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19 December 2010

Make Holiday Dinner? Yes, We Can

There is the old joke, "What does a(n) [ fill in the blank]-American Princess make for dinner?"  She makes a reservation.

But, we can fix that.  You know, my original concept for the bookstore was going to be one specializing in cookbooks only.  I even had a name:  Cooking the Books.  That from an accountant, imagine. 



So (deep breath),
from the specific like The All-American Christmas Cookbook: Family Favorites from Every State* or Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook to the new and fashionable like Bobby Flay's Throwdown!: More than 100 Recipes from Food Network's Ultimate Cooking Challenge and An Obsession with Ham the Hindquarter: with More Than 100 Recipes from Around the World to the staid but safe for sharing Cook's Country Best Potluck Recipes, we have what you need to make a fantastic dinner or be the best contributor to the family's holiday table.

We even have something for those who decide we've had enough sugar for the season:  Tom Valenti's  You Don't Have to Be Diabetic to Love This Cookbook: From Pasta to Pizza to Pumpkin Pie -- 250 Amazing Dishes for People with Diabetes and Their Families and Friends.



My mouth is beginning to water and my fingers itching to begin (by spending two hours and two hundred dollars at the grocery store getting ingredients), so you'd better hurry down and take a look at these and a host of other cookbooks before I hoard them all.

*I have one small gripe about All-American...: There are several recipes "representative" of the states from which the authors Georgia Orcutt and John Margolies claim they are from, like Postoles for Arizona or Corn Bread-Oyster Dressing from Louisiana or even Fabulous Fruitcake from Texas (who can deny that Corsicana, TX, has the world famous Collins Street Fruitcake Deluxe facility?), but for Midwestern Illinois, with a preface on how influential Italian immigrants have been, they present Seafood Lasagna (courtesy of "Italian cooking diva Deborah Mele." Traditional Lasagna for Christmas, maybe. but Seafood Lasagna? With sea scallops and salmon steak and shrimp? Maybe that's what makes it "All-American," because even in New York, they certainly had to be third- and fourth-generation Italian Americans who may possibly afford seafood in their Christmas lasagna. Most that I know are still working with ground beef and sausage, if not simply ricotta cheese to fill the layers.

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