‘Whiskey in a Teacup’ is a sip of the South
Reese Witherspoon pays homage to Dixie upbringing with a lavish lifestyle guide and cookbook.
NEW YORK – It’s not every Hollywood star who would blithely offer tips on how to “hot-roller” your hair – complete with hilarious photos of herself in huge hair curlers – in her first book. But the eminently relatable Reese Witherspoon does just that in “Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love and Baking Biscuits” (Touchstone, on sale now), a lavish lifestyle guide and cookbook that’s a paean to her native Dixie.
Witherspoon, 42, now adds author to her multitasking resume as an Oscar-winning actor, producer, entrepreneur and champion of books through her Instagram book club.
In “Whiskey in a Teacup,” she shares stories of growing up in Nashville, Tennessee (where she still has a home, along with Los Angeles) with strong women such as her paternal grandmother, who passed on a love of reading and storytelling and taught her such crucial life lessons as how to be a lady and never to wear sweatpants on an airplane. (Jeans are OK, but not if they’re ripped!)
“There are some old-fashioned values that I think are timeless,” says Witherspoon, who hopes “Whiskey,” by celebrating holidays and family dinners and community gatherings, helps “bring people together” in our politically divided nation.
And she’s happy to give a big shoutout to the South. “I’m very proud of where I’m from,” Witherspoon says. “People don’t take themselves too seriously there, which I really appreciate in an overly serious world. We like to have a lot of fun.”
Question: Do you cook a lot yourself ?
Reese Witherspoon: I do. On weekends primarily. My littlest, my son, my
5-year-old (Tennessee, with husband Jim Toth) is obsessed with “Master Chef ” and any kind of cooking or baking show. He loves “Cupcake Wars,” and we try to replicate the recipes. Right now he’s fascinated by how to make meatballs.
Q: Southerners tend to be stereotyped. According to Bob Woodward’s book “Fear,” President Donald Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions a “dumb Southerner.” Your reaction?
Witherspoon: I haven’t read Bob’s book, but I’m eager to read it. ... (As for Trump’s reported comment), I mean, there’s really no reason to be disparaging people.
Q: You write in your book that when you were young, you told a teacher you wanted to be the first female president, and she said she would vote for you. That’s very Tracy Flick of you (the character she played in “Election”)!
Witherspoon: Yes! I think I was always ambitious. I was going to be a surgeon or an astronaut or the first female president. It never occurred to me that that wouldn’t be possible. I hope all little girls feel that all things are possible. Because we’re told things are possible, and then we grow up and in the real world they seem impossible. I think we have to encourage girls to dream big and be even more ambitious.
Q: As someone who’s such an advocate for books, how does it feel to be a published author?
Witherspoon: It gave me tremendous respect for people who write every day for a living. It’s incredibly hard; you can’t even imagine. It’s like when you go to a museum (and say), “I could paint that!” Have you ever gone home and tried to paint? It’s impossible. And that’s how I felt about writing a book. But I feel really good about sharing things that are important to me.
Q: As a celebrity, how do you incorporate your values into your everyday life?
Witherspoon: I think my company (Hello Sunshine) is very mission-based. I wake up every day and think, “OK, how can I get a story told, a movie made or a television or unscripted series made that is going to tell a story from a woman’s perspective that is unique and would not be told if I wasn’t championing it?” … I want to leave my business (Hollywood) a more inclusive environment than the way I found it.
Q: “Big Little Lies” is coming back for a second season on HBO. Can you give us a hint of what we’re going to see?
Witherspoon: Meryl Streep is in it. She’s amazing, and she plays the most fascinating character (the mother of villain Perry, killed off last season).
Q: Can we glean from the infamous ice cream photo (of Witherspoon’s character hurling a cone at Streep) that ...
Witherspoon: That maybe we don’t get along?
Q: That you’re at odds?
Witherspoon: We might be. At some point. In the show. A little adversarial.
Q: You write in “Whiskey in a Teacup” about the thrill of meeting Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, at a fundraiser in L.A..
Witherspoon: I was up and dressed at 5 o’clock in the morning. With hot rollers in my hair. My husband was like, “You are really excited.” But she was charming and very relatable and lovely.