When Jill Conner Browne, also known as H.R. H., The Sweet Potato Queen, walks among her subjects this week, she’ll be greeted by fans from all 50 states and 22 countries in Jackson for festivities scheduled before and during Saturday's St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
When she publishes a book, as she has eight times now, it becomes a best seller. When she considers one of the hundreds of annual appearance invitations, one of the deciding factors is whether or not it’ll “help the chirren.”
But her life as a celebrity is not always the priority. In between book tours and fan gatherings around the country, Browne, a native Jacksonian, is a surprisingly traditional Southern wife and mother. After a long tour, she enjoys getting in her Madison kitchen and frying up “two skillets at a time” of buttermilk-soaked chicken.
“Put down a chicken platter about a foot wide, bowls of lady peas, rice and gravy, tomatoes and a big salad and your people will come,” she says.
Likewise, Browne was a devoted daughter to her mother, Jan, who died in 2009. She “brought mama home” when her health began failing several years ago. This journey into mother-daughter cohabitation was humorously chronicled in Browne’s New York Times bestseller, The Sweet Potato Queens’ Big-A-- Cookbook (and Financial Planner).
One of the most amusing tales was her mom’s fondness for pie. Whether or not her mother actually ate an “entire pie by herself every other day,” Browne’s recollection is one of those family tales that’ll never be disputed. What does ring true is the life lesson from the experience.
“Some of us (friends) have daughters and we cannot wait to get old, move in with them, and start making them fetch us pies…which we will eat out of the pan with our hands,” she says.
In addition to the pie recipe, queenly cuisine in the book includes all the major food groups, including “sweet, salty, fried and au gratin.” The pencil-thin Browne swears she eats most of the food in her books, declaring, “Something’s gonna kill us, so we might as die happy and with big behinds.”
Even without her red bouffant wig, pink majorette books and green sequined mini-dress, Browne emits queenly hospitality.
“If I had time, I’d have you over for dinner and fry some chicken,” she says.
The chicken will have to wait, but that’s all right. The story of the daughter who kept her mama supplied with pies was warmer and more satisfying than a “foot wide platter” of Southern-fried chicken.
“It’s a Miracle!” Pie
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pinch salt
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Throw all ingredients into the blender. Use the "mix" cycle. As it is all mixing, lightly butter and flour coat a 10-inch pie pan. Pour mixture into the pan and bake until it sets, about one hour. It makes its own crust by itself – it’s a miracle!
Recipe from The Sweet Potato Queen’s Big A-- Cookbook (and Financial Planner) by Jill Conner Browne, Three Rivers Press, New York.
Kara Kimbrough writes a syndicated food column. Email her at kkprco@yahoo.com.
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Sweet Potato Queen offers advice on mama, pies
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