Love, Mom: A Cookbook

Overflowing with cooking know how, lots of enthusiasm and decided opinions, Patricia Arcaro's Love, Mom is a work to honor the memories and the art of home cooking. Contained in this book are faithful recipes from the American past. With the many recipes from family archives you are destined to remember fondly growing up in the 40's, 50's and beyond. And even if you don't claim to remember those days you will learn what it was like for some member of your family when "we shared a Nehi grape soda with four friends from one bottle and no one died from it" or the really correct way to make a Thanksgiving dinner in the 1950's. It's hard to imagine today how we managed to survive. It can be even harder to imagine not having the conveniences of the 21st century: never, ever having a frozen product to rely on and no packages of instant meals. These were the days when everything came from the garden or the corner market and you will find that this cookbook gives you inspiration for how to bring "then" to "now" with clear and easily applied directions and techniques. You may also come to have an understanding that quick and easy is not necessarily the best and that the old-fashioned way can be a lot more fun! The author has preserved recipes from an earlier time when most things were cooked from scratch and there was always the convenience of sending a kid to the corner market to pick up something you may have forgotten. The author shares her family recipes for things you may never have heard of, like how to make a really fine pimento cheese for appetizers, or how her mother used cream cheese in more ways than is usually thought possible. And saving the best for last is her mother's treasured recipe for making Easter eggs and other family traditions like the Saturday night fudge. These are recipes which uphold the old-fashioned art of cooking with family secrets and treasured memories, but with a note on how to translate them to the world of the 21st century. Life was a lot of fun then and it's even more fun now. So mix all the worlds together and come up with a great time and lots of very good eating.