Bee charmer

It took me ages to decide what to cook for this post. Fried green tomatoes seemed the obvious choice but there was a problem. You can't buy green tomatoes in England. Hard flavourless red tomatoes yes, but green tomatoes no.
In fact the only way to get them is to grow them yourself, and not wanting to be an a##hole I thought better of going in someone Else's garden to help myself.
The next best choice seemed to be a barbecue as it was mentioned alot, but I'd already cooked one and I fancied something different.
The back of the book is sprinkled with recipes and whilst perusing these and drooling at the idea of dessert I had a brainwave. Idgie is called a bee charmer and when she shows her skill to Ruth it helps cement their relationship, so a cake with honey in it seemed perfect!
I found this recipe in Afternoon teas by Susannah Blake, these buns are incredibly sickly but good. Only have one at a time and they are one of the few cakes that I actually prefer cold as they mellow a bit.

Honey buns

pre heat oven to 170'c, 325'f, gas 3

put 60g butter, 50g caster sugar and 4tblsp honey together in a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted.

remove the pan from the heat and add 80ml milk and one large bearen egg.

sift in 115g self raising flour and stir in.

spoon the mixture into a 12 hole cupcake tin and bake for 20min.

once the cakes are cool spread with icing made from

2oog icing sugar and 2 tblsp lemon juice. Add sprinkles for extra whimsy.

Picture yourself munching on these whilst going on some crazy adventure in 1930's Alabama. Flowery dress of dungarees are optional.

fried green tomatoes at whistle stop cafe

I started reading this at the beginning of August, and at the same time I was reading a review at booksnob for the wonderful book Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. Whilst reading all the comments and wonderful conversations going on about the hardship about growing old alongside my own experience of working in a care home for the elderly it made me read the book rather differently than other people.

The book centres around a cafe run by two women in the 1930's that was the heart of the community, going between time we learn about the residents in the town of whistlestop through their connection to the cafe.

Running alongside this main story we get pointers and set ups to the stories through the friendship of middle aged Evelyn couch and the elderly Cleo Threadgoode who lives at Rose Terrace nursing home where Evelyns mother in law lives.

The book is populated by lots of quirky characters and is meant to be heartwarming and show the value of friendship no matter how strange friendship that may be.

The book is a lovely read but that's what makes it fall short for me, I like my novels with a bit more grit and reality in them than this one gives you.

Although the idea is lovely, I don't see how Ruth and Idgie who run the cafe who are obviously lovers and who will sell their food to the black community would have had no repercussions or reprisals at that time in history with the politics of the time being what they were.

The head of the local klu kluck clan is the towns sheriff and very good friends with the cafe owners , and whilst he may disagree with what they do sometimes he leaves them to their business and even helps them out of a few scrapes.

Whilst the book does touch on some serious subjects in the book, racism, domestic violence and even a murder in the town. It always just feels like a yarn of days gone by, never gone into with enough detail whilst knowing that it will all work out in the end.

Even though I did like the characters they felt like characters of today rather than from a different time period. The characters were who you hoped you would have been if you lived then, a transplant of modern day morals into the past.

Everyone is pretty tolerant and the people who aren't are from outside of their immediate community of Whistlestop.

In general though it made me think has society changed that much? We don't seem to get over our prejudices just place them somewhere else, at the moment the papers are always talking crap about Muslims and illegal immigrants and whilst reading a paper left out by a resident on my night shift I read someone saying in the comment section that the middle east should help with the aid for Pakistan instead of Britain as they're the same religion and we're not. How sad and narrow minded is that?

Then we come to the relationship between Evelyn and Mrs Threadgoode, how I wish I could see this. Unfortunately most elderly people in homes aren't like this.

Most who do talk about the past will repeat the same stories over, and for alot of them the past just seems to painful to talk about.

I can't say I blame them as their generation was so independent and amazing and it must be incredibly depressing to think about the things you can no longer do and to think about alot of people who you shared these things with who have now passed away.

Whilst reading these bits of the book I felt an incredible sadness, I just wanted to be able to have this friendship with the people that I know.

Overall this is a lovely book and if unlike me you can put aside your disbelief that people can be this nice than you'll probably really enjoy it. It's not a bad book but it also isn't a amazing book.

I'll let you know what I've cooked for the book in the next few days.