life
DRIVIN’ FOR LUNCH
Thinking About Dessert First by Ray Linville
If you want a delectable dessert with lunch, where do you go? For me and many others, it’s Mrs. Lacy’s Magnolia House in Sanford. The restaurant is known as much for its desserts as it is for its soups, salads, sandwiches and quiches. Everything is homemade. Patricia and Lorin Jenkins from nearby Harnett County, about 20 miles away, come at least once a week. He says, “Sometimes it’s up to three meals a week. “The atmosphere here is so casual. We were introduced to Mrs. Lacy’s about 10 years ago. Every place we’ve lived – New Jersey, Georgia, Michigan – we’ve always had a tea house. This one is just as good if not better than the ones we’ve been to.” Although the menu is extensive with many choices for salads and sandwiches, he was more interested in discussing desserts. What’s his favorite at Mrs. Lacy’s? “Actually, it’s three: lemon lush, strawberry shortcake, and key lime pie,” he says. My wife and I have to argue with his choices. For us, the butter pecan cake (with butter pecan ice cream) and Victoria’s Secret, a cherry-pineapple cobbler, can’t be beat. (We also took home a lemon lush, and it’s as good as its name. Made with cream cheese, it has a pecan crust and a lemon filing with a whipped topping sprinkled with pecans.) Lorin also recommends reservations because sometimes out-of-towners come by the vanload for lunch before they head to the Temple Theater for an afternoon performance. After I talked to the Jenkins couple, Faye Shultz—the restaurant’s owner—whispered to me her secret for having 20
OutreachNC.com | DECEMBER 2019
such great desserts. “My grandson Chad makes the cakes. He comes in at 4 in the morning, starts them, leaves to work out, and then returns to finish the cakes,” she says. All this occurs before he goes to his “regular day job” at Munday Scientific, which services and repairs microscopes. “We make a few extra desserts each day. It all depends on how we’re feeling. We usually have 13-15 desserts each day,” she adds. Of all the desserts, the shortcake is obviously a winner because Shultz sells a shortcake mix so customers can make it at home just like she serves (well, they try). Although Shultz uses local strawberries and peaches in season with the shortcake, she can continue to serve strawberry shortcake in most months because that fruit is so readily available fresh. How good the shortcake is, is no longer a secret. “Sometimes people order as many as 20 at a time when local berries are in season,” she says. Travelers to Mrs. Lacy’s come from far away to enjoy the food, particularly the desserts. Schultz has a book with signatures from all over the United States and from many foreign countries such as Japan and the Netherlands. Schultz named the restaurant after her grandmother, Mrs. Lacy Jones Coggins, who had 15 children and was called Mrs. Lacy by everyone in the community. Shultz’s fondest memories of her years growing up are eating lunch with the family on Sundays after church at Grandma Lacy’s.