwood, probably sometime during the summer of 2003. I was in town to document area restaurants. Martha had recently returned to the Delta to open a bakery. I would bet money that it was her cousin LeAnne who first introduced us. However it happened, Martha and I got on like a house on fire. And I fell in love with the town of Greenwood, too. I loved it so much that I got married there in 2005. Martha made my wedding cake. It was red velvet, and I never tire of sharing the eye-popping tidbit that Martha used sixteen bottles of food coloring to achieve the perfect shade of oxblood. My marriage didnt stick, but our friendship did.

All told, I lived in Mississippi for thirteen years. I called the university town of Oxford home for all of that time, but I took a Delta ramble every chance I could. And I still do. I moved back to my hometown of Houston, Texas, in 2014, but I keep returning to Mississippi because it is my soul place. It is the place where I feel most connected to the land and the people, the food and the stories.