Curt Chapman, staff writer
Ignore your conscience and loosen your belt a notch because a virtual Buffett buffet awaits you at the corner bookstore.
After keeping the idea of writing a cookbook simmering on the back burner for a decade, the free spirit guiding LuLu’s at Homeport Marina turned up the heat and recently released Crazy Sista Cooking: Cuisine & Conversation With Lucy Anne Buffett.
The nearly 300-page volume, written by Buffett and Anastasia Arnold, is packed full of the stories and dishes that have made the restaurant a popular stop since its humble beginnings on Weeks Bay, at the same spot her dad took Buffett and her two siblings fishing many years ago.
“I've been wanting to write a book for 30 years and a cookbook for 10 years,” Buffett said. “I kept getting off on a tangent — like making money.”
The restaurateur finally began coordinating the effort in April, and then self-published the book (Wimmer Cookbooks, $29.95) in December. While laughing she said, “As many T-shirts as I sell in my shop, I thought I could do it myself.”
Buffett said the book includes the history of LuLu’s, and why the restaurant had to be moved to its current location on the north bank of the Intracoastal Waterway, near Alabama Highway 59.
“It’s about fun — old family stories — and most of the recipes are LuLu’s recipes,” she said. “It was a conscious decision whether I was going to write generic things about a sandwich. I decided this wasn’t going to be fun unless I wrote about my experiences. Besides, I really hated sandwiches as a child.”
She added, “In case I can never write a book again, I also decided to throw in a few dinner party menus.”
More than 150 recipes pack the cookbook’s pages, with full color photos showcasing the LuLu’s lifestyle. Among the perennial favorites featured are Famous Fried Green Tomatoes, L.A. (Lower Alabama) Caviar, Garlic Cheese Grits, Mahi Soft Tacos with Chipotle Cream Sauce and Weedy’s Margarita Cheesecake.
Long summers on Mobile Bay played a role in Buffett’s cooking style. She said she loves Gulf Coast seafood and prefers to use regional ingredients whenever available, such as Baldwin County produce.
Her worldwide travels also had an impact on her taste for cuisine, although she prefers simple meals these days
“It’s about having fun and escapism,” Buffett said. “I put out the best food I have and let everybody have a good time. I’ve been very blessed.”
She credits John Coleman with creating the black-eyed pea dip she adapted for her L.A. Caviar.
“There are no original recipes,” Buffett said. “People are borrowing. People like to be trendy.”
She added, “My philosophy is about making stuff that is easy and that they can really cook. One of the challenges to the writing of the cookbook was the consistency of the language. I get bored easily with things that stay the same.”
Reading from her introduction to the book last week, Buffett said, “Cooking has been a main character in my personal story since I was a 10-year-old child frying my own French fries for an afternoon snack … . My love of cooking and talking both came naturally …”
Her written narrative goes on to reveal her penchant for teenage rebellion, doing things she shouldn’t, getting in trouble and yet doing them again.
Buffett said that’s the source of the “crazy sista” moniker she wears with pride.
The introduction continues, “I came by it honestly. The people in my family have never been very good at coloring inside the lines. We don't seem to think the way normal people do.
“My mother blamed it on chance. My father blamed it on the tides. My sister blames it on my brother. And my brother blamed it on my grandfather but, as you may have heard in the song, he has no one but himself to blame.”
But just as there’s a crazy sister, a nonconforming brother, or even a nutty aunt in nearly every Southern family, Buffett said, there are also large weekend gatherings where good food is the center of attention.
Her grandmothers passed along to Buffett the cooking gene, along with their love of family.
Hilda “Mom” Buffett cooked large meals every day in her Pascagoula, Miss. home, even when her husband, Capt. James (Jimmie) Buffett, was at sea. At Mom’s house, Buffett learned how gumbo is supposed to taste.
Bessie “Granny” Peets loved cooking as well. She was the dietician at Gulf Park College, a girl’s finishing school in Long Beach, Miss. She introduced Buffett to fine dining.
On Sundays after attending church in Mobile, James D. and Loraine “Peets” Buffett would load their children into the car and make the drive across the state line to visit family there.
Buffett’s brother is singer/songwriter/author Jimmy Buffett. Her sister is Laurie “LaLa” McGuane, wife of author Thomas McGuane.
The son of a son of a sailor penned his own introduction to the book, which reads in part, “It’s all about making a good meal with great friends in a beautiful setting of your choice, where for an hour or two you too can forget the troubles of the day and be a child of the coast.”
Lucy Buffett said, “My piece is mom heavy and Jimmy’s stuff is very daddy heavy, so I told him it balances out. He thinks back about the old times and gets nostalgic. He put a lot of thought into it.”
A dollar from the sale of each book goes to LuLu’s Love Fund, a charitable effort supporting arts education in Baldwin County public schools. Buffett created the fund in 2006 because the arts have always been a part of her life, whether watching musicals with her mother or seeing her brother perform.
“Lucy Buffett has been an exemplary Partner in Education,” Dr. Faron Hollinger, Baldwin County school superintendent, stated in a press release. “Our students have been able to go above and beyond with their fine arts accomplishments because of her, and for that we’re most grateful.”
The LuLu’s Love Fund presented $24,361.37 to the school system last year — most of it earned from two sold-out Fairhope presentations of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s performance of “Gee’s Bend.” The funds are distributed by the system’s Instructional Support Department.
LuLu’s General Manager Johnny Fisher said, “You won’t find an owner with a better heart, a better wit or a better zest for life than Lucy.”
The book is available for purchase at the LuLu’s gift shop in Gulf Shores, as well as Bienville Books in Mobile; Barnes and Noble in Spanish Fort; Books A Million in Daphne; Bay Break, Fairhope Massage, Page & Palette, The Obvious Place, Wildflowers Florist and Gifts, Village Peddler and Red or White Wines in Fairhope; and at Boardwalk 98 Gifts in Point Clear.
It’s also available online at www.crazysistacooking.com.
“It’s been received very well,” Buffett said. “People are reading the book from cover to cover because there are so many good stories. My mother would be so thrilled. We got all our writing prowess from my mom. My mother told me if I could write and take shorthand, I would always have a job.”
A book-signing is planned for Feb. 5, from 1-3 p.m. at LuLu’s, 200 E. 25th Ave. in Gulf Shores. The Mardi Gras Day party will celebrate the restaurant’s fourth anniversary in Gulf Shores and the book’s official launch. It will include music by J.J. Caillier amd the Zydeco Knockouts. Scott Holt will perform after the LuLu’s Mardi Gras boat parade pulls up to the dock.
