PUTNAM COUNTY
Inevitably, the kitchen is the busiest room in the house during the holidays.
It’s where culinary delights are concocted, and signature dishes created.
Seriously, nothing says “Thanksgiving” like roasted turkey, or “Christmas” like decorated cookies. Johnathon Barrett understands the Barrett is not only a foodie; he excitedly leads the foodie parade and will present his new book, Cook & Celebrate, Saturday, Dec. 4, with doors open at 10:30 a.m. for a program to start a half hour later at Georgia Writers Museum (GWM) in Eatonton.
GWM recently conducted a brief interview with Barrett to provide a little background for his presentation.
GWM: What factor or person in your background most encouraged you to become an author, and specifically, a food author?
Barrett: The love I have for those who raised me, and the special memories of family I miss so very much initially led me to put pen to paper, which resulted in my first book, Rise and Shine!, a culinary valentine to my Mom and Dad.
GWM: What do you like most about being a published, award-winning author?
Barrett: The book tours, through which I’ve made wonderful friends from the Commonwealth of Virginia down through the Carolinas and over to the Mississippi Delta. And on these jaunts across the South, I’ve helped folks bring to front of mind their own special recollections of food, family, and friends – and that makes me feel especially blessed.
GWM: Who is your favorite writer and why?
Barrett: Pat Conroy, because of lines like these: “To describe our growing up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, ‘There. That taste.
That’s the taste of my childhood.’”
GWM: You have a new book coming out called Ship Watch (publication date Dec. 1), your first novel. Can you give us a sneak preview?
Barrett: It is an entertaining and engaging family saga set in Savannah, Highlands, and Sea Island. Georgia native Jeffrey Dale Lofton, the award-winning author of Red Clay Suzie, says this about the book: “ Ship Watch is the closest you’ll come to breathing the rarified air of the Southern aristocracy. Grab your cocktail of choice and settle in for excess and exes, second chances, and at least one epic Julia Sugarbaker- style, setting-things-toright takedown.”
Tickets to Barrett’s presentation on Cook & Celebrate are $45 ($40 each for two or more, or reserve a table for six for $200 (a savings of $40).
Contact Georgia Writers Museum at georgiawritersmuseum. org for tickets, more information, or to pre-order a copy of Cook & Celebrate.
-Contributed