First Impressions

My 2 new cookbooks arrived a week ago & I have spent some time going through the books to tag the recipes that may entertain my taste buds. The first book I ordered was The Best 30-Minute Recipe that my cookbook club just voted on for the semester. This is my first journey with Cook’s Illustrated, & so far I feel like it is the most entertaining textbook I have ever owned (and I have a lot of textbooks). As I was flipping through this “textbook” I learned so much! In addition to the 300 recipes (which have been tested over & over again), shortcuts & techniques to speed up preparation & cooking time without minimizing flavor, as well as the best cooking products for the money to help you out in the kitchen were sprinkled throughout. So educational! By the time I finally finished reading, I realized that I had tagged almost every recipe. (Very ambitious of me, but let’s see how many actually get done. Ha!) My favorite part of the book so far is the entire section devoted to turning leftovers into something else. Was this book written especially for me?! Adios leftover boredom! I also ordered Screen Doors & Sweet Tea: Recipes & Tales from a Southern Cook by Martha Foose. This book was a big contender for the cookbook club, & honestly, I really just fell in love with the title so I had to order it even though it didn’t win. This cookbook is definitely a storybook & a cookbook. With each recipe there is a subtitle to initiate a conversation between Foose & the reader. Her subtitles stem from a personal story, a story that makes you want to tackle every single recipe- she’s very charming like that :-) Next to the pictures of her yummy recipes she leaves room for notes. I love this because I always write all over my books (even though I was taught not to, oops, sorry mom!). She gets you started in the note section with her own personal notes (e.g. how to store the dish, what kind of function you could serve it at, the best way to select the ingredients, substitutes, tips for easy clean-up, recipe no-no’s, etc.). Her notes make me feel like she too has cooked these recipes, several times, but also that she has an emotional attachment to the recipes & has perfected them in her own home. So far, I think I have found a new friend in Mrs Foose; I can’t wait to report to you how her recipes taste.

Do you see all those tags?....I have some cooking to do....Ahh! Gotta go!