Fried Green Tomatoes & Sweet Tea

On Friday, my high school girlfriend Tammy and I headed to Juliette to eat lunch at the Whistle Stop Café. I'm betting many if not most of you have seen the 1991 movie Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, which starred Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Mary Louise Parker. I first visited Juliette shortly after the movie came out, and I was well acquainted with it since much of it had been filmed in Coweta County, where I live. The newspaper where I worked at the time wrote lots of FGT stories while the movie was being filmed. One of my colleagues took photos of most of the stars on the set. I got to interview a local actress who was the stand-in for both Kathy Bates and Mary Stuart Masterson. She had a ball working on FGT, and amazingly, she entrusted me with her scrapbook from the film, which had behind-the-scenes photos and autographs of all the stars. The interior of the Threadgoode family's home was actually filmed at a historic home in Coweta where some friends live. The exterior of the Threadgood home was filmed at another old home in Coweta. The nursing home where Evelyn and Mrs. Threadgoode hung out? That was in Coweta too.

But the most iconic site in the film was, of course, the café itself, and for that, you have to go to Juliette.

I'd been before, but Tammy had never eaten there. It was fun to go back after a few decades, and we both marveled that the film is now thirty years old!

As expected, sweet tea was on the menu.

We decided to split an appetizer platter and a barbecue sandwich, and it was all delicious, but the fried green tomatoes were the first things I ate!

The Bennett's BBQ on the sandwich was succulent and the sauce tasty. If you've seen the movie, I suppose I don't have to tell you that "the secret's in the sauce."

We also split a dessert of Pecan Cobbler and ice cream. Oh. My. Goodness. Not surprisingly, I did not want any supper that night after such a huge lunch!

Juliette also has a cute little row of antique shops next to the café. I was delighted to find several vintage Christmas goodies, which I'll share later in the week. After lunch, we walked off some of those calories by taking a tour of the nearby Jarrell Plantation historic site, which Tammy had wisely looked into ahead of time and for which she had obtained a state parks pass through her local library. I had no idea you can "check out" a pass for two, and since she did, our visit was free! Here is one of the "new" buildings, the 1920 farmhouse, which is a private home and not on the tour. Structures on the property date from 1847 to 1945, and the site is considered "one of the most complete collections of family artifacts of this period in the Southeast."

I loved all the history and found myself wondering (as I always do) how to incorporate some of this into a future book, so we'll see if that works out! But check out this stacked rock chimney. If they told you to find a Jarrell ancestor's name in the rock, could you find it?

We did!

And I'll close with a few other photos from this rich historic site. We had a great day in Juliette, and I loved reliving the memories of a movie that came out thirty years ago!