Deep Fried Southern Tales: Short Stories A Summary A. Everette James, Jr., ScM, JD, MD There are certain truths that are universal, and then there are regional truths of great validity. Deep Fried Southern Tales are among those with impeccable veracity and are so compelling one can even share them with their best canine friend. In this instance it is a large Labrador retriever whose moniker is Mr. Grady. (A.K.A. Mr. Gravy) These tales are largely related in the Southern vernacular, a universal form of communication understood and appreciated by most of the realm. The subjects and stories are neither profound nor profanejust interesting flashes of everyday life in a rural construct. Sometime the protagonist talks directly to Mr. Gravy while others he speaks to hear the sound of his own voice. Each tale stands on its own. Thus the reader has a broad-spectrum selection opportunity to choose any sequence they wish. We hope you read them all but read what you like.

Relates twenty-one gruesome and disgusting tales drawn from folklore, most of them from urban legends.

Southern humorist Jane Jenkins Herlong brings joy and humor with her 50 unusual-but-true faith-filled stories of growing up in the South Carolina low country. Whether you love Southern ways of life or find their ways strange and amusing, you’ll be entertained and inspired with warm Southern-fried humor and tried-and-true tips for attaining the best version of yourself. Jane’s 50 stories address specific landmark events along with issues in a woman’s life, such as fitting into the covered-dish church culture, sacred sisterhood, sassy seasoned Southern women and why we are drawn to beauty pageant competition, and much more!

Ride the rollercoaster of Shiloh Jacobs’s life as her dreams derail, sending her on a downward spiral from the heights of an AP job in Tokyo to penniless in rural Virginia. Trapped in a world so foreign to her sensibilities and surrounded by a quirky group of friends, will she break through her hardened prejudices before she loses those who want to help her? Can she find the key to what changed her estranged mother’s life so powerfully before her death that she became a different woman—and can it help Shiloh too?

Vivian Howard, star of PBS's A Chef's Life, celebrates the flavors of North Carolina's coastal plain in more than 200 recipes and stories. This new classic of American country cooking proves that the food of Deep Run, North Carolina -- Vivian's home -- is as rich as any culinary tradition in the world. Organized by ingredient with dishes suited to every skill level, from beginners to confident cooks, Deep Run Roots features time-honored simple preparations alongside extraordinary meals from her acclaimed restaurant Chef and the Farmer. Home cooks will find photographs for every single recipe. Ten years ago, Vivian opened Chef and the Farmer and put the nearby town of Kinston on the culinary map. But in a town paralyzed by recession, she couldn't hop on every new culinary trend. Instead, she focused on rural development: If you grew it, she'd buy it. Inundated by local sweet potatoes, blueberries, shrimp, pork, and beans, Vivian learned to cook the way generations of Southerners before her had, relying on resourcefulness, creativity, and the traditional ways of preserving food. Deep Run Roots is the result of years of effort to discover the riches of Eastern North Carolina. Like The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, and The Taste of Country Cooking before it, this is landmark work of American food writing. Recipes include: Family favorites like Blueberry BBQ Chicken Creamed Collard-Stuffed Potatoes Fried Yams with Five-Spice Maple Bacon Candy Chicken and Rice Country-Style Pork Ribs in Red Curry-Braised Watermelon Show-stopping desserts like Warm Banana Pudding, Peaches and Cream Cake, Spreadable Cheesecake, and Pecan-Chewy Pie. You'll also find 200 more quick breakfasts, weeknight dinners, holiday centerpieces, seasonal preserves, and traditional preparations for all kinds of cooks.

A trapper gets his comeuppance in this Southern tall tale! Otis Steele was a hungry old trapper near Uncertain, Texas. One night he cut the tail off a strange creature as it ran away from him, and he fried it up and ate it with gusto. Otis filled his belly and went to bed, but as he lay alone in his cabin, he heard the wind begin to howl. Young readers will chill to the thrills of this rhyming story when the creature returns, looking for his "taileebone."

Avery Andres has just been downsized from her job in a law office in a North Carolina city and has returned to her small home town to lick her wounds and consider, with hesitation, trying to set up a law practice there. She quickly gets a client or two, and immediately the company building owned by one is destroyed by arson, and the body found inside was quite probably murdered. Meanwhile, an old high-school classmate has told the entire county that he is hopelessly in love with Avery and makes several attempts at spectacular suicides, each one of them carefully set up not to work. All in all, Avery finds that small-town life is not nearly so dull as she feared. And sometimes wishes it were.