Author Kay Wheeler Moore to Visit Garland, TX Tomorrow

Don't miss author Kay Wheeler Moore and her delicious cookies tomorrow, July 3, at the Generator Coffee shop in Garland, TX, from 10am-1pm. The shop is located at 107 N. 6th Street, Garland, TX 75040. Call 972-494-9449 for details.

Read Reviews of "Way Back in the Country Garden"

Kay Wheeler Moore and her new book Way Back in the Country Garden are featured on a blog tour today. Please visit the following websites to read reviews of the book as well as the first chapter.

A Peek at My Bookshelf
Creative Madness Mama
Carlybird's Home
Just One More Paragraph
Dragonflies 'n Daydreams
This Mom's Delight
PPreacher's Wife's Book Reviews
This That and the Other
Pam's Personal Reflections
Quintessentially Quilly
Our Family's Adventures
Window to My World
Eccentric Eclectic Woman
Living for God
A Glimpse of Our Life
Sunny Island Breezes
Cafe Lily
The Knowlton Nest

Devotions to Help With the Daily Grind

Rebekah Trittipoe is one who knows what "going the distance" means. This committed Christian runs--and survives--ultra marathons, which find her on jaunts of up to 100-miles at a time. Amidst sometimes unthinkable conditions Rebekah--determined to meet her goal--grinds on.

As with her extreme running, Rebekah's dedication to God's Word is steadfast and focused. Just as she encourages fellow runners to keep their eyes open to the beauty around them during a trek through challenging terrain, Rebekah inspires other believers to look for God's revelation not so much in theological treatises but in the mundane things of life--watching a simple sunrise, pulling weeds, taking in orphaned kittens, or hauling rocks for a backyard path.

Her daily devotions (366 of them, to encompass leap year) include an inspirational story, a Scripture, and a daily challenge. She offers these with the mere purpose of helping each of us make our way through the daily grind--whether that be navigating the nettle-fraught mountainside or sitting at a desk slogging our way through a work day.

Kay Moore Featured in Well-Known Sue Watkins' Column

In an always-well-written column, longtime Garland resident Sue Watkins (pictured at right) details the goings-on of the area and the people. In her recent post to the NeighborsGo.com website, Sue discussed Kay's new book, Way Back in the Country Garden. Read her post at the NeighborsGo site.

Way Back in the Country Garden, in the days of long ago, families decided what was for supper by dispatching a youngster out to the family patch of dirt to see what was fresh and ready for pickin’.

The Three Red-Haired Miller Girls, who grew up with modest means, nevertheless believed they were rich because the garden’s yield was so plentiful and because their creative Mama wielded her kitchen magic to make a meal fit for royalty.

Introduced in Kay Moore’s previous book, Way Back in the Country, the lively Miller Girls again draw readers into their growing-up world in farm-rich Delta County, TX, where a stringent economic era–not unlike today’s tight times–saw people turn to the earth to put food on the table for their loved ones.

With home gardening surging in popularity as frugal people become more resourceful, this six-generation recipe collection and accompanying lore will inspire others to cook this garden-fresh way and ideally preserve their own family food stories as well. Now, join the Miller Girls, Mama and Papa, Grandma Harris, and all the generations hence in rollicking yarns that have love, family, and faith as common denominators and show how food evocatively bonds us to our life experiences.

New Book Looks at Backyard Gardens and Homespun Cooking

With the Great Recession prompting many to till their yards to produce food for the family’s mealtimes, a new book, Way Back in the Country Garden, reminisces about days in which our forebears relied almost totally on the family garden instead of the convenient grocery store.

The book, by Kay Wheeler Moore, is a blend of stories about six generations of a family and their recipes developed from the food that is home-grown.

Way Back in the Country Garden is a sequel to Moore’s popular Way Back in the Country, published in 2002. That book encouraged people not only to preserve their families’ legendary recipes but also to preserve the lore about the people who popularized these recipes within a family.

As with the previous book, Moore tells the stories through the lives of the Three Red-Haired Miller Girls (her mother and two aunts), who grew up in farm-rich Delta County, TX, (in East Texas between Commerce and Paris), as well as through the generations surrounding them.

The lively Miller Girls, reared with modest means, nevertheless believed they were rich because their garden’s yield was so plentiful and because their creative Mama used her kitchen magic to make a meal fit for royalty.

Today, with frugal people becoming more resourceful, the family garden is so popular that even the prices of seeds and plants have inflated. Even the wife of U.S. President Barack Obama, as an example for others, is growing vegetables in her own White House garden.

The book contains an ample recipe collection for breakfast foods; relishes, appetizers, and jellies; salads; beverages, soups, and stews; vegetable sides; main dishes; and desserts—all to be prepared with produce fresh from the garden.

Kay Wheeler Moore is a Pulitzer-Prize nominee who stirred up her heirloom cornbread from Way Back in the Country on live TV while she promoted preserving family history through recipes. Her other previous books are When the Heart Soars Free, a book of Christian fiction, and Gathering the Missing Pieces in an Adopted Life, based on her Houston Chronicle newspaper series. Read about her and her husband's current experiences of cooking with homegrown ingredients at The Newfangled Country Gardener.

Recommendations for the National Day of Prayer

Many people throughout the nation have specifically focused on prayer today, we wanted to offer a couple suggestions of books that can help deepen a relationship with Christ. Hope these are helpful!

Perhaps you need some encouragement in your spiritual life? Check out Living in His Presence: Experience the Reality of God by Gina Moroney. Read what others are saying about this book:

Gina reveals her deepest reflections as she pulls back the curtain to give us a glimpse of her spiritual life. Truly, it is her witness to the touch of the Master’s Hand. Sit back, relax, and enjoy; let the story of Living in His Presence unfold page by page
~ Senior Pastor Charles E. Green, Message of Life Ministries, Loveland, Colorado

Living in His Presence is a gentle encouragement to go deeper with God and experience His presence on a daily basis. In a tender and gracious manner, Gina draws the reader in with practical, attainable steps for growing in intimacy with God.
~ Doug and Becky McKenna, Know Him Christian Sportswear

Living in His Presence reveals the heart of God through Gina, in whom He has obviously placed His heart. How does God become the satisfaction and delight of your life, moment by moment? Ask through the pages of this book, and you will see.
~ Tim and Terri Hayes, Division Director, Marketplace Chaplains USA

Gina points the way to a vibrant life in God’s presence, using a powerful combination of biblical truth and personal experience. Discover fresh insights from Gina’s story. Join her in this rewarding journey filled with incomprehensible joy.
~ Gail Horstman, Pastoral Care, New Community Christian Church

**Or, maybe you need a plan in how to put your faith into action? Anne Fortenberry's Faith that Works can help.

Anne explains what difference faith should make in our lives? If works don't insure our salvation, what's the purpose of right Christian behavior? If we have transformed lives in Christ, what specific works represent an outgrowth of our belief? Anne Fortenberry tackles all these questions in her nine-week interactive Bible study, Faith that Works. In a warmhearted, personal approach, Anne reveals fresh insights into the Book of James that will strengthen participants' faith, enrich their walk with the Lord, and challenge them to apply well-known scriptural principles.

Will God “crush” this bruised, rebellious reed?

A Bruised Reed is based on bites of information about the life of Lucey Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s grandmother. This work is not intended as a biography, since so little is known about Hanks’ life. Not even her size, attributes, or hair color found agreement among historians. However, the story that can be pieced together from these historical bites gives a beautiful revelation of how deeply God loves His children and works through circumstances and persons to bring them to Himself.

The author, Helen Stephenson Spaulding, is eighth cousin to Abraham Lincoln. Because of a challenge to prove the relationship, much research was done into Lincoln’s relatives, especially his grandmother, Lucey Hanks. During this research, the gaps in Hanks' life were intriguing. What changed a young, rebellious, unwed mother—indicted for “unbecoming behavior”—to a married mother of eight more children, of whom two became ministers of the gospel and all the rest were active, deeply committed Christians? It was a story that begged to be written! (A few years ago, some interested persons worked hard to have the indictment expunged from Hanks' legal record.)

Some parts of this work are historically accurate. Others could have happened, given the actual history of that time. For instance, the massacre of Christian Dakota Indians did occur in 1782; the survivors did migrate south. Fictional events were woven into these historical parts to carry forward the theme.