Recipes

 Recipes for food that can be served at book club meetings for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

   On one occasion he was unable to pay bail for his friend and Antonapoulos spent the night in jail. When Singer came to get him out the next day he was very sulky. He did not to leave. He had enjoyed his dinner of sowbelly and cornbread with syrup poured over it.    

    

 Portia opened a paper sack she had placed on the kitchen table. ‘I done brought a nice mess of collard greens and I thought maybe we have supper together. I done brought a piece of side meat, too. These here greens needs to be seasoned with that. You don’t care if the collards is just cooked in meat, do you?’

 One Sunday, when she (Alice) wrote out the day’s menu on the typewriter, she marked the special dinner with chicken ala king at twenty cents instead of fifty, and did not discover the mistake until several customers had already ordered and were ready to pay.

 Singer nodded and wiped his mouth with his napkin. His dinner had got cold because he couldn’t look down to eat, but he was so polite that he let Blount go on talking.

‘Mister Singer’s got fried chicken for his supper and he hasn’t eat one piece yet,’ the little boy said.

‘There was this lady I knew a long time ago,’ he said. ‘You sort of remind me of her. Miss Clara. She had a little farm in Texas. And made pralines to sell in the cities.

‘Roast beef with gravy. Rice. And cabbage and light bread. And a big hunk of apple pie. I’m famished. Oh, Johnny, I can hear the Yankees coming. And speaking of meals, my friend, did I ever tell you about Mr Clark Patterson, the gentleman who owns the Sunny Dixie Show? He’s so fat he hasn’t seen his privates for twenty years, and all day he sits in his trailer playing solitaire and smoking reefer. He orders his meals from a short-order joint near-by and every day he breaks his fast with —‘

They invited him to dinner and arranged to meet him beforehand at the store where Antonapoulos worked. The Greek was still busy when they arrived. He was finishing a batch of caramel fudge in the cooking room at the back of the store. The fudge lay golden and glossy over the long marble topped table. The air was warm and rich with sweet smells. Antonapoulos seemed pleased to have Carl watch him as he glided the knife down the warm candy and cut it into squares. He offered their new friend a corner of the fudge on the edge of his greased knife. . .

She (Mick) helped herself to white meat and gravy and grits and a few raisins and mixed them up together on her plate. She ate three baits of them. She ate until all the grits were gone but still she wasn’t full.

White Meat &Gravy

‘I sure am thirsty,’ Mick said. ‘And hungry. What you (Harry) got in that sack for lunch?’
‘Cold liver pudding and chicken salad sandwiches and pie.’
‘That’s a good picnic dinner.’ She was ashamed of what she had brought. ‘I got two hard-boiled eggs—already stuffed — with separate little packages of salt and pepper. And sandwiches-—blackberry jelly with butter. Everything wrapped in oil paper. 

And paper napkins.’

From the menu the bellboy brought him (Mr. Singer) he selected a luxurious breakfast —broiled bluefish, hominy, French toast, and hot black coffee.

Southwestern Hominy

Classic French Toast

‘Here you are,’ Brannon said. ‘This ought to help out.’
He put down a glass of some hot drink and a plate of chicken pie. The drink had a sweet, heavy smell. Jake inhaled the steam and closed his eyes. ‘What’s in it?’
‘Lemon rind rubbed on a lump of sugar and boiling water with rum. It’s a good drink.’

‘Good evening, Mick,’ Mister Brannon said. He wiped the bottom of a glass of water with a napkin and set it on the table.
‘I want me a chocolate sundae and a nickel glass of draw beer.’
‘Together?’ He put down a menu and pointed with his little finger that wore a lady’s gold ring. ‘See—here’s some nice roast chicken or some veal stew. Why don’t you have a little supper with me?’
‘No, thanks. All I want is the sundae and the beer. Both plenty cold.’