The Help by Kathryn Stockett Recipe by Chef Kasae Fraser
Author
Born in 1969, in Jackson Mississippi, the same place The Help was set, Kathryn Stockett grew up with her grandparents after her parents divorced when she was a young girl.
Kathryn Stockett
Her African maid, Demetrie, played a pivotal role in her childhood, at 16, when she died, it affected Kathryn to the core.
University was in Alabama where she graduated with an English and Creative Writing degree.
Moving to New York after university, Kathryn worked in magazine publishing and marketing for a good long time when the Twin Tower crash of 9/11 happened ad changed her life.
The Help came out of this experience!
Feeling homesick after the tragedy, she looked for some familiar comfort and started writing in Demetries voice, making her think hard about the life her maid must have lived through.
Taking 5 years to finish The Help, she found it difficult to get a publisher to accept her book. It took 60 rejections before she found a literary agent who was willing to accept her as an author.
When The Help hit the shelves, it wasn’t long before it became a massive best seller, with over seven million copies sold in the first 2 years and 100 weeks at the top of the New York Times’s Bestseller List.
Translated into forty-two different languages and made into a film in 2011 which also became a hit.
Kathryn felt the draw of the south and moved back there with her daughter after her divorce.
Book
A first book by Kathryn Stockett (2009), The Help is a story about the lives of black maids working in Jackson Mississippi, in the south of America in the early 1960s.
Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a 22 who graduated from Ole Miss, returns to her family’s cotton plantation only to find her long time and much-loved maid and nanny has left and no one will let her know the details.
Trying to be a Southern lady, she plays along with the rest of her age group, playing bridge with her old school friends and enduring her mother’s nagging words about how to find a man.
With a big dream to become a writer, she finds a job at the Jackson Journal writing a housekeeping advice column, which she knows next to nothing about.
Looking for advice herself, she asks her friend if she can talk to her maid, Aibileen, for answers to the many questions she has.
It’s during her chats with Aibileen, that she decides to ‘help’ and write true stories about the maids.
Approaching Aibileen with the idea to write a book from the point of view of 12 black maids, she reluctantly agrees and soon finds herself caught up in the project, having secret evening meetings with Skeeter.
As the project progresses and they struggle to find enough maids brave enough to come forward, the town has its own struggles with racial issues.
Aibileen recruits her best friend, Minny, for the book.
With a sassy mouth, Minny finds it difficult to be the expected ‘quiet black woman’ in the white world of the south. She adds her story to the others helping to open Skeeter eyes to the true prejudices of her upbringing, her family and those around her.
Adding to her realisation about the racism where she lives, Skeeter learned the story of why her Nanny left and what that meant to her.
Published anonymously, and based in a fictional town, the book becomes a national best seller.
After reading the book, It’s not long before the ladies of Jacksonville, begin to recognise themselves in the characters in the book.
Skeeter’s best friend, a renowned bully Hilly Holbrook, is set on vengeance. Now, with very different views about race and the future of integration in Mississippi, it’s only a secret that Hilly doesn’t want to be known, that prevents her from revealing who the authors are.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
My Thoughts
I loved reading this book, and found it really difficult to put down.
With so much depth to each and every character, it wasn’t difficult to become enthralled pretty quickly in what was coming next for each of them.
Highlighting the growing race tensions between blacks and whites in the 60s, which was beginning to develop with Martin Luther King and the death of President Kennedy, this book brought my attention to what happened between the relationships in small communities.
I’m ashamed to say, I don’t have a depth of background in American history.
I’m only aware of what has happened historically where race is concerned, through films, news and of course reading, so discovering this book, made me stand up and pay attention.
I’m sure there’s a ‘main’ character, yet because of the attention paid to each character, there are at least four individuals who have the strength of personality to hold the book up, so together, Aibileen, Skeeter, Minny and Hillary, share the star spot, each adding a notable element to this important story.
Would I read this again? Yes, and very soon.
I give this a 4 ½ egg rating. Why not a 5 egg rating?
Even though I loved this book and the writing, feeling it was well rounded, I did still feel as though there were a few unavoidable and inevitable generalised stereotypes.
4 1/2 Egg Rating from me.
Food
Chef
While doing my usual goggle-eyed pilgrimage, watching MasterChef the Professionals, I fell in love with Chef Kasae Fraser.
So, when she said yes to gifting Foodie Book Club a recipe, I was over joyed!
If you’ve not found Kasae yet, find her on Instagram here, X here, and Robun in Bath here (the restaurant where Kasae magically produces her food)
All the following information is taken from various places I’ve found after a trawl through the internet, so apologies to those I don’t acknowledge for the information, as I’ve forgotten where everything was found!
Chef Kasae Fraser - From her time o MasterChef
Twenty-nine-year-old Australian born Kasae, is head chef at the bath restaurant Robun where she shares contemporary Japanese dishes to willing and excited guests.
Living near Bristol with fellow chef and boyfriend Vincent, she found her cooking style while working and traveling the world.
Her career started as a waitress in Mercers, a small fine dining restaurant in the Melbourne where she moved to front of house to train as a manager and trainee sommelier.
It wasn’t long before Kasae fell in love with the bustle and pressure of the restaurant’s kitchen, and started her aprentaship.
Kasae puts down her initial success to her time and encouragement within Mercer where the owners, Ute and Stephen Mercer, ‘coached’ her through cooking competitions, training and nurturing her rapidly progressing skills.
Finding her style of cooking may have taken her a while, but now Kasae describes her style as playful, generous, ‘diet be damned’ and refined. If all of those things can even exist together, that would be what I would describe as my style.” Says Kasae
With a love of running (a marathon or two on the cards for her future) and horses, although since being in the UK not much time for horse riding. She also loves to garden and on her bucket list , growing produce she can use in her cooking, serving friends with her extraordinary food.
Meeting like-minded people is one of the reasons Kasae wanted to take part in MasterChef: The Professionals.
Kasae described her experience on the show as “..a unique opportunity to do this with such a range of chefs. I want to meet the judges, hear their opinions on everything to do with cooking and restaurants."
By getting herself back into cooking competitions, Kasae hoped to ‘invigorate herself’.
“It is such a great challenge to be in the spotlight and see how you perform under pressure. It’s one of the greatest stresses and purest moments of professional pleasure I’ve experienced at the same time” She Says
Ending her MasterChef journey in the final, Kasae certainly did herself proud.
Recipe
Sauce Charcutiére with Pork Chops
Sauce Charcutiére with Pork Chops
What You Need
4 pork chops
1 shallot
2 Tbs of butter
150ml of white wine
3 Tbs whole grain mustard
250ml veal jus
10-12 cornichons
Chopped chives to finish
How It’s Done
Dry off your pork chops and season generously with salt.
Fry both sides in a hot frying pan with a little bit of oil until golden.
Add the butter and baste the pork chops
Take out the pork chops and rest them on a tray
Slice your shallot and fry it in the same pan that you cooked the pork in
Add the mustard
Add the white wine and reduce it until there is no liquid left
Add your veal, and reduce until it coats the back of a spoon
To finish your sauce, add your chopped cornichons and chives
Warm your pork chop through the oven and serve with apple sauce and some extra seeded mustard.
