Soaked in black tea for two days to remove some of the salt, steeped in stout 6 hours, glazed with blackstrap molasses…YUM!

My new book is a memoir of sorts. I say “of sorts” because it’s part true and part made up. It’s a book about growing up in The South—the childhood I had, the childhood I remember, and the childhood I wish I’d had.

Many of my Northwest friends think of “The South” as an exotic place.

That’s understandable. It’s a long ways from here. They’ve never been “down there.” They know only what they’ve heard, or what they’ve read about the Civil War or slavery or racial integration, or what they saw on Hee Haw as a kid.

They ask a lot of questions about plantation life and grits. And now that I’ve written the definitive work on southern life, I get even more questions.

“Do all southern cops wear those mirrored sunglasses?” Jim wanted to know. “Like on Dukes of Hazard?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “You don’t think TV folks would make up something like that do you?”

“Did you have alligators where you lived?”

“Sure,” I said. “All us southerners have alligators in our swamps. But they’re no big deal. Gators don’t mess with people much. Eat a lot of cats and yippy little dogs. Only ate one kid in my neighborhood…I think…I can only remember one.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

Being from Nashville, I also get the hillbilly questions. Folks want to know whether I grew up with indoor plumbing, whether I play a banjo, whether I wear shoes.

Yep. Nope. Yep, most of the time.

“Do you know Dolly Parton?” Larry asked.

“Sure. Had dinner with her last week. She’s getting along pretty well. Has a bad case of the sniffles.”

“Did you have catfish?”

“Well, of course. And hushpuppies too. And coleslaw-the kind with mustard in it. And pecan pie for dessert.”

Larry scrunched up his nose like he couldn’t possibly imagine eating any of that stuff.

A couple of days ago, my editor called from New York City.  She wanted some pictures—old family pictures from my fascinating southern upbringing.  She said some of the stuff in my memoir was not very believable.

“Well, there’s a good reason for that,” I said.

“So we need to put some pictures in the book,” she said. “They make it look more real.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I’ll have to call my mom. Coco’s got all the old family pictures.”

So I called Coco and told her I needed some pictures—southern pictures. And I needed them fast to get them into the book before it goes to print.

“Like what?” she wanted to know.

“Got any pictures of watermelon?” I asked.

“Maybe. What else?”

“How about pictures of cotton or tobacco fields?”

“Why would I have any of those?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But if you find any they’d be perfect.”

“Do they have to be pictures of our family or will anybody do?”

“Anybody’ll do as long as you can’t identify them.”

“Ooh, fun,” Coco said.

It took mom a while, but she found some doozies. I’m sitting here at my desk with a whole folder full of southern pictures-a picture of a Kudzu-covered junker on cinderblocks in somebody’s front yard, a giant Mississippi River mudcat draped over a boy’s outstretched arms (really slimy, must be five feet long), three guys sitting on a log smoking corncob pipes with a jug on the ground at their feet, and an alligator wearing a Santa Claus hat.

“You know any of these people or places?” I asked.

“Heck no,” Coco said. “But good pictures, huh?”

“Perfect,” I said.

The big guy comes to Walla Walla early…

When I started my first book (five years ago), I decided not to tell anybody except Annie. I’d have hidden it from her too if there’d been any way to do it. I begged her not to tell anybody. I didn’t know whether I’d ever finish the book and didn’t want folks asking me about it for the rest of my life.

Luckily, a writer friend warned me that no matter what I wrote, or how I named the characters, or how much I sugarcoated the truth, family and friends would work hard to find things to get irritated about.

“Best not let anybody see your book until it’s finished and cast in stone,” he said. “Otherwise there’s no end to the criticism, hurt feelings, and helpful suggestions.”

“Good point,” I thought.

So I told Annie I didn’t want her read it until it was finished.

“It’ll be a surprise,” I said.

“A recipe for disaster,” Annie said. “You know you don’t have the emotional intelligence God gave a stinkbug.”

Annie says that a lot.

“You’re going to step all over somebody’s feelings. Goodness knows what insensitive things you’re going to write. And then I’m going to have to bail you out. Better let me read it.”

“Nice try,” I said.

The whole time I was writing, Annie fidgeted because she wasn’t in a position to “fix” the parts of the book that would undoubtedly need her hand. One day I printed out the first few chapters so I could edit them on paper and inadvertently left the pages lying on the dining room table while I went out to run an errand. When I got back, Annie was reading as fast as she could. I played hell getting her to give the pages up. She kept saying she’d almost finished and I might as well let her read the rest. She pleaded but I took the pages back.

“Well, it’s your fault for leaving them out where I could see them. And it’s a good thing you did because that Christmas story isn’t right. The part about the dinner…”

“And you wonder why I’m not letting you read it?” I asked.

“You’ll be sorry,” she said.

Annie is not known for keeping a secret, but she managed her spill-the-beans tendencies until near the end. I was almost finished with the book before Annie couldn’t hold it in any longer and started telling everybody in sight.

At first it was, “Well, I’ve only told the kids. You can’t write a book and not tell your own children. They’d be hurt that you felt you couldn’t trust them with the secret.”

Then it was, “Well, I’ve only told Mom. She’s way back in Virginia and won’t tell anybody.”

When her brother called and asked when I was sending him a copy of the book, she said, “Well it’s only Buck. You can’t expect Mom to keep the secret from the family.”

And then, just three day later, Ellen, my barberess here in Walla Walla said, “Hey Sam, I hear you wrote a book.”

“Well, you’re almost done with it,” Annie said. “No point in keeping it a secret now.”

That was five years ago. A lot has happened since then. I just finished another book. I haven’t let friends or family read it. As you’ve guessed by now, it’s hard enough for me to write a book without all the help.

“I won’t say anything about it and I won’t tell anybody,” Annie said. “I won’t even tell the kids. Just let me read part of it.”

“Nope. Sorry,” I said again. “But nice try.”

“You sound like a broken record,” she said.

“Yep,” I said.

“You’re gonna regret it.”

“You’re probably right,” I said.

And then just a few days ago, I came home and told Annie that the publisher and I had finally agreed on a title for the new book.

“What?” Annie said. “Where in the world did you get such a silly title? Surely you people could have come up with a better title than that. What about…”

“There you go,” I said.

“Well, Jolie doesn’t like it either.”

“You told Jolie?”

“Lordy, Lordy, Lordy,” Annie said. “We’re just trying to help.”

My new book, BIG APPETITE, will be published by Simon & Schuster in June!