Foodie Publications

The day we returned from 'The Wilds' I was treated to an ad free magazine. Cuisine at Home is a well pictured and detailed recipe magazine with not an ad to be seen. No more the fifteen pages of ads before one gets to the meat of the publication; it's in your face home cooking and I ordered it on the spot. I love the way it is set up and photographed. It is fifty-one pages of interest and enticement and I am already planning to use at least three of the recipes in the near future. You will be surprised how thin and comfortable (to handle) fifty-one pages can be to use without all the ads.

The next day I received Betty Rosbottom's Sunday Roasts, a new book that so far I am less enthusiastic about. Betty is detail oriented and a great cook and I like both of those features that she always offers. Her writing style is pleasant and interesting, as usual. I also feel secure that the recipes have been tested and retested and are delicious-- but the book lacks the instant thrill that a new recipe book usually gives me. Betty Rosbottom taught cooking classes at Lazarus Department store in Columbus, Ohio for many years and was a contributor to Cook's Corner in The Columbus Dispatch until about a year ago when the entire section was limited in space. So I am a great admirer of her work, but if I don't 'feel it' then it will take a little more investigation before I am pleased with the book. Had I seen it and leafed though it before I bought it (from Amazon,) I would not have spent the money. I am no way near the cook that Betty is. She is the author of several cookbooks, some of which I own and I wish I liked her latest effort more, but this blog is written for our family (mostly) and friends and so I tell it as I see it. (And, I must add, I felt the same way about the Barefoot Contessa's last book. I won't be buying her next book without a good first look either.)
Note: The food pictures are all from the magazine Cuisine at Home. The single cover picture is from Betty's book Sunday Roasts.