Customer Reviews

Southshire Pepper-Pot
A Literary Feast with Culinary Refrains
2008 SPECTRUM AWARD NOMINEE

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Southshire Pepper-Pot is quite simply poetry in motion. Growing up in an Italian family that lived to eat we transformed our kitchens into song. The Southshire Roundtable created a marvelous stage for anyone wanting to explore the worlds of imagination with culinary perfection. I love the stories as much as the recipes.



Lee StJohn, PhD

Literally Sarasota Book club member

Reminiscent of the narrative style cookbooks from centuries past, this volume is to be savored from the first leaf to the last. Spicy plot twists abound!

I'm not sure whether to keep a copy by my reading spot or the kitchen! Don't miss "Thorn Soup" by Shawn MacKenzie. A must buy!

I was given a copy "Southshire Pepper-Pot" during the holiday season. What a great surprise! Like my favorite author, Tom Robbins in "Villa Incognito," Southshire author, Shawn MacKenzie, tells an enchanted story of a kitsune changeling. "Thorn Soup" is the magical and delightful opening story of "Southshire Pepper-Pot." What follows is a dazzling array of short fiction, poetry and essays all linked to food, and with wonderful recipes included. The Coffee Mocha Muffins are delicious and I brought a dozen to work. Everyone raved. "Field Notes on Perfidious Hens" by Marie White Small reminds me of both "Babette's Feast" and "Big Fish." It is the coming-of-age tale of a baker-in-training in a world of magical realism. Stefano Donati's, "I'd Have Rescued You Sooner But Seinfeld Was On" is wicked and dark. I loved it. And I love to cook. The recipes included are excellent and varied: from vegetarian offerings to elegant fare. There is something for everyone in "Southshire Pepper-Pot." I look forward to the sequel.

This is a truly delightful book. Each story/essay/poem is a little gem to be savored. The idea of tales associated with food with the recipes included is not only novel, but, in the deft hands of Stefano Donati and his fellow Southshire Roundtable scribes, positively inspired. The pieces themselves run the gamut from a fiction-noir mystery to a grown-up fairy tale, from tales of the future to those of a near nostalgic past. I particularly enjoyed Shawn MacKenzie's two contributions, "Thorn Soup," a fairy tale (literally) of shape-shifting and finding oneself, and "Lost Among the Tuna Trees," about love, loss, and wonder on a distant world; and Marie White Small's tempered look at a time-tested marriage, "They Were the Unwinged Travelers."
There is wit, wisdom, and no small measure of magic in the writing, and the recipes -- at least the ones I've tried so far -- are scrumptious.