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_Welcome to our Dinner and a Movie series, where we feature nostalgic essays on some of our favorite films from the '80s and '90s, and share recipes inspired from movie moments._
It’s challenging to imagine a stronger ensemble cast than the one in 1989’s _Steel Magnolias_. Starring Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah and a young
Julia Roberts — who was just on the cusp of superstardom when the film was released — it presented six extraordinary women who embody strength and joy, no matter what life threw at them.
Set in the fictional Chinquapin Parish, Louisiana, in the 1980s, the film follows these women as they navigate love, motherhood and incredible loss; also, what it means to be a wife, a
mother, a daughter and above all a friend. Indeed, _Steel Magnolias_ is perhaps the ultimate exploration of sisterhood in the South. M'Lynn (Sally Field) shares a special moment with
daughter Shelby (Julia Roberts) before her wedding. TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection The film opens on the bespectacled Annelle Dupuy (Hannah), a young cosmetology school
graduate with a murky past, headed to a job interview at Truvy’s Beauty Spot. After Annelle aces her tryout, Truvy Jones (the delightfully perky Parton) offers her a job as a “glamour
technician” on the spot. Shelby Eatenton (a very bright-eyed Roberts) is getting married that afternoon, and each of the other main characters is headed to Truvy’s to get coiffed for the
ceremony. As the women catch up, gossip and reminisce about their own romances, Shelby reveals she almost backed out of her wedding because she may not be able to have children. The type 1
diabetic was warned by doctors that pregnancy may be too much for her body to bear. ‘STEEL MAGNOLIAS’ RECIPE To honor this film, renowned chef Mashama Bailey gave us a recipe for a Southern
classic. CHICKEN COUNTRY CAPTAIN Then, a pregnancy reveal. Shelby weighed her options, she tells M’Lynn Eatenton (played by the incomparable Field) and was willing to take the risk. “I’d
rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special,” she reasons. And soon after giving birth, Shelby goes on dialysis, before eventually receiving a kidney transplant
from her mother and ultimately dying of kidney failure. The heartbreak and extreme loss was real for Robert Harling, who wrote _Steel Magnolias_ as a play to honor his sister, Susan Harling
Robinson, who died at age 33 in 1985 due to complications from diabetes, and the real-life steel magnolias who supported their family in Harling’s hometown of Natchitoches, Louisiana, where
the movie was filmed. When diagnosed at age 12 with diabetes, Susan — like the film’s Shelby — didn’t believe her life should have to be altered to accommodate an illness. “Absolutely
nothing was going to keep her from anything she wanted to do and becoming anything she wanted to become,” Harling told _Garden & Gun_’s _Whole Hog_ podcast in 2017. “So from the day that
she got ill ... I noticed a strength. There was a strength there. She was true to her word.”