Sampling of Recipes and Tips

Between the recipes and the tips, there’s a lot of name-dropping throughout the cookbook, which serves to reinforce the tremendous credentials within this group. The cookbook’s 120-plus recipes, from appetizers to main meals to desserts, are ones these women cook at home. Here’s a sampling:

• Wine-Dark Beef Stew with Horseradish Potato Purée
• Fresh Okra Cakes
• Pork Rib Guazzetto
• One-Day Artisan Bread
• Warm Lentils with Walnut Oil and Fresh Lemon Juice
• Walnut-Fennel Tarts
• Gingerbread Dessert Waffles

And there’s the playful “Basic Greens with an In-Your-Face Dressing” and “Breakfast-for-Dinner Salad.” And leave it to a Southerner to find a way to mix grits with crustaceans in “Best Grits with Greens and Shrimp.”

Although you might not keep some of the ingredients for these dishes around your own home, good directions and additional explanations help you find your way. Pictures are few, but those included are mouthwatering. Tips on pairing beverages are given throughout.

Many fascinating tips are also provided, and as a bread lover, I found this one quite informative. I’ll leave you with it: “As enticing as it seems, bread hot from the oven is still giving off gases and, if consumed, will likely give you a stomachache once the joy of eating hot bread has passed. Properly cooled on a rack, the loaf reabsorbs its moisture into its interior and the crust stays crusty. . . . [A]llow about an hour—the larger the loaf, the longer the time.”