Mary Mac's Tea Room: 65 Years of Recipes from Atlanta's Favorite Dining Room
Mary Mac’s Tea Room, an Atlanta institution, had prospered under two different owners since its beginnings in 1945. In the early 1990s, new owners almost bankrupted the restaurant—and left it on dining life-support. New owner (and author) Ferrell came to the rescue, who, with friends, family, and no little elbow grease, restored its innards—and its soul—to serve 1,000 meals every day. This is a homey 125-recipes-with-stories cookbook, filled with southern dishes such as pot likker (the juice from greens), hush puppies, and oyster stew. Check your cholesterol-reducing statins at the table; after all, the first sentence in many of these recipe instructions is “Line a plate with paper towels and set aside.” The preparations are simple, with equally as streamlined ingredients (though one might scratch a head trying to figure out where to find, for instance, a large whole chicken hen). Even more heart-warming are the anecdotes of local and international customers (Tim Conway and Ted Danson, to name just two), the servers, the chefs and line cooks, and the just plain funny tales. --Barbara Jacobs