TEXAS COOKING

Johanna Parker reads this first-person narrative as if she's living it. Colleen Collins, a successful Washington reporter, is sent to rural Texas for a series of magazine articles on cooking. Using regional accents, Parker does full justice to Wingate's folksy, empathetic writing style. The dialogue is as real as the emotions, but the author's didacticism and her bias for the good life of small towns get in the way of the story at times. Still, as listeners come to know these friendly characters, they'll picture themselves escaping to San Saline, Texas, an old-fashioned world of cattle auctions, picnics, and schmaltz. S.C.A. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 04]