This book not only contains wonderful, usuable recipes, but it also tries to show you how to cook. It gives you the frame for any recipe, and then with what you have on hand you can feel confident to vary, vary, vary to your heart's content. This is the basis of good cooking, not whether or not you can follow a complicated "conde nast" recipe. In rural Japan it is very difficult to get so many ingrediants people take for granted (fresh dill? out of the question) so this flexibility is very important.

Soup. Bread. Muffins. Salad. Yum. This is a book full of great recipes and wonderful lore. I enjoy the quotes and anecdotes almost as much as the food, and this is great food. We enjoy the Hillbilly Many-Bean Soup, the Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread, the Glazed Orange Muffins, the Dairy Hollow House Pasta Salad, the Chicken & Cheese Soup with Green Chiles again and again. Some of these recipes even go with us on vacation. There are great directions for making your own soup stocks, and no, you do not have to live in your kitchen all day to do it. We keep finding interesting recipes we want to try, as well as returning to our favorites time & time again. More than a recipe book, this is a visit with a friend who loves to cook. Enjoy!

This book is as fun to read as it is to cook from. Dragonwagon has a nice colloquial writing style and gives a lot of background on where each recipe comes from, trivia about the Ozarks and the inn she ran with her husband for many years.

Although this book does have a few pages focusing on breads and salads, the soup recipes (which make up about 75% of the book) are truly the shining stars here. The recipes are divided into chapters on chicken soups, fish soups, vegetable soups, bean soups, dairy soups, nut soups, and fruit/dessert soups. There is also a chapter devoted entirely to making the ultimate gumbo, and one on a very versatile "diet" soup. The majority of recipes fall into the vegetable/dairy/and bean soup categories - making this book quite suitable for vegetarians or people interested in cutting back on the amount of meat in their diets. She doesn't eat red meat, and you won't find any recipes that call for beef, pork, or lamb... although there are a couple of exceptions.

As other reviewers have mentioned, these recipes are all easily adaptable to what vegetables you already have in your refrigerator, though you will probably need to make regular trips to the store to stock up on fresh veggies if you intend to use this book often. The recipes call for lots of ingredients, but you can easily leave some out and still have a great tasting finished product. Many variations are given for each soup and some have ideas for using leftovers. Although she doesn't recommend it, bouillon cubes or canned stock could easily be substituted if you're short on time. However, if you ever wanted to learn how to make a great homemade stock, this is the place for it.

The recipes themselves are excellent and I have had fabulous results and many compliments when serving these soups to others. I highly recommend the Mexican-Style The Soup, Greek Navy Bean Soup, and Pea Soup Caraway Adelle. These soups are a wonderful way to save money and eat healthy while still pleasing your tastebuds.

The book has a nice design, but if you're looking for fancy photographs or art, you won't find them here.

I struggled for quite some time trying to find a Southern cookbook that wasn't, you know, full of frou-frou recipes that no one in their right mind would actually use. This is it. This has that recipe for jalapeno cornbread you've been looking for. Jambalaya dressing, Jezebel sauce, praline pie and enough different chilis to start your own cook-off.

Stories and techniques accompany most recipes; shoot, I love just sitting and reading it. I may as well throw my Joy of Cooking away -- I'm never gonna touch it again.

Shortly after moving to Michigan from my home state of Texas I found Texas Home Cooking. I was doubtful that it would bring back the tastes of home I was craving. It has proven to be the only cookbook I pull out when seeking out a dish to wow my new family and friends. It truly is a reflection of Texas cooking from the Tex-Mex section (salsas, enchiladas, tamales and more) to the classic American home cooked favorites (B-B-Q, steaks, chicken fried steak, sweet potatoes) that are famous in the south. I use it for reference to recreate that dish I had and on a night when I want to try something new.

THIS HAS BEEN THE BEST COOKBOOK I HAVE EVER BOUGHT OR RECEIVED AS A GIFT. WONDERFUL VARIETY AND VERY TEX-MEX AUTHENTICITY.

A wonderful work with so much to offer regarding cultural background, traditions and fanfare ... and the cooking techniques with which to bring them home to one's own backyard for the pleasure of one's family!
Infused with a loving spirit, this work would complement anyone's library, from the barbecue aficionado, the striving beginner, or that of the pleasure reader.

A lot more than just recipes - this book provides guidance on all apsects of smoker cooking from choosing a smoker to serving the meat.

NL

There are recipes listed as typical of various parts of the country (their origin given). Tips are given as to the best variation of the products used in the recipes. Without tasting the results of the recipes it would be hard to believe how good they are. (Ever use both bourbon and molasses with pepper and chili powder??! It's great when used as they suggest!) Julie Tipton

DCL is the native scripting language of OpenVMS. Like batch files in DOS, or shell scripts in Unix, DCL makes all features of the VMS operating system available to you. This book takes a very useful, complete, and organized approach toward DCL and the VMS operating system. If you're just starting in VMS, or if you want a well indexed sourcebook of powerful VMS DCL services, this is an excellent book for you.

This book is very good for beginners in DCL and also a very good dictonary for already experienced people. This book was one of my most borrowed ones in my bookshelf.

This book starts off reviewing the basic concepts of OpenVMS and then gets into some real solutions for real problems. Nicely updated for todays VMS programmers.

This book is a must for anyone interested in including greens into their diet.

Each chapter is catagorized by specific green, describing in detail proper storage, cleaning and preparation instructions.

There are simple everday recipes as well as great dishes you would serve guests. It has a broad array of recipes for side dishes, soups, main courses and salads.

I got this book out of the library to sample it and just fell in love. I thought I'd make copies of the few recipes of interest. When I was done there were over 30 recipes of I wanted to make. I put it on my holiday list but have decided to buy it for myself now. I am buying about 5 more to give as gifts to my friends.

Enjoy!

Leafy green vegetables are so healthy for you, but trying to figure out how to cook them was a huge challenge for me! I even found that main stream vegetarian cookbooks barely mentioned them! This book looks at each leafy green vegetable alphabetically and describes it, tells you what to look for when buying it, and gives between 5 an 10 recipes for cooking it. It covers everything from mustard, to kale, to chard, to chinese greens. I love this book! The recipes are easy and fast to prepare. I highly recommend this cookbook.

Since I bought this book, it has become a bible in my home for healthy innovative ideas and recipes that are simple in execution and absolutely wonderful. There's not a recipe that has disappointed my family. In addition to the terrifc recipes, there are loads of helpful tips and information on the importance of greens in our diet. I highly recommend this book to the serious cook and the amatuer as a fresh approach to a healthier and delicious life style.

A Three-star general phones you after mis-dialing and blurts out, "The President's plane is missing!" A lady from Beaverton named Elvira is interviewed by an alien named Zarkon 77. Lisa and Kent, hosts of a show called "Good Morning Northwest" comment on a "doozy of an asteroid" that slammed into Earth, with all the vacuity of a game show or the home-shopping network.

Jeffrey Shaffer takes the reader on a wacky ride through the carnival sections of his imagination in this, his second book of humorous shorts, complete with barkers and cotton candy for the brain.

Although the book is categorized as "humor for adults," it has a schoolboy charm. The complete unpredictability of where any single idea in any given story is going to go reminds you of "Stymie," the Little Rascals character who would stop, blink his eyes incredulously, and stare with open mouth and arms. No matter whether Shaffer's prose comes off as surprising, funny, or sad, it definitely puts the stymie on your brain now and again.

In "Basic Instinct," for example, our narrator happens on a cigarette-smoking dog that gives him investment advice. "If manure were music," the dog quipped, "Dean Witter would be a brass band. But don't quote me on that."

He caught my eye with "Rejuvenation," a spoof on healers, when he puts the narrator into an Orgone Box, a device invented by Wilhelm Reich. I've never read a contemporary piece that discussed Orgone energy, let alone made jokes about it. Reich died in prison in 1956 after the government attempted to destroy all records of his research and healing. Shaffer resurrects his memory with childlike innocence, wanting the narrator (and us, the readers) to accept anything that has not been conclusively proven to be wrong or untrue.

Shaffer counts on our suspension of disbelief, and if we're willing to supply it, he comes through with laughs in the most surpri! sing places. The book's title comes from the first essay, "Night Caller." The narrator explains to his caller that he intends to retreat to his fallout shelter, which came with the house. "Look Mister," the general taunts. "I got news for you. That little crash pad in your basement is a joke. It'd be like living in a septic tank." The narrator taunts the general by telling him the conversation is being taped. "Damn! I bet you're lying," he says.

At the end, the general offers to send a lieutenant over to detail the narrator's car. The next morning our narrator wakes to see his neighbor standing next to a gleaming Land Cruiser. "An Army lieutenant showed up and detailed my car for free!" he exclaimed. "Who says the government never does anything right?"

Many of his essays defy description. Like his first title, I'm Right Here, Fish-Cake, also published by Catbird, this collection of funny shorts presents the oddest assortment of characters in the most imaginative array of situations conceivable. His approach is light hearted, but the tension he adds by placing his characters in serious situations holds your interest and inspires you to move quickly from one short to the next. Publisher's Weekly has called him "a satirist from the old school, an ardent fan of James Thurber, a humorist-without-portfolio..."

It's no coincidence that you can hear echoes of a Garrison Keillor voice in these tales - Shaffer has written for the PBS radio show Prairie Home Companion, in addition to numerous writing projects for Oregon Public Radio and Television. It Came With The House was a runner-up for Best Humor Book at the 1998 Small Press Book Awards, held in Chicago on May 29, 1998.

I read "It Came With The House" and immediately rushed to get "I'm Right Here, Fish-Cake." I haven't read such delicious nonsense in much too long. Shaffer takes fresh look at something that you see every day, and slides it sideways into total silliness. It's done with effortless sleight of hand, one little step at a time.

Although Essential Email Standards is intended for the Internet messaging technician, even non-techies like myself can benefit from its exhaustive and comprehensive coverage of all the major Internet protocols and RFCs. Loshin provides the latest information on all the Internet messaging standards, as well as a complete description of the standards making process.

The book is also extremely well organized and laid out, with plenty of diagrams, tables, sidebars, and notes. The only disappointing aspect of the book is the skimpy index at the end. Perhaps this is the publisher's way of encouraging readers to use the CD-ROM and Adobe PDF Reader supplied with the book.

Indeed, searching for key words and phrases with the Adobe Reader is a breeze--you just slide the CD-ROM into your computer, double click the installation file, and away you go. I found one of the RFCs I was looking for by simply clicking one of the hyperlinks embedded in the digital copy of the text.

This review concludes that Essential Email Standards succeeds in making highly technical email standards practical and easily accessible.

The Fish Prince And Other Stories: Mermen Folk Tales is an extensive anthology of folklore tales drawn from cultures around the world, and all of which are about the mermaid's masculine counterpart the more popular female image. From Russia to Mali and Chile, the stories herein embody a vast wealth of different cultures and traditions. Retold by the collaborative efforts of award-winning children's authors and folklorists Jane Yolen and Shulamith Oppenheim, The Fish Prince And Other Stories is an exciting, exotic, enthusiastically recommended anthology for anyone entranced by mythological and folklore legends of the seafolk!

This author knows what makes someone buy a house. Every page has one or more great ideas about how to make your home more appealing. We thought of our house as a little odd, not quite as good as others. With his tips it became so attractive to buyers that the first one bought it and the next three moaned sorrowfully when they found it had already sold.

One of the author's tips is that people don't buy rooms and appliances, they buy something that rings a deep emotional bell. He talks about how to find that bell for your house, and how to ring it for the prospective buyer.

We loved our house because we set it up for quality time with our kids. We decided to ring that bell. We took out a ratty breakfast bar from the kitchen and replaced it with an old oak table and chairs. The house had an add-on bedroom you could only get to through another bedroom. We changed the middle room into a library with bookshelves filled with childrens books. Instead of tearing down the treehouse we spruced it up. We put wooden toys on the workbench in the shed. Everything said, "quality time with the kids." It worked. This is just one of the great tips. There are so many more we couldn't begin to use them all.

I haven't read such delicious nonsense in much too long. Shaffer takes fresh look at something that you see every day, and slides it sideways into total silliness. It's done with effortless sleight of hand, one little step at a time.