Randall Kenan talks “The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food ” on “North Carolina Bookwatch” today,at noon and Thursday at 5 p.m.

“People showing up heavy-laden with food to the homes of the recently deceased. Hams, fried chicken, oven-baked barbecue chicken, pork chops smothered in gravy, dirty rice, Spanish rice, potato salad galore, slaw, sweet potato casseroles, candied yams, hushpuppies, cornbread, soup, chopped pork barbecue, collard greens, pound cake, chocolate cake, coconut cake, pineapple cake, red velvet cake, sweet potato pie, lemon meringue pie”

These are the foods award-winning writer Randall Kenan remembers being brought to his family’s house by his Duplin County neighbors when his great uncle died.

His remembrance is just one of the many writings about food that Kenan has collected from some of North Carolina’s best writers, including Lee Smith, Daniel Wallace, Marianne Gingher, Jill McCorkle, Jaki Shelton Green, Wayne Caldwell, Marcie Cohen Ferris, Michael McFee, Zelda Lockhart, Crook’s Corner’s popular chef Bill Smith, noted cookbook author Nancie McDermott, and many others.

If you love good writing and good food, don’t miss seeing Kenan talk about “The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food.”

Week of May 14

Donna Everhart talks about “The Education of Dixie Dupree” on “North Carolina Bookwatch” Sunday, May 14, at noon and Thursday, May 18 at 5 p.m.

In “The Education of Dixie Dupree,” the debut novel of Donna Everhart, 11 year-old Dixie is learning about the deep fractures underneath the surface of the family she once thought was happy.

Her father has gone away suddenly and her mother is about to fall over the edge. Food and money are running out.

She and her teenaged brother are in despair when, out of the blue, their mother’s brother, Uncle Ray, appears just in time to rescue them.

But with his help, comes trouble, worse than anything the family has known, and with it a dark and disturbing, but completely compelling  story of sexual abuse and the devastation it can bring to the lives of families and young people.