Gayle Leeson | The Warm Fuzzies

Comfort food and holidays typically give us a nostalgic or sentimental feeling. In SILENCE OF THE JAMS, Amy Flowers wants her Down South Café to offer the residents of Winter Garden, Virginia, comfort, hospitality, and a sense of home, especially during the upcoming Independence Day Festival. She’s baking extra cakes and pies, and she’s also keeping the refrigerated display case stocked with family-size containers of sides for her customers to take home and enjoy during their picnics and reunions.

Like Amy, I grew up in a small town like Winter Garden. Our big deal of the
summer was when the carnival came to town. My cousins, brother, and I would plan
for it as soon as we saw the first flyer announcing when the carnival would
arrive. We started deciding what we wanted to ride, wondering who else among our
friends might be going, and talking about what we wanted to eat. The food was
part of the celebration. I looked forward to the caramel apples. Others had
their appetites whetted by cotton candy or funnel cake. I liked to get the apple
just before I left so I could enjoy it on the way home while clutching some
pitiful little stuffed toy I’d won—in reality, paid far too much for—playing
some game. The apple was another way to prolong the evening, and the toy would
remain a reminder throughout the coming year.

In SILENCE OF THE JAMS I wanted to embody some of that excitement in Winter Garden’s Independence Day Celebration. The town is small, so they don’t have the budget to do a lot throughout the year. They have large celebrations for the Fourth of July and for Christmas, so the townspeople really get involved and enjoy themselves on those two occasions. Naturally, food and tradition play a large role in contributing to the “warm fuzzies” for the townspeople. In addition to Amy’s cakes, pies, baked beans, potato salad, cole slaw, and macaroni salad prepared for Down South Café patrons, the barn dance features a buffet with pork ribs, fried chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, a variety of salads—Cobb, pasta, fruit—and every kind of dessert imaginable. Who wouldn’t want to take part in Winter Garden’s Independence Day Celebration? So, tell us, what foods and the traditions they bring to mind are your favorites? Please share a memory with us!