Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes, and Honest Fried Chicken: The Heart and Soul of Southern Country Kitchens Review

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(More customer reviews)There are so many Southern cookbooks out now, but this one is a keeper. Some of the books available are written either by those who haven't 'walked the walk' or who have tried updating or otherwise modifying the food we grew up with and loved.
No so Ms. Lundy. She gives us the real thing, take it or leave it, with recipes from her own cooking experience. No, not all of these recipes are 'health food' in today's atmosphere of cooking-political correctness. However, these recipes need no apology. As Julia Child has always said, eat everything wisely and in moderation and you won't go wrong. I'd classify much of this book as comfort food, and besides, stress is killing more of our baby-boomer generation than food ever could!
Interspersed with her recipes are delightful recollections, many of well known personalities.
Buy this book and enjoy her writing as well as her recipes!

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Here is the first regional American cookbook to offer a true taste of the Mountain South. This unique cookbook gathers together more than 180 authentic down-home southern recipes -- full-flavored, no-nonsense dishes more and more Americans are returning to -- and leavens them with memories of food, family, and friendship from some of country music's most beloved performers. "Take a chicken and you kill it/And you put it in a skillet/And you fry it 'til it's golden-brown./That's southern cooking and it tastes mighty nice." -- "Kentucky Means Paradise" by Merle Travis "Straight from the heart and soul of southern cooking. It's a banquet, with background music." -- John Egerton, author of Southern Food; "Simple, honest cooking of the Mountain South. . . . A fresh, entertaining approach to food." -- Atlanta Constitution; "Reeks with authenticity." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

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Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes: Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden Review

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(More customer reviews)I've had this cookbook for a while, and it is a lovely one. The pictures are beautiful, the recipes are varied and sound delicious, and the few that I've made have turned out well. As a cookbook, it's great.
BUT, it's not really about "Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden" as the subtitle suggests. This is the first year I've had a kitchen garden myself and have been looking through my cookbooks with an eye for using what is growing like crazy in my garden - greens, summer squash, turnips, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, tomatoes, corn, you know, the usual stuff. I thought this would be a great resource for recipes, but looking at it again, from the perspective of finding recipes that would help me use my bounty, and it's a flop. The book is heavily meat-centric with lots of recipes for seafood, beef and pork (I don't grow any of those in my garden). The dessert section is luscious, but with a focus on chocolate chip cookies, chocolate layer cake, hazelnut coffee cake, and the like, it sure doesn't help use the strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries that my garden is producing. There are some lovely side vegetable dishes (roasted carrots and fennel caught my eye), but many of the salad recipes are based on beans or grains with herbs and cheese and nuts - more things that don't grow in my garden.
So, while I can recommend the book and I agree that it's both coffee-table and kitchen-counter worthy, it isn't as advertised. Don't expect lots of suggestions for using things from your own Modern Kitchen Garden.

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Like many of today's home gardeners, Jeanne Kelley's backyard kitchen garden is a means to indulge her desire for fresh, organic, and flavor-rich produce. Just minutes outside of downtown Los Angeles, this same backyard is also home to Kelley's pet goat and Ameraucana chickens, which provide her with a plentiful amount of milk and sky blue eggs that often feature in Kelley's internationally inspired dishes. Now she shares more than 150 of her recipes, all of which incorporate new and authentic ways to take advantage of local and seasonal foods and incorporate the multi-ethnic flavors into your everyday meals. This remarkable cookbook presents a contemporary version of field-to-table cooking that hails from a region where home chefs prune their kitchen gardens in the shadow of metropolitan cities and year-round farmers' markets provide heirloom vegetables that inspire classic and enticing dishes. Capitalizing on her 20 years as a Bon Appetit contributor, Kelley's recipes are simple and spectacular. With strategies for both weeknight cooking and special occasions, Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes is the essential manual for all who hunger to create quick and healthy meals with flair. In addition to the many mouthwatering recipes, Kelley provides readers with tips and menus for entertaining, plus a thorough kitchen garden primer that celebrates the simple joy of growing your own produce-including discussion on small container and community gardens, raising and keeping backyard chickens, composting, and growing your own exotic ingredients.

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Back to Basics: Traditional Kitchen Wisdom: Techniques and Recipes for Living A Simpler, More Sustainable Life (Back to Basics (Reader's Digest)) Review

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(More customer reviews)....but nothing that can't be found on the internet or that hasn't already been covered in basic food preservation books. I was extremely disappointed in this book, as I was expecting hands-on tips and little snippets of wisdom from old-time kitchens.....what I got, instead, was a basic food preservation book--nothing new here. It's a good starter book if you don't have any food preservation books in your home library, but if you have any other books that illustrate canning, making jellies, jams, and butters, using a cold storage, and freezing and dehydrating, you can pass on this one.

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There's something to be said for simpler times, when our way of life was wholesome and healthy. There were less pesticides and growth hormones in our food. We were self-reliant and self-sustaining. It's easy to see why, with food costs on the rise, many people are returning to their roots-and root cellars-and finding solace in simple living. With Back to Basics: Traditional Wisdom, now anyone can:
Save excess fresh vegetables and fruits while maintaining texture and nutrition by preserving produce in the freezer
Learn different canning methods for easy cooking and cupboard storage
Grow fruits and vegetables in a space as small as a windowsill
Turn fresh fruit into jams and jellies
Utilize space by drying foods and creating cooking ingredients
Make chutneys and relishes that will be a hit at every occasion
Discover an economical way to preserve foods by creating a cold storage unit
Quench thirst with homemade beverages
Bring homemade wine, beer, and naturally flavored vodka to the next family gathering
Also learn to raise chickens and honeybees, make your own cheese, and more.
This book has easy-to-follow step-by-step illustrated instructions and detailed information about specific fruit and vegetable preparation that will enable anyone to create a truly self-sustainable lifestyle.

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The Kitchen Garden Review

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(More customer reviews)This book explained everything that I needed to know on how to grow a garden. Whick type of garden, where to grow the garden, and how to grow the garden. It tells you what to grow each month of the year.

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In tune with the popular move toward fresh, local, and homegrown food, The Kitchen Garden lets you get the most from your garden and helps to dramatically reduce the amount you spend on produce at the supermarket. The Kitchen Garden is the perfect companion for gardeners who want to turn their harvest into a meal while also seeking some measure of sustainability.

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Meat: A Kitchen Education Review

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(More customer reviews)I own almost all of Peterson's books. He is truly a master of teaching how to cook. His recipes focus on the most basic techniques and using the natural flavors of the foods themselves to make them stand out. I have never found better recipes for stews, pot roast, steak, etc. No celebrity chef will teach you the way Peterson can. You cannot go wrong with any of his books.
So on to Meat.
This is a very good kitchen education on meat. You will learn all of the basics about how to grill, braise, sauté, etc. The photos are marvelous and the recipes are very good. There's literally every type of meat you can cook here--squab, rabbit, brains, kidneys, I mean it goes on forever.
There's not much contained in here that is not contained in his work Cooking, though. It seemed like he used this book more as a medium for showing off his photography than for delivering new recipes. There are a few, certainly, but goose with sauerkraut, that's not too innovative, and few of us really want to know how to cook brains. There's a great recipe for if you can find a really old rabbit, which Peterson acknowledges is close to impossible.
So I enjoyed reading it and I will keep it. But this is not in-depth like Glorious French Food: A Fresh Approach to the Classics or Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making, which really get into the explanations about how and why you cook a certain way. It's sort of like he took out the meat recipes from Cooking, added maybe a couple dozen useful new recipes, and some really pretty photos.
But I will end the review on a high note. If you haven't read Peterson before and you all you want is a book on cooking meat, this is it, you'll love it. If you need a new cook book and don't know where to start, start with Cooking--that book changed my life. If you have Cookingand you want more in-depth information about meat, you'll find a few bits here and there that you'll like. If you are really hungry for an in-depth education from Peterson, track down Glorious French Food: A Fresh Approach to the Classics--light on photos and heavy on teaching.
Four stars because it's Peterson, and it's a great work. One star penalty for being a little redundant.



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