Neal Bill

In 1894, George Isaacs, the penniless black sheep of his family, was running with the worst of the outlaws in the Oklahoma Territory. There, a get-rich-quick scheme that seemed fool proof was hatched up. The plan was for George to present money packets falsely purporting to contain $25,000 in cash to the Wells Fargo office in Kansas City. Wells Fargo was to ship the packets via the Santa Fe railroad to George at Canadian, Texas, where George’s cronies would then rob the depot office and steal the phony money packets, thus allowing George Isaacs to sue Wells Fargo for his lost fortune. The plan backfired when the sheriff was on hand when the train arrived. The bandits killed the sheriff but then panicked and raced back to the Territory without grabbing the bogus packets. Wells Fargo sent an undercover agent to investigate, but the outlaws discovered him, and the agent was assassinated. The two murders led to eight trials, but only one man, George Isaacs, was ever convicted—and even he managed to beat a life sentence. One question lingered: was George truly behind the scam? The identities of the masterminds behind the foiled plot have remained a mystery for more than a hundred years. With his usual rough-and-tumble tenacity, Bill Neal undertakes the investigation of these two cold-case murders.

This delightful cookbook celebrates the glories of southern baking, with 300 recipes for the breads, biscuits, cakes, pies, cookies, and sweets that have been the pride of southern cooks for generations. From his first chapter on cornmeal - with recipes for dumplings, hushpuppies, and four styles of spoonbread - to his delicious array of desserts - including persimmon pudding, lemon chess pie, and pecan cake with caramel icing - Bill Neal interweaves fascinating bits of culinary history with a native's knowledge of the cooking secrets of the rural South. He demystifies beaten biscuits, revives such southern standbys as baps and bannocks, and freshens up old favorites such as peach cobbler and fruitcake. Passing on the traditions of the southern kitchen, Neal pays tribute to the richness of the region's heritage. Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie was first published in 1990.

Southern cooking, the most interesting and complex regional cuisine in America, remains a mystery to many professional cooks and southerners. With a stellar collection of recipes, Neal reveals the background and subtleties of southern foods. He uses imaginative new ways with old standards to make the recipes more accessible, but he never resorts to shortcuts or processed ingredients. He also shows how the meeting of Native American, Western European, and African cultures has created this cuisine. |Using the steel industry to examine liberal policies and priorities after World War II, Stein shows that economic policy--not racial conflict--led to the feeble liberalism of the 1990s.