Okay now this is cool!

[aelfie]

I picked this up from costco today for $20.00. Now I'm a big fan of Cook's Illustrated and I love to watch ATK. But being its a magazine, even bound, the format sucks. Its a pain in the ass to find a recipe that you want. And I haven't been too impressed with the two books they released for the show. As they were just rebinding in a new order, articles from the magazine. This version is a big improvement.

All the leading articles to the recipes are gone (Now don't get me wrong I love reading those, but sometimes all I want is the recipe.) And all the recipes are organized by type (i.e. all the cookie recipes together, all the bread, etc) With an index on each divider, making it extremely simple to find the freaking recipe you wanted. Yea! Finally a user friendly copy to ATK

Comments

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

It certainly sounds better than one cookbook I have which is organized according to activity. Prayer Meetings, Funerals, Family Reunions, Holidays, etc. To make it pretty much impossible to look up anything, almost all the recipes have someone's name in front. Old Mrs. Holley's White Fruitcake, Gramma Dora's Fried Chicken, Wee Jean's Turniped Sausage Casserole. (This is a real cookbook; NOT one of those church, family or organization cookbooks.) I keep it because the recipe for Cathead Biscuits is good (though I can't imagine why a recipe for biscuits is in the chapter Eating on the Ground).

[aelfie.livejournal.com]

Not that sounds like one cool cookbook to own!

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

It has one recipe I could never fix; Glennie Nell's Roast Christmas Possum. Here's the first paragraph.

"Now, Christmas possum is different from all other possum. It's got to be caught, not killed, two weeks to a month before the cookin day. That's right around late November. You can catch 'em in the hen house, or up a 'simmon tree or in a trap. It don't make no never mind, long as he's caught live, cause they got to be penned up so you can clean 'em out. Feed 'em nothin but corn bread and milk. That'll fix 'em up, fatten 'em out, and get rid of all them no-good flavors. This makes the possum as good as corn-fed pig. Then, when the time comes, kill'em quick, skin the rascal an get shed of all the insides."

There are several more paragraphs of instructions which end with the admonition to be extra sure the possum is done because, "they ain't nothing in the world worst than bein accused of servin half-baked possum."

If I caught a possum and fed it on corn bread and milk for two weeks to a month, I could not possibly roast it for Christmas. By that time it would be sporting a green collar and tag with its name (Henry) and phone number, have it's own food dish, cushion by the wood stove and be going in and out the dog door.

[aelfie.livejournal.com]

Now this sounds like a hoot to read. That's really, really funny.

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

Goodness knows, I have enough cookbooks but I was flipping through it at Goodwill (and laughing) and found a recipe for corn pudding that sounded like the one my mother used to make. So I bought it.

Amazon sells it. It's "White Trash Cooking II: Recipes for Gatherin's" by Ernest Matthew Mickler. Reviewers gave it 4 1/2 stars.