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!

(Cook)Book Review: "Bitter: A Taste of the World's Most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes" by Jennifer McLagan

I'm not a foodie but for some reason this book called to me. I think because no one is ever like "Oh I love bitter things" but the taste of dark chocolate, coffee and IPA beer are really popular. I honestly thought this book was going to be more like a food history with recipes, but it was more like a recipe book with some food history, but it still worked out okay.

(I was laughing right at the beginning with the dedication. It says "For H., Thanks for trying to make me love rutabaga". )

The first thing I have to say is that this book is gorgeous. I have a hardcover and it was beautiful and weighty in my hands. The pictures are phenomenal. It took foods that I would look at in the produce section of a grocery store with suspicion and made them into works of art. I mean, look at the cover!  If you have a foodie on your Christmas list who loves high quality pictures this would be a perfect edition to their coffee table, even if they never made a recipe.

The recipes were a little (okay a lot) out of my skill set. Almost all of them call for lard or duck fat, which I'm sure makes them delicious! The one recipe I thought I might be able to swing would be the beer jello jigglers. (That's not what she calls them but that's basically what they are). At first I was like "eew, gross" but really aren't we halfway there with jello shots already? And these probably won't give you gut rot like those do. She doesn't have a recipe for it in the book but she does mention champagne jello and THAT I can get behind with no qualms. Great for New Year's Eve!

Here's some quick fun facts:

-Did you know that our natural reaction to very bitter foods (namely, BLEH) might be a natural defense against accidentally poisoning ourselves since so many poisons are bitter?

-Most people think of Belgian food as waffles, frites and chocolate but they also love nutmeg! (Mmmm)

-Gentian is possibly the most bitter plant in the world. Boom.

In short, even if you're cooking impaired and not a super adventurous eater (like me) you will still get something out of this book. Even if you just want to look at some beautiful pictures! I give it 3.5 out of 4 stars!

*I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review*