In the Beginning

Miss Marjorie and Me

The Marjorie here is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Florida author supreme. In 2002 I started to convert my B&B into a center that stressed local food. It dawned on me that Rawlings was the original locavore. She ate what she could grow, or catch, or kill at Cross Creek. Her cookbook, Cross Creek Cookery is the original place-based eating.

I have decided to incorporate a version of some of her recipes into my breakfast presentations. Since I taught her major work, The Yearling, for over a quarter of a century, I feel like she is beside me in my tiny 1920’s era kitchen. And after all, our lives are somewhat parallel.

She moved to the backwoods of Florida. I spent ten years on Ft. George Island. Her first marriage ended in divorce. Mine did too. She was an outdoorsy individual. I raced barrels on quarter horses and visited the Seminoles with my father on his airboat. She loved to feed folks. So do I. She was a published writer who wrote for McCall’s magazine. So did I. Of course, she won a Pulitzer and my biggest prize was to have my Newsweek article published in a college writing text near Wendell Berry.

Interestingly enough, she was in my home several times. My B&B was formerly owned by one of her attorneys T.G. Crawford, the man who entered the pleadings for her famous Supreme Court case against Zelma Cason. She was introduced to him by her doctor at Riverside Hospital. I found out she had been here when the son of Crawford’s law partner, Phil May, told the Rawling’s Society about her visits. I think he was about six at the time and he remembers her as “ a kind lady.” He and his dad visited her at Cross Creek also.

Her Cross Creek Cookery is both a good read and a wonderful recipe book. While I cheat on some of the Dora’s cream recipes, I think the end result is satisfying. My purpose is to honor Marjorie’s expressed belief in the power of dining , “ The breaking together of bread, the sharing of salt, is an ancient symbol of friendliness.” In my innkeeper experience, the folks who have been traveling in today’s world of airline anxiety or on I-95’s take-no-prisoners, asphalt ribbon, need the genuine friendliness that my B&B breakfast provides.