By Jim Knippenberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Don't believe the title. The Sweet Potato Queens' Big Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner) is neither a cookbook nor a financial planner.

Oh, it has recipes, but since author Jill Conner Browne contends that the four major food groups are sweet, salty, fried and au gratin, the recipes are, uh, unconventional, and recommended only for those with great pacemakers.

And it has financial tips, such as "There's a lot to be said for rich old guys with bad hearts and no relatives," and "We can all save countless thousands of dollars on plastic surgery just by having sex round the clock."

But the third book in the SPQ saga is something altogether different - a chatty, snippy, sometimes naughty, laugh-out-loud look at life through the eyes of a fallen Southern belle who sips Big Mama's Knock You Naked Margaritas and makes lists of Men Who Need To Be Maimed.

SPQs, for those joining us mid-series, are a group of Jackson, Miss., women with a taste for the outrageous. They're bawdy and boozy, loud and lusty, all nicknamed Tammy and given to wearing hot pink majorette boots, green sequined bathing suits with padded butts and bosoms, enormous red wigs (the bigger the hair, the closer to God) and generous coats of Revlon's Love That Pink lipstick.

Ms. Conner Browne is head Queen and founder of a movement that today boasts 1,921 chapters and the feisty Web site www.sweetpotatoqueens.com.

Lots of queens, there, and a right big market for Cookbook, a collection of Southern wit and wisdom laced with generous sarcasm and sniping.

Oh, and lots of anecdotes - all the God's truth, Ms. Browne swears - submitted by SPQs around the country. Like the queen who got so fed up with her husband keeping live bait in the 'fridge that she stir-fried a tubful for his dinner. Or the queen whose husband dropped his dirty clothes on the floor, so she retaliated by folding them and putting them back in his drawer. After a month of this, he started using the hamper and helping with laundry.

Readers will discover they need five men in their lives: A man to dance with; a man who can fix things; a man who can pay for things; a man to talk to; and a man to have great sex with.

They're also learning that even the Queen of the Queens sometimes has to eat her words. In Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love she railed on about the madness of women dating younger men. Since then, she has met and married The Cutest Boy in the World, 10 years her junior. "We agreed we'd make our ages meet in the middle, so now we're both 44."

So here's Ms. Browne now, in the middle of an 18-city tour and ready to answer a few questions.

The difference between me and Martha Stewart:

Other than our height, social standing and financial status, you mean? We're in separate and unequal universes.

Every woman needs a drum majorette outfit because:

Because of the boots. I'm quite fond of hot pink boots.

If we were to add a fifth food group, it would be:

It would have to be gravy. Greasy brown gravy.

Here's what I like about being a newlywed:

Everything, especially my shiny new husband.

Being Queen of the Queens has taught me:

Nothing. I already knew everything. That's how I got to be Queen.

One thing that always surprises me:

Women. Whenever I think I've heard it all, seen it all, someone says something that knocks me sideways.

A Queen without her tiara is like a Spud Stud without his:

Tool belt.

A complete list of Men Who Need to be Maimed would have to start with:

I have to pass on that one to avoid future prosecution. No sooner would I say his name than he'd end up maimed and I'd go to jail.

Never tell a SPQ:

No. The correct answer is always yes, to whatever she's asking for.

One thing The Cutest Boy in the World doesn't know about me yet:

Like, I'm going to tell you?

E-mail jknippenberg@enquirer.com

Jill Conner Browne signs The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner) 7 p.m.

Friday, Books & Co., 350 E. Stroop Road, Kettering, (937) 298-6540; 1 p.m. Saturday, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood, 396-8960. Ms. Browne says dress in your SPQ finery because she loves "looking out there and being blinded by a sea of tiaras."