Book Review: "The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook" edited by Kate White

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from the delightful publisher, Quirk Books.

One of the things that I love about Quirk is the great variety of books that they put out. Mysteries, kids books, cookbooks, and all great things in between. When this book came up for review I knew it was going to be great, so when Eric Smith (Quirk tweeter, author and corgi puppy have-r) asked if I wanted to review it I knew me and my mediocre cooking skills were in!

If I was to tell you all the recipes that I put a post it note in, this would be a very long review. I will just give you a taste of my favorites:

-Rum Soaked Nutella French Toast. Every word in that name is good. Boozy breakfast food with the world's favorite hazelnut spread? Yes and yes.

-Corn Chowder. Corn chowder is my favorite soup! The problem is that a lot of time people want to put too much other stuff in it (like shrimp corn chowder? No! Get your seafood out of my soup. Be gone!) This recipe has only 3 steps and a not-scary ingredient list. By the time this review goes up I'll probably have already made it a few times. (Update - I've made this twice now and it is delicious! Goes great with really crusty bread. Yum!!)

And then two recipes that's names made me laugh:

-Grandma Maria's Pasta Puttanesca (Pasta a la Whore)

-Male Chauvinist Pigs in a Blanket

There's some recipes that are short and approachable sounding (like Male Chauvinist Pigs in a Blanket, and 3 Egg Omelette) and some that are more fancy and complicated sounding, so it covers a great range of cooking abilities. Each recipe is by a different author: sometimes the recipe is referenced in their books, sometimes they eat it while they are writing, sometimes it's just their favorite recipe! Each recipe has a little story about it (sometimes even a book excerpt) and a short biography of the author. I feel like a lot of them were Edgar winners! There's even some very famous writers like Harlan Cohen, James Patterson and Gillian Flynn. And blog favorite, Ben Winters.

The book is also beautiful and weighty and I love the side of the cover where it's skull and crossbones and a dagger and a fork. Love it! I'm off to put this on my (meager) cookbook shelf, it's certainly going to be the star!