Sunday Brunch

11 am - 2 pm

at Peggers'

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Synopsis

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

Book Owl Dinner

Thank you all for coming to dinner! It is always a great pleasure to share a meal and great conversation with you all.

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I will pass on your kind words to the very talented Michelle! I will try to get recipes from her, but here's the menu:

Menu:

Butternut squash and green apple bisque with fried sage leaves and brown butter

Spinach salad with raspberries, feta, and candied almond slivers with red-wine vinaigrette

Grilled New York steak with chive oil

Baked salmon with apricot chutney

Whole-wheat couscous with dried cranberries and parsley

Poached pears and Cabernet Sauvignon (Terra Robles 2006 Paso Robles) reduction sauce with whipped mascarpone cream

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Wines:

Norton Malbec 2004 Reserva, Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina

Neyers Chardonnay, Carneros District, 2007

Boarding Pass, Shiraz, 2005

Trefethen, Chardonnay, Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley

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October 2009 Meeting

Book Club Meeting

Thursday, October 29

7 p.m. at Dutchbaby's

Costume optional

RSVP appreciated