{"id":22881,"date":"2026-10-02T17:07:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/?p=22881"},"modified":"2026-10-03T17:47:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T15:47:45","slug":"princess-and-the-peas-rachel-himes-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/2026\/10\/02\/princess-and-the-peas-rachel-himes-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess and the Peas\u00a0\u2013 Rachel Himes (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ma Sally is the best cook in her county. She has a son, John, who would like to get married, but Ma Sally wants him to find a wife who can cook as well as she does. So she organises a little contest in which the young women have to prepare a dish of black-eyed peas. Whoever makes the best dish will marry John. This is a really cute, down-to-earth version of <em>The Princess and the Pea<\/em>. Here, the important thing is not being able to sleep on a pea hidden under a pile of mattresses, but knowing how to cook one! Set in an African American community, the story also has a lovely sense of community woven into it. A simple and charming twist on a familiar fairy tale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>&#8220;When Pastor Vernon stopped by the grocery for green tomatoes, Ma&#8217;am Della told him. Harriet, shopping nearby, heard.<br>Reginald shouted to Mr. Mosely over the noise of his barber&#8217;s clippers that John was going to choose a bride that Sunday evening. And Hannah, hidden under the hair dryers, heard.<br>First-grader Flannery told her brother that there would be a contest to pick the best lady in town for John. And Hattie, shelving books nearby, heard.<br>And on Saturday afternoon, ancient Mr. Jefferson told even-more-ancient Ms. Grady the news. And the new girl in town, fresh out of college and sharp as a tack, well, she heard, too.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"673\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4521-3.jpeg?resize=1024%2C673&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22897\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4521-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=1024%2C673&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4521-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=300%2C197&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4521-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=768%2C505&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4521-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=1536%2C1010&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4521-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=2048%2C1347&amp;ssl=1 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ma Sally is the best cook in her county. She has a son, John, who would like to get married, but Ma Sally wants him to find a wife who can cook as well as she does. So she organises a little contest in which the young women have to prepare a dish of black-eyed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22887,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[290],"tags":[93,19,45],"class_list":["post-22881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-graphic-stories-2026","tag-food","tag-love","tag-mothers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/curated-lifestyle-8RR6q-Z1f_8-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22898,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22881\/revisions\/22898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}