Consuming Passions is Michael Lee West's delightfully quirky memoir of an adventurous life centered around food and family—the story of how she went from non-cook to gourmet of words and victuals by watching a multitude of relatives squabble, prepare sumptuous repasts, and carry on honored traditions. Laced with delicious secret recipes passed from generation to generation, West's irresistible chronicle recalls good times and wild times—mothers swinging from chandeliers, elderly aunts brewing up love potions, a South American nymphomaniac stirring up trouble at a Louisiana barbeque joint, and the spooky hauntings of a cabbage-eating ghost—all in the pursuit of good dining. Thoroughly entertaining, alive with West's distinctive humor and sharp, irrepressible insight, here are incomparable American kitchen tales as warm and tasty as freshly baked bread. "Every Sunday, the whole family gathered at Mama Hughes's house in Amite County, Mississippi. They were ferocious eaters and talkers, devouring rumors and innuendo with gusto. Food was their common language, and everyone undertstood the dialects."--Aunt Tempe, reminiscing about family dinners"A scrumptiously witty memoir about family, food, and the American South."--"People"A must-read...Everything about "Consuming Passions--from the title to the recipes--just drips with Southern charm."--"Denver Post Consuming Passions is Michael Lee West's delightfully quirky memoir of an adventurous life centered around food and family—the story of how she went from non-cook to gourmet of words and victuals by watching a multitude of relatives squabble, prepare sumptuous repasts, and carry on honored traditions. Laced with delicious secret recipes passed from generation to generation, West's irresistible chronicle recalls good times and wild times—mothers swinging from chandeliers, elderly aunts brewing up love potions, a South American nymphomaniac stirring up trouble at a Louisiana barbeque joint, and the spooky hauntings of a cabbage-eating ghost—all in the pursuit of good dining. Thoroughly entertaining, alive with West's distinctive humor and sharp, irrepressible insight, here are incomparable American kitchen tales as warm and tasty as freshly baked bread. Michael Lee West is the author of Mad Girls in Love , Crazy Ladies , American Pie , She Flew the Coop , and Consuming Passions . She lives with her husband on a rural farm in Tennessee with three bratty Yorkshire terriers, a Chinese Crested, assorted donkeys, chickens, sheep, and African Pygmy goats. Her faithful dog Zap (above) was the inspiration for a character in the novel. Consuming Passions A Food-Obsessed Life By West, Michael Lee Perennial Copyright © 2004 Michael Lee West All right reserved. ISBN: 0060984422 Family Recipes A Food-Obsessed Life To a foodie, lust comes in two varieties--romantic and culinary . -- Mimi Little, scratch Southern cook and expert at love Many hundreds of years ago, when I was a small girl, I used to eat dirt. I would squat in a Louisiana ditch, a dark-haired child in a yellow dress, busily whipping up a mud pie. Using a spoon from my mama's best silver, Francis 1ST, I added a little ditch water. Then I swooned, overcome by the color and texture of the mud. It resembled rich brownie batter. Without hesitation I licked the spoon. My pie tasted sour and felt gritty against my teeth. I ate another spoonful, dribbling mud down my chin. All of a sudden Mama flew out of the house and jerked me up by one arm. "Stop that!" she cried, plucking the spoon from my hand. "Little girlsdon't eat dirt! And they don't use their mama's sterling for mud pies, either." Bitter dirt, bittersweet memories from childhood. My relatives spent the better part of their lives dreaming up recipes. Some were designed to lure men, and in a few cases they were made to repel them. I grew up listening to remedies for a lonely heart, cures for the blues, antidotes for colds and fevers, and how to reverse sinking spells. Every summer I left New Orleans and went to stay with my Mississippi grandmother, who spoiled me with forbidden foods. Mimi introduced me to coffee, mayonnaise sandwiches, and bacon deviled eggs. Every morning when her soap operas came on, she'd give me a jar of peanut butter and a handkerchief full of apple slices. I would climb into the mimosa tree, propped between two branches, and open the jar. There were no other children for miles. When the apples were gone, I'd use my finger as a dipper. In that tree, I invented imaginary worlds, where elves danced under the clothesline and stole human babies from their cribs. My Mimi encouraged me to believe in these creatures. She said that fairies-perhaps even ghosts-existed at the edges of things. I saved leftover biscuits and hid them on the back porch, and by morning they were always gone. "The fairies were starved!" Mimi said. On Sunday afternoons, when the clan gathered for dinner, my mama an