The newest Leon Hale column collection.

From the beloved Houston Chronicle columnist comes a new selection of his warm, funny, entertaining and often poignant narratives that appear regularly in the Houston Chronicle. This is the first column collection since his popular and best-selling Home Spun.

Among the many pleasures to be enjoyed in OLD FRIENDS are observations on marital miscommunication; how to really enjoy a telephone cold call; adventures in the old home Town; discovering kindness in wartime; and also, of course, there are remembrances of old friends that brim with vivid recollections of what made them so special.

Readers will also delight in reprints of four favorite columns from past collections, including “The Chamber of Commerce Bull,” probably the most requested of all Hale columns.

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Praise for
Leon Hale

"A writer's writing and the writer as a person are usually rather separate things, but with my friend Leon Hale they are a lot less separate than they are with most of us....His voice in writing is the voice of the man himself. Colloquial, wise, caring, closely observant, and most often at his own expense, wryly and powerfully humorous."
-- John Graves

Warm and witty recollections of a life loving food and the people who cooked it.

From the beloved Houston Chronicle columnist comes this delightful and heart-warming stroll through the kitchens of his life.

In Supper Time (Winedale; November 1999; $23.95; ISBN 0-9657468-3-6), Leon Hale recreates for us the tables of Texas and the South throughout most of this century. They were filled with solid, nurturing fare like chicken and dumplings, cornbread with Jersey butter, chicken-fried steak, green beans glistening with bacon drippings, and fragrant fried pies—tables glowing with the memory of good times and good friends, even during periods of adversity.

From the day in Bryan when he invented blackened chicken to his bachelor apartment adventures making pot roast and "the Soupwich"—a lunch time staple—Hale has been a producer of unusual dishes. These culinary adventures are often recounted in his popular column, where they are reader favorites for their humor, as well as practicability. But he is only an occasional cook.

For the most part he has been on the consuming end, as he recalls some of the beloved figures whose signature dishes he still longs for: "Mimi" Vick's Christmas ambrosia; Mary Elizabeth Adams' world class fried chicken, Marie Moore's guacamole salad accompanied by fried Matagorda oysters—a holiday tradition. Or Mark Hale's spicy cheese dip, which still serves as the Hale family's all purpose comfort food.

This is an intimate, unforgettable portrait of a man, his friends, family and his time, full of personal preferences, brimming with memory and affection, enriched by family recipes, old and new. And Hale tells his story with the self-deprecating humor, wit and grace for which he is celebrated.

Winedale Publishing

Excerpt from Supper Time

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