5 comments about The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook Collection.

1. I will be honest, I have not read this book, afterall, How do you read a cookbook?..Wouldn't it be more a "use" than read? I bought this book for my wife as a Christmas present. (I know a gift that makes her cook...I can see the women of the world shaking their head at me...kinda like getting a blender for Christmas) She loves Paula Deen and her show. While I can't personally say what I thought of it, she was reading the book and the recipes right after she opened it. I actually had to tell her to open other gifts! I do know she states a lot that Paula Dean is a "down to earth" type of cook. So judging by her reaction, and how she plans to help my waistline expand with cooking the food in there, I gave the book a five out of five.



2. I found these cookbooks for my mom who is an avid watcher of anything with Paula Deen on it. She loves them!



3. My mom loves to watch Paula Deen, so she asked for one of her cookbooks for Xmas. I found this great set. It was just what she wanted. We spent some time this past weekend making a number of the recipes. I thought they were simple and delicious. Reading the directions, you can hear Paula's voice, just like she was standing there. She also has included some stories about where the recipes came from or famous customers, as well as her background, which I wasn't aware of. Very nicely put together. My only suggestions for improvements would be tabs so that one could quickly flip to a category and pictures of the finished dishes. Pictures are very helpful in knowing what the end product should look like.



4. Paula Deen may be the best cook ever. I've tried several of her recipes and they are all wonderful. Don't make her dishes if you are counting calories, though.



5. Recipes remind me of home! I am from GA, but am an Air Force wife, so have moved away for at least a while. I enjoy cooking southern cuisine and Paula has it all in these cook books! Just watch the waistline!!

5 comments about Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors.

1. After reading so many bad Vietnamese cook book- This is an extreme pleasure.
   
   The book was well organized with separated chapter for sauce and ingredient glossary.
   
   I try out some, they all have very intelligent twist that make the original food very flavor full.



2. I was just mentioning to someone that what I like about this cookbook is that it has recipes in it for everyday type of food. Not fancy. Easy ingredients, and very good. Too often cookbooks only have those recipes that would be intended for banquets or special occasions and take hours to make with lots of ingredients. This cookbook has an excellent assortment of easy/good vietnamese food with some good descriptive reading to go along with it. I'd recommend it to anyone.



3. Andrea Nguyen has written a wonderful, easy to use cookbook on Vietnamese cooking. We just returned from Vietnam in April (2008) and Ms Nguyen has put together a wonderful, comprehensive book that sums up the wonderful cuisine of Vietnam. We traveled from Hanoi to Saigon and never had a bad meal. Ms Nguyen recreated our experience 100 times!!! She recounts the evacuation of her family from Saigon in 1975 and relocation in San Jose. How her family became accustomed to their new life, but continued to cook wonderful Vietnamese food. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Vietnamese cooking...I have made a number of the recipes and they have turned out fabulously. Every dish I make reminds me of our wonderful trip to Vietnam.



4. When I got this book I had very limited knowledge on Vietnamese food. There is a striking difference in ingredients, spices and herbs used in the Vietnamese cuisine compared to western cooking and the author takes the time to explain all the different ingredients used, how and where to purchase them and how to store them. I found that very helpful! All the recipes in the book are explained in detail and often take more than one page. The ingredients are also very well listed and the dishes are very well organized in chapters.The recipes are very easy to follow and I have been really satisfied from everything I have cooked until now! The author also tells a few words about each dish and its origin and characteristics making the book a true journey into the Vietnamese kitchen (and culinary culture) rather than a mere cookbook. I have a much better understanding and appreciation of Vietnamese food now and a lot of it is due to Andrea Nguen's book.



5. I'm American-born Vietnamese, and my parents came to the U.S. in 1975 at the tailend of the war. I have been searching for a thorough Vietnamese cookbook for quite some time. My mom sifted through the book in great detail and compared it to her set of Vietnamese recipes that have been passed down through generations. She kept commenting how thorough the recipes were and how authentic.
   
   What I love about this book is:
   1. Vietnamese cooking is difficult, meticulous, and takes patience. What I love what the author does is simplifies these recipes to make them adaptable to American kitchen equipment, while still keeping authentic flavor. Yes, you may have gotten there differently, but you end up in the same place.
   
   2. The intro and appendix chapters to teach you about the foundations of Vietnamese cooking and explaining the different ingredients (how to store them, how to cut them, where to find them)
   
   3. The equivalent Vietnamese names and pictures help me associate the dishes to the botched English translations. Any Vietnamese person will say that the English translations do not translate directly to what the author has named them in this book, but having the exact Vietnamese name helps me recall what the recipe is...and for anyone else, helps you recognize it on a menu to order at a restaurant later!
   
   4. The group of recipes provided really encompass end-to-end Vietnamese cuisine that consist of classic dishes and "Dac Biet" dishes (fancy dishes usually saved for special occasions). From crab asparagus soup to Moon Cakes, each dish brings back all of my childhood memories of my favorite dishes that my mom is now too tired to cook herself.
   
   Bottom line, the recipes are simplified - it's no 30-minute meal - but instead of brewing pho broth for a full day, she gives alternatives of how to shorten it....but also still providing the recipe for the all-day broth.

5 comments about Southern Living 40 Years of Our Best Recipes (Southern Living).

1. This cookbook has the most wonderful receipes. I cant wait to try them...but the color photos are to die for...it makes you want to run to the store and buy the ingredients... I put the book on my living room table for casual reading and guests have been picking it up... I cant wait to try the fried chicken recipe...it calls for some bacon fat! No jokes! Real southern friend chicken for sure!



2. What can I say? This book is full of gorgeous color photos and delicious, timeless recipes. If you know Southern Living, then you already expect and know that this is another great installment. If you don't know Southern Living, start with this book and welcome to the family.



3. This is one of my favorite cookbooks, in my vast collection!
   Wonderful recipes, easy to follow, beautiful pictures. A must for any cook!



4. This southern living cookbook lives up to my expectation. The timely delivery helped with thanksgiving dinner. Keep up the good work.



5. I love this cook book!! I used this book within a day of receiving it and the cream cheese pound cake I made was great!! It didn't even last a whole day! I would recommened this book to anyone!! It has a great variety of dishes to choice from!

5 comments about Paula Deen Celebrates!: Best Dishes and Best Wishes for the Best Times of Your Life.

1. Paula Deens recipes are perfect for Sunday family dinners and for any parties throughout the year. They are also great if you just want great homemade comfort food!



2. If you like Paula's TV show - then you'll love going through all of these wonderful recipes!



3. I loved this book by Paula Deen. It was given to me as a gift and I've used it for many parties. I especially love how the menu is all laid out for you. It's so easy to mix and match the ideas or use the entire menu for a party. It's written in true Paula style and any true fan would love this book!



4. The cookbook came timely and was a great birthday surprise. I have had success ordering through Amazon everytime!



5. If you are looking for a cookbook that presents menus using recipes previously published in earlier cookbooks then this is the book for you. I own 5 of Paula's former cookbooks and this is a redundancy to my collection.
   
   Also, this cookbook is conveyed in the terminology and slang used on her cooking programs. There appears to have been very little editing performed on the verbiage and sentence structure. I find this to be distracting and the recipes take longer to read and mentally process. I have been a fan of Paulas since she began her TV cooking programs, and she often states that any recipe is merely a starting point, leaving the cook to embellish and refine the recipe as they see fit. In my opinion, it appears Paula authored this cookbook with the same philosphy.

5 comments about Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations.

1. I've finally found the cake recipe book that I've been searching for years for. I especially like the yellow cake recipe - with chocolate icing reminds me of my childhood birthday cakes from scratch. I was always intimated by scratch cakes. Now I feel like a bonafide cake baker with this book. I haven't used a boxed cake mix since I got this book. The cakes are so moist and delicious - you can't go wrong with this one.



2. Very good recipes, easy to follow instructions but I would have liked that it had more pictures. I think pictures are essential for recipe books



3. I took this book to my mom's house and we chose two cakes to bake - the Red Velvet and the Thibodeaux Chocolate Doberge. My mom is a serious baker who rarely allows store-bought desserts or bread into the house, so I knew she would be a good one to test out this book with. The Red Velvet cake was not terribly impressive. Our cake had a soggy, fallen middle, yet managed to be over-baked around the edges. I could also taste the chemical flavor of the red food coloring, but that could just be the brand I used. The frosting was delicious.
   
   The chocolate cake itself was delicious, but the recipe indicates a 300 degree oven. On our first try, baking the layers at 300 for 40 minutes in 8-inch rounds (instead of 9), resulted in raw cake. We purchased 9-inch rounds as the recipe called for and baked the next cake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. All of the other recipes in the book call for a 350 oven, so I'm not sure why this one was 300. 350 worked much better. The filling turned out to be delicious - essentially a chocolate pudding. The frosting did not turn out at all, and seems like a strange recipe for frosting. After following the instructions, chilling the frosting overnight then attempting to beat it into something that could be considered frosting, we ended up with a very runny (but tasty) concoction. We made my mom's recipe for a chocolate buttercream frosting that's not too sweet and it went perfectly with the cake.
   
   I am looking forward to trying more recipes from this book. I think the caramel cake and the oatmeal cake will be next...



4. My son bought me this book for Mother's Day. I love it. I love the background stories behind the recipes. I made the Cream Cheese Pound Cake this past weekend. Everyone loved it!



5. This book has been a blessing to me it has given me lots of new recipes for me me to try and share with my family.

No comments about Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties: An Entertaining Life (with Recipes).

5 comments about Bon Appetit, Y'All: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking.

1. Virginia Willis brings to the crowded table of Southern cooking a unique and welcome voice: warm, witty, steeped in tradition and yet with a sense of playful fun and genuine love for the pleasure of food. This isn't a mere collection of recipes; rather, with each dish Willis shares personal anecdotes and stories from her mind and heart. These pepper (pardon the over-obvious imagery there) the book with a lived-in quality that makes the book feel, and read, as though every recipe held within is a classic.



2. A thoroughly enjoyable cookbook to read. Easy to follow recipes, nostalgic dialog, just an all around nice addition to my southern cookbook gallery. I have made the barbeque sauce she recommended and with a few personal tweeks, and it is now one of my go-to sauces. It's really tangy and good. I am planning to use this book alot. Virginia Willis has really hit a home run with this one! I also love "The Glory of Southern Cooking" by James Villas. Both of these authors have that old southern charm about them that just warms my heart.



3. Wow. This is one of my new favorite cookbooks! My seven year old daughter and I met the author at a book signing and "tasting." She was fabulous, genuine and the picture of Southern hospitality! My daughter and I got two books- one for us and one for my mother. We plan to give it to her for her birthday next month in hopes of continuing our own multi-generational Southern cooking story. The author is an inspiration to Southern cooks to keep cooking and spice it up a bit from time to time. I loved her stories about her "Meme." Thank you for sharing this interesting piece of history, heritage and home with us Miss Virgina. Ya'll will love these recipes!



4. This cookbook it great with wondeful recipes and delightful stories. Really blends /french techimque with good ole Southern hospitality!!



5. This book is great. I love the pictures and the recipes are not too complicated. I made the Red Velvet recipe for a social gathering and everyone just raved over it!

5 comments about Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide To Hosting the Perfect Funeral.

1. A fairly enjoyable read, particularly if you are from the south or now live in the south.
   However, the recipes just do not work. Tried 3 different recipes. No substitutions and they were very simple. The dishes either did not taste good or they didn't come together correctly.
   I guess I should have expected this, given the title and format of the book. However, many of these recipes are favorites from my past and I would have enjoyed a good resource.



2. A Mississippi Delta classic. If you have any friends there or live or have lived in the Delta this is "must reading".



3. I did not know what to expect but I laughed all through the book. The recipes look promising although I have not had the opportunity to try one. I have given this book as a gift and recommended it to several friends. You might find it more relevent if you are from the South and are Episcopalian.



4. are enough to justify this purchase! They're outstanding, and so traditional down south that most folk don't even bother to write them down. But the writing - especially ias it relates to being Methodist or Episcopal, and whether your family falls on one side or the other of the politics in your hometown ... it's all good. Just hilarious! If you grew up in the South, you recognize these people described herein - and if you didn't grown up in the South, well, you'll wish that you had!
   
   Buy it - it's all good!
   
   Love,
   granny nita



5. This is one of the best books I have ever read. Being from Alabama I know that what she says is absolutely true!

5 comments about Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours.

1. My mother was not a great cook. I have never really learned but by myself. My husband bought me a RR cookbook which I thought would be easy but was not so! I love this book. The first week I made four (4) recipes out of this cookbook (that is a record for me in one week). And they all turned out great. My kids loved the Chicken Broccoli Casserole, the "Kyle Leomon Pound Cake" (my 21 year old son almost ate the whole cake).. I made the "Trisha Homemade Chicken Salad" (again, gone in like 3 days)... I made the cooked the "Roast Beef with Gravy" (came out perfect, even tho I was about 1/2 hour late taking it out. I have four kids (and one 21 year old with a girlfriend) I cook alot. She really means it when she says the ingredients are easy to find in the grocery store. The other cookbook I called for expensive cheeses (like perconico reggionno or whatever)... this is a great econominical cookbook. I have never ever written a review for a cookbook, I am so happy with this one. This weekend I am going to try two more recipes ... I love this cookbook. I have purchased so many in the past that have really disappointed me.. this is right on the mark. And I really love the stories with the recipes.. they are fun to read and very insightful. I wish I was in this family.. I cannot wait if Trisha and her sisters publish another book, I would immediately buy it. I will get thru all the recipes in this book soon, like I said, so far, it is easy and every thing has turned out great (I plan on trying her rib and cole slaw recipe next week on the 4th of July).. Thank you so much Trish Yearwood for sharing your cherished recipes with all of us.



2. This girl knows her way around the kitchen thanks to her Mama who taught her well. All her recipes are tried and trues...try Kyle's Lemon Pound Cake which is irristable and the Barbequed Pork Ribs, they fall off the bone practically! Another great southern cookbook! Filled with colorful pictures of delicious food and family...



3. The recipes are tasty and so easy to follow. The personal stories are a nice touch. It is nice to get to see a positive side of a celebrity, instead of all the negative things you see in the media.



4. I ordered this book as a gift for a friend at work, who loves Trisha Yearwood, and he also loves to cook. Well .... decided to keep the book for myself, and now I'm just waiting for HIS book to arrive in the mail! Trisha's style of cooking is much like the cooking that I grew up on in Georgia, and alot of her recipes are nearly the same as mine -- but I am enjoying the variations, as well as the new recipes I have never tried before. The Pecan Pie Muffins are to die for!! Be sure to try those !!! And, yesterday, my husband and I picked blackberries and I tried the Blackberry Cobbler recipe - it was a bit different than my own recipe, and we truly enjoyed it! If you like Southern cooking, you can't go wrong with this cookbook. Trisha tells little stories about some of the recipes also, and the entire book is fun to read. HIGH recommendations!



5. I was so excited to hear that she was coming out with a cookbook. I am a big fan so this was a must have for me. I've made the deviled eggs "her way" and they're great!! My kids couldn't get enough of them.

5 comments about Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook.

1. I actually bought this book to support Martha and the local bookstore in my hometown of Greenwood, Ms. Thinking it was just another cookbook to add to my collection...Wow, What great stories and the recipes are awesome..I had been looking for a good egg and olive sandwich and pimiento and cheese,
   No more, found it in this delicious cookbook..Can't wait to try other recipes. This book has inspired me to get back to cooking...I suggest that anyone that wants a cookbook, you can actually use and enjoy....Don't miss this one!!!!....5 thumbs up..
   
   Thank you Martha.
   Cindy Sturdivant



2. Wow- I collect & use many cookbooks, but this one in particual almost reads like a best selling novel. Along with some of the best southern inspired recipes as a main course, the reader gets treated to a side dish of recipe history and a dessert of wonderfully helpful notes! Some of my personal favorites include the Chicken Thighs & Dumplings--little pillow dumplings adrift in the richest of stews, honest devil-ed eggs, watermelon salsa (just incredible!) and the best ever, natural Red Velvet cake. Wash it all down with a McCarty Pottery Julep or a Mailbox cocktail! Well Martha, very, very well done!



3. I am not one to write reviews on books, but after purchasing, reading, and cooking some of the recipes in this book, I had to put in my two cents worth. This is one of the best- if not the best cookbook on Southern cooking I have read in a long time. I am an avid cookbook collector, and the owner of a cafe in Arkansas. Not only are the recipes fantastic, but the stories and pictures make it all the more enjoyable. If you cook one thing out of this book, you must try the Lemon Icebox Pie. This is one of the best pie recipes I have made. I can't wait to try the banana pudding in the mason jars. If I could, I would give this cookbook 10 stars!



4. Because I love southern cookbooks and vintage aprons, I had to get this book. What a sweet cover!! The recipes inside just want to make you cook and sit down with a glass of sweet iced tea..they are good recipes and this is one book that will be a great addition in the kitchen! It doesn't get any better than this! This one I got a heads-up from my good friend Margie in Tennessee...not only is the cover picture of a woman dressed in an apron serving a huge tomato filled with peas and corn salad an eye-catcher but the book is filled with tales and awfully tempting southern recipes. There's a picture of mason jars filled with banana pudding and meringue and the recipe is to die for! Also, try out the Curried Sweet Potato Soup with Pork Rind Croutons, a little bit of heaven here on earth! This one is a keeper!



5. I want to say up front that I don't like cooking. It ranks right up there with ironing clothes as a task to put off at all costs. HOWEVER, there is something about this book that makes me want to get in the kitchen and get re-aquainted with my measuring spoons and spice rack.
   
   If the beautiful photographs don't get you goin' then the great stories that accompany each recipe surely will. I was so inspired by "Aunt Marynaise" that I went out and bought a food processor just so I could make homemade mayo. (My mom-in-law would be soooooo proud!)
   
   You won't be sorry you purchased this book!
   
   Martha, my spice rack and measuring spoons thank you, and so do I!