Blue Ridge Country March/April 2023 - 24

COUNTRY ROADS
BOOK NOTE
Arwen Donahue. Landings:
A Crooked Farm Year.
(Hub City Press, 2022.) 257 pp.
rwen Donahue has a story to tell.
And she tells it in words, of course.
But she also tells it in pen and ink and
watercolor. This is one beautiful book.
Donahue and her husband, David,
live on a 200-acre farm in Nicholas
County, Kentucky, land that's half timber
and half crop and grazing land, land
adjoining the place that David's greatgreat-great
grandparents once farmed.
They do CSA (Community
Supported Agriculture)
deliveries to 50-some
shareholders, who receive
a half-bushel basket of
in-season produce for
half of the year. They
raise goats and cows and
chickens. Some days, their daughter,
Phoebe, helps. Some days, she doesn't.
In between plowing and weeding and
harvesting and repairing fences, David
plays music, and Arwen paints and
writes and wonders what the next day
will bring.
There's nothing romanticized in the
telling: bridges wash out and crops
founder; laundry doesn't dry for a week
and animals wander away. Donahue
tells the truth straight-on, both in what
she chooses to tell and how she tells it:
" The lettuce shoots the moon, the kale
grows buggy and bitter, weeds swallow
whole sections of the garden. " The
illustration for this entry? Arwen and
David asleep at the kitchen table. " 'Toil,
misery, and great food,' he says after we
eat, just before his head goes down. "
With an introduction by Barbara
Kingsolver, who grew up in the same
" obscure corner of the world, " " Landings "
is a book that reads just plain
honest, both verbally and visually.
Follow the year artfully, and watch
the pen-and-ink drawing of the winter
entries bloom with watercolor as the
days lengthen. Or follow it narratively,
reading Donahue's honest entries with
surprise and respect. Either way, it's a
gem.
-JOAN VANNORSDALL
24 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
A
EDNA LEWIS
MENU TRAIL
Enjoy Legacy Dining
The 'Grand Dame of Southern Cooking' is also to be honored with a historical
highway marker in Virginia.
E
dna Lewis's story portrays the roots
of Southern soul cooking, reaching
beyond the familiar dishes into a shared
way of life. Of necessity, traditional
Southern cooking embraced ideas now
seen as conventional: seasonal fresh ingredients,
pasture-raised meat and poultry,
all without pesticides, herbicides or
preservatives.
Lewis was born in Orange County,
Virginia, on April 13, 1916, in a community
named Freetown, a settlement
founded by her grandfather and other
emancipated slaves.
She left home as a young teen to earn
money for the family and held a succession
of jobs in Washington, DC, and
New York City, preparing dishes for celebrities
including Tennessee Williams,
Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, William
Faulkner and Eleanor Roosevelt.
She also authored four successful cookbooks,
including The Edna Lewis
Cookbook (1972) and The Taste of
Country Cooking (1976). She won
countless awards and was honored
with a U.S. Postage Stamp in 2006. A
historical marker is to be erected near
her birthplace in Unionville.
Despite her success, Edna Lewis
never forgot her Virginia roots or her
family. In fact, she visited often, reconnecting
with loved ones and cooking
for potlucks and homecomings at her
home church, Bethel Baptist Church.
To honor her, Orange County has created
the Edna Lewis Menu Trail. Until
Memorial Day 2023, restaurants along
the trail will highlight their interpreta30
Years Ago
in Blue Ridge Country
" On April 2, 1931, a 17-yearold
minor league southpaw faced
the New York Yankees in an exhibition
game at Chattanooga, Tennessee's
Engel Stadium, home of
the Class-AA Lookouts.
Jackie Mitchell struck
out Babe Ruth and Lou
Gehrig as 4,000 fans
thundered their approval. "
-Barbara
Gregorich,
from her
March/April '93
piece on the abbreviated
professional
baseball career of Jackie Mitchell,
whose contract was voided the
next day by baseball Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
on the grounds that baseball was
too strenuous for a woman.
tions of recipes from Lewis's first cookbook.
To explore the seven participating
restaurants, go to visitorangevirginia.
com/taste/the-edna-lewis-menu-trail
African Americans' culinary skills and
influences have been the backbone of
Southern cooking. When other cultures
influenced the cuisine, the cooks were
still often African American. -ANNIE TOBEY
http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country March/April 2023

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