Home Cooking

For some reason I thought Laurie Colwin had written a lot of food books, but it seems there is really only this one and the posthumous More Home Cooking. I enjoy Colwin's style – it reminded me of Peg Bracken's The I Hate To Cook Book, with its simple recipes and chatty commentary, except this should be called the I Love To Cook Book. Cooking-wise the book is of limited usefulness to me, since the recipes mostly involve things I can't eat or don't eat or just would never bother to cook. Glad I finally read it, and I'd gladly read more by Colwin, but it won't be one of those books that ends up changing the way I cook. (I'm already too set in my ways I guess.)

I enjoyed these essays, but what continually struck me is just how different my life and cooking experiences are from the ones described in this book. I have never been to a butcher to purchase meat (I am not even quite sure where I would find a butcher in my area, though there must be at least one around). Many of the recipes call for cooking things “in the usual way”, but I am not even sure what the usual way would be. The recipes themselves are far more conversational than is typical in modern cookbooks.

I definitely would like to read it again, and try some of the recipes.