Cook Book Review

I have a lot of cookbooks. Not just a few but a lot! I do a lot of online recipe hunting too, but I am still stuck on buying cookbooks. I have vintage cookbooks as well and I love regional cookbooks, but nothing beats a good old fashioned "soup to nuts" type cook book. From all my reading I have only found a few really good comprehensive educational how to cook and organize your kitchen type cookbooks. Lucinda Scala Quinn's Mad Hungry is one of those great kitchen tools that you should have on your shelf as a reference and for great recipes and ideas.

The book is organized into five chapters. Plus, a great introduction into who she is and how she got there. Plus a great opening to set the tone for the book called "The Ten Tenets" which gives a road map on how to get started with organizing your kitchen and creating a action plan to fee the troops.

This leads you into the Tools, flavors and theories Chapter which goes into what you need in your kitchen to get a head start. There is a great A Guy-Friendly Pantry list and tips on shopping with Kids. Even the importance of teaching boys how to cook and clean up the kitchen.

There is a handy Conversion Chart in the back of the book. I am always shocked that most cook books now-a-days do not include this.
The book design itself is very cute as well with some very nice quotes from some famous chiefs reviews of the book and Lucinda her self.
I have made quite a few recipes from the book. The Fat Girl Red Rice is a must try also her Chicken recipes are very good. The Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges are out of this world!!! She gives a broad array of recipes, but keeps it pretty healthy and guy, kid friendly. I found it quite easy to convert a lot of the desert recipes to Gluten Free.

You can find her book on Amazon.com
and fallow her on her blog
also catch her show on the Hallmark Channel
or on PBS for our non cable friends.

Lucinda has also written two other cook books besides Mad Hungry. The first book is based on Rustic Italian Cooking and the other is Jamaican. She was also the main food writer and recipe creator for most of the Martha Stewart Cook books as well. She is the executive food Director for Martha Stewart Omnimedia.