from Victoria McClure: Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen,
Laurie Colwin
Greetings, all!
I hope all of you are having a wonderful spring. In West Texas we wondered if it would ever get here, especially since we had 2 inches of snow at Easter!
I am in the midst of packing for an in-town move and while boxing cookbooks, ran across one of my favorites, Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin. Rather than continue boxing books, I propped up against the wall and thumbed through the book until my leg went numb and my sides were sore from laughing. Colwin is an absolute delight and I shall forever thank my friend Jan who gave this book to me.
Home Cooking is part cook book, part memoir, and part chat with a dear friend. Colwin invites us into her life, her kitchen and her heart and we leave feeling like we have been on a wonderful vacation. The recipes are luscious and designed to please a variety of palates. Who can resist a chicken dish that "can be fed to invalids, people recovering from abdominal surgery, heart patients, and picky children"?
I have to admit that my favorite chapter is "English Food" since Colwin agrees with me that the English do have incredibly edible food. (The last time I was there I gained 5 pounds despite the fact that I was walking several miles a day.) She lauds English teas, double cream, scones, roasts, and the eccentricity of English and Scottish cooking, as well as quoting from some wonderful vintage cookbooks.
Other delightful chapters include "Nursery Food," "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant," "Bread Baking Without Agony," "Kitchen Horrors." "Repulsive Dinners: A Memoir," and "Easy Cooking for Exhausted People." I could go on and on retelling Laurie Colwin stories, but that would take away the fun. Buy the book and read it with someone close by because you’ll find yourself looking up and saying, "you have to hear this...."
