Tangy Pimiento Cheese Inspired by "The Gravedigger's Guild" by Susan Farris

I am happy to offer up a book review today for The Gravedigger's Guild, a new Southern Gothic novel by Susan Farris. Adding to that happiness is noshing on some delicious Tangy Pimiento Cheese inspired by my reading from one of the author's own recipes. 

Publisher's Blurb:

Alice Matins is dead. With the passing of this Mississippi matriarch, estranged sisters Maggy and Quinn collide over the course of Alice's wake and funeral amidst a motley band of gossiping church ladies and feuding gravediggers.

As storm clouds gather, the two women unbury secrets from their past involving Quinn's husband that could resurrect their once-strong sisterly bond. But he has secrets of his own.

The Gravedigger's Guild examines the indelible ties of sisterhood and the complicated legacy we leave behind.

With a style similar to Andrea Bobotis (The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt), this novel will appeal to readers who enjoy stories of strong sibling relationships like Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics and fans of picturesque Southern tales like Sweet Magnolias. 

 

As my time is limited, I don't do a lot of extra book reviews and tours outside of the ones I do with my regular book tour group, but when Susan Farris approached me on through Instagram about reviewing her book, I was intrigued by the premise and quickly said yes. 

The Gravedigger's Guild is about a family and church community that gather for the funeral and wake of the beloved matriarch of a small Mississippi town. Alice leaves behind two grown daughters. Maggy is the youngest and arrives from New York City have recently broken up with her long-term live-in boyfriend and having lost her job as a fashion editor for daring to take time off for her mother's funeral. Quinn, her older sister, is a stay-at-home mother five children (from teenager to baby) and is married to Maggy's old boyfriend Collins. These once close sisters have been somewhat estranged ever since Quinn announced her relationship with Collins and her pregnancy of now teen-aged Allie) and they don't come together easily, with both holding on to resentments. There are secrets, resentments and other drama with the supporting characters too, primarily Collins, Allie, the single church pastor Father Derek Fry, the community's women, and the titular Gravedigger's Guild -- tasked with finding the right spot and digging the graves so the community's citizens can pass on in a traditional, dignified manner. 

Susan Farris packs a lot of drama into 317 pages in this novel that started as a short story. I was firmly "Team Maggy" throughout most of the story, getting annoyed with Quinn's attitude towards her but slowly grew to understand Quinn's side of things. The church women and the Guild provide a lot of the humor and heart of the book, with the former trying to use their years of matchmaking skills to pair Maggy with Father Fry and get her to stay in town, and the later running into all kinds of trouble finding Alice a place to rest with all of the tree roots and other cemetery occupants slowing down the process of the digging. Besides the stormy relationships, there is a real storm brewing and her descriptive prose made me see, feel and experience the rain, wind and weather. I did have some trigger's with this book, mainly the loss of my own mom coming on six years now, but the sometimes dark humor and heart in the story telling, kept it from bogging me down. I was most interested in the traditions and ceremony of the wake and burial in this community and liked the emphasis on that process as it wasn't something I was familiar with. Overall, The Gravedigger's Guild was an enjoyable and engaging read and I was sad to reach the last page of it. If you like family and sisterly drama, Southern fiction and Southern Gothic tales, you will enjoy this one as much as I did.

....

Author Notes: Susan Farris is a former marketing manager with her MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University and a background in editing and tutoring other writers.The Gravedigger’s Guild is her debut novel and she has a collection of poetry coming out soon called Flooding the Delta that experiments with the Thai Nirat form of poetry. When she is not wrangling words on the page, she can be found gardening, playing board games, or snuggled up with her three cats and two dogs appreciating her husband’s amazing cooking skills.

 

Food Inspiration: 

You can't have a book set around a Southern funeral and wake that doesn't include a lot of food so the food mentions and inspiration in The Gravedigger's Guild were plentiful and included: "delicious whiffs from the Crock-Pots and towel wrapped casserole dishes," barbecued meatballs, pecans, PB & J sandwiches, jars of sweet tea and tubs of sliced lemons, finger sandwiches (cucumber finger sandwiches were mentioned a few times), cake, potatoes, scotch, popcorn, marinara sauce, pea salad, poppyseed chicken, chicken cacciatore, syrup over pancakes, Stouffer's lasagna, Mac-and-cheese, biscuits, eggs and bacon, cream, "Mrs. Greave's infamous chocolate chip muffins," hot chocolate, a pot of soup or hearty casserole, Sunday roast, tea cakes, fragrant buttery cookies, turkey, pimento cheese sandwiches, sausage rolls, broccoli salad, pimiento cheese, cheese balls, and sausage wheels. 

Susan sent along a couple of PDFs to accompany the e-book link including her a marked-up chapter she sent to her pre-order readers (so interesting to see her writing process) and a packet of recipes she created inspired by the book including Burnt End Lasagna, Cucumber-Dill tea Sandwiches, Mrs. Greaves' Chocolate Chip Muffins, Tangy Pimiento Cheese, Southern Sweet Tea, and Old-Fashioned Tea Cakes. Because I am such a fan, I had an immediate hankering for pimiento cheese and so I used that recipe (see excerpt below) for my book-inspired dish.

 
 

I kept to Susan's recipe for the most part. My only addition were these frozen Sautéed Glazed Onions (my new secret weapon in many dishes) and adding a little apple cider vinegar to make my  not-so-tangy mayo a bit more like the Duke's brand she recommended. I forgot to buy some chives or onions to top my dip, so I grated a little extra cheese on top at the end. 

Notes/Results: What can I say, I love pimiento cheese and this is a good one, thick and creamy, not gloppy and well seasoned with just a little kick. I didn't have the beloved Southern Duke's mayonnaise, which has more of a tang than the Kraft Mayo I had on hand so I added 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in to add that tangy kick. It was delicious on crackers and again the next day as a sandwich. I am looking forward to making a grilled cheese with it this weekend. I'd happily make it again.

I'm sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event  being hosted by Marg at The Adventures of An Intrepid Reader. It's a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. 

Note: A review copy of The Gravedigger's Guild was provided to me by the author in return for a fair review. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.