Product Description

Hey there, y'all!

My favorite recipes came direct from my momma and grandmommas. I just love goin' through all the recipe cards they passed on to me and readin' their handwritten notes; it makes me remember our good times in the kitchen, gathered round the table. Sometimes, though, I need a little remindin' when it comes to writin' down my own recipes and recollections, so I've put together this darlin' little journal to get me (and you) started recordin'. I know I never forget a meal, but I also know that Jamie and Bobby aren't always listenin' to what I'm tellin' 'em.

So for you and the boys, I've included some tried-and-true recipes and some of my hard-learned tricks for gettin' out of culinary scrapes -- and Lord, honey, have there been a few. Whether it is a real disaster -- the boss and his wife are comin' over and the kitchen is full of smoke (no shame in servin' some takeout) -- or just an everyday bump in the road -- your husband didn't hear the buzzer, and the cake got a little dry in the oven (let some sugar water soak into those layers, and no one will know the difference) -- I've got your answer. Just get cookin' and let loose: nothin' makes memories like the smell of home-cooked meals. Jot down your ingredients and your musings, cut out a recipe card or two to share with friends, keep track of who came to dinner, who liked what, and who laughed the loudest; remember the good times and learn from the bad. Like I always say, there's not much in life you can't learn in the kitchen.

Paula Deen

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #529729 in Books
• Brand: COOKBOOK:
• Published on: 2008-11-04
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00" h x 7.75" w x 9.60" l, 1.38 pounds
• Binding: Spiral-bound
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416597025
• Condition: USED - Very Good
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

About the Author
Paula Deen was born and raised in Albany, Georgia. She later moved to Savannah, where she and her two sons, Bobby and Jamie, started the Bag Lady catering company. The business took off and evolved into The Lady & Sons Restaurant, which is located in Savannah's historic district and specializes in Southern cooking, as well as Uncle Bubba's Seafood, which co-owns with her brother. Paula is the author of Paula Deen's Kitchen Wisdom and Recipe Journal, Christmas with Paula Deen, Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin', Paula Deen & Friends, The Lady & Sons Just Desserts, The Lady & Sons Too!, and The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook.  She publishes a bimonthly magazine, Cooking with Paula Deen (Hoffman Media) and is a regular guest on QVC, where she sells her books and food products

 

Sherry Suib Cohen has written twenty-one books for major publishers and was a contributing editor at McCall's, Rosie, New Woman, and Lifetime magazines. She regularly writes for periodicals, including Parade, Family Circle, Redbook, Reader's Digest, and Ladies' Home Journal. Cohen is an award-winning member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and lives with her husband, Larry, in New York City. She makes a great soup.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When I was little, I learned to cook mainly from my Grandmomma Paul. She was a masterful cook, but more than that, she loved me, and the wise words she gave me about how she felt about cookin' and how to ripen fruits and break bread and fix the occasional cookin' calamity were far more important than even her wonderful recipes. I wish I'd had a kind of journal then, to write down all those grandmomma-wise words along with my own ideas that popped up as I watched her chop pecans for her fresh apple cake. My best thoughts on life still seem to appear when I'm stirrin' my pots, and the freshest impressions and even the sweetest memories of family and friends come bubblin' up along with the intoxicatin' smells from the jambalaya on my stove.

Take this old story I heard when I was very small. There was this young wife who asked her momma why the momma always cut a little bit offin' the butt end of a pork roast before she cooked it. Because, the momma explained, it tastes better because the juices are released easier and because her momma cooked it that way and because her momma did the same.

The young woman wasn't convinced and she traveled a long way to ask the identical question of her grandmomma.

The old woman thought and thought, trying to remember, and finally she said, "I cut off the butt end because how else would I fit the durn potatoes around it?"

This journal, then, is my way of getting some of my personal solutions, some new recipes, and passed-on tips to you and still give you room for the potatoes. The blank pages are for you to jot down your own answers to cookin' dilemmas and recipes you've learned and adapted from your momma and want to pass down to your kids. It's also for you to write your own flights of fancy, inventions, frustrations, and victories in the kitchen -- a cookin' diary to look back on and laugh and remember your signature dish that you made every weekend when the kids were little but you haven't made in years.

I'm hopin' you take pleasure in some of my personal reflections, and, more than anything, I'm also hopin' that you enjoy collaborating with me in your own kitchen. If you really let loose and write down your deepest feelings about cookin' and family and kitchen memories, I'm banking on it that you'll jump on this cookin' journal like a duck on a June bug.

Copyright © 2008 by Paula Deen

Customer Reviews

Interesting concept--and one that meets a need for me
Reviewers surely differ in their evaluation of this work. Given where I am in the kitchen right now, I actually like this book very much. It fills a need for me. As I have purchased a number of cookbooks and downloaded a wide array of recipes from the Web, I have run into information/recipe overload. I try a recipe and like it--and then can't recall where it came from, and I waste too much time trying to run it down (and I can't always find the desired recipe at that).

This book has a smidgeon of recipes, a smidgeon of reflections, some "how to" items (e.g., how to slice onions without tearing up), "cookin' first aid" (What do to after oversalting soup?), cooking trivia (how many kernels are on the average ear of corn?), and so on.

But the special value for me? Many blank pages, in which I can place recipes that I like and am apt to use on numerous occasions. Examples? From the Berghoff cookbook (the Berghoff was a glorious restaurant in Chicago)--chicken schnitzel and red cabbage; from the web--lemon garlic tilapia, chicken piccata, gourmet mushroom risotto, meatloaf, oven fried haddock; from one of Mark Bittman's cookbooks, a combination of two recipes for grilled chicken (each alone is fine, use ingredients from both--the result is even better); Racheal Ray's "My lazy sister Ria's chicken"; and so on.

Deen observes that "The blank pages are for you to jot down your own answers to cookin' dilemmas and recipes you've learned and adapted from your momma. . . ." Well, I'm not so interested in either of those--but I intend to meet the spirit by creating space for collecting my favorite recipes that are scattered about various cookbooks and printout from the Web.

So, for me, this book works.

Finally, a decent recipe journal!
Paula has done it yet again. I swear she reads the minds of cooks all around the world!
If you're like me and still have that big box stuffed full of recipes...this is the journal for us!
And for the people who are poo pooing this.....it's called a JOURNAL...you actually write things down....yes people get off your lazy duffs and start doing things again! This includes writing...wow...what a novel concept!
Way to go Paula!

For my wife
Okay, I'm not a fan of Paula Deen, but my wife is, and she LOVES this book. Ummmmm.... do I need to say any more?