Books about Recollections from Amazon.com

More than a cookbook, this is the story of how a little girl, born in the South of Yankee parents, fell in love with southern cooking at the age of five. And a bite of brown sugar pie was all it took.

"I shamelessly wangled supper invitations from my playmates," Anderson admits. "But I was on a voyage of discovery, and back then iron-skillet corn bread seemed more exotic than my mom's Boston brown bread and yellow squash pudding more appealing than mashed parsnips."

After college up north, Anderson worked in rural North Carolina as an assistant home demonstration agent, scarfing good country cooking seven days a week: crispy "battered" chicken, salt-rising bread, wild persimmon pudding, Jerusalem artichoke pickles, Japanese fruitcake. Later, as a New York City magazine editor, then a freelancer, Anderson covered the South, interviewing cooks and chefs, sampling local specialties, and scribbling notebooks full of recipes.

Now, at long last, Anderson shares her lifelong exploration of the South's culinary heritage and not only introduces the characters she met en route but also those men and women who helped shape America's most distinctive regional cuisine—people like Thomas Jefferson, Mary Randolph, George Washington Carver, Eugenia Duke, and Colonel Harlan Sanders.

Anderson gives us the backstories on such beloved Southern brands as Pepsi-Cola, Jack Daniel's, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, MoonPies, Maxwell House coffee, White Lily flour, and Tabasco sauce. She builds a time line of important southern food firsts—from Ponce de León's reconnaissance in the "Island of Florida" (1513) to the reactivation of George Washington's still at Mount Vernon (2007). For those who don't know a Chincoteague from a chinquapin, she adds a glossary of southern food terms and in a handy address book lists the best sources for stone-ground grits, country ham, sweet sorghum, boiled peanuts, and other hard-to-find southern foods.

Recipes? There are two hundred classic and contemporary, plain and fancy, familiar and unfamiliar, many appearing here for the first time. Each recipe carries a headnote—to introduce the cook whence it came, occasionally to share snippets of lore or back-stairs gossip, and often to explain such colorful recipe names as Pine Bark Stew, Chicken Bog, and Surry County Sonker.

Add them all up and what have you got? One lip-smackin' southern feast!

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Price: $16.71 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The famed compound at Hyannisport was the Kennedy family's favorite place to relax, and Rose Kennedy's kitchen was the central gathering place. Everyone--including Jackie Kennedy Onassis, JFK Jr., Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver, and Arnold Schwarzenegger--came wandering in the back door to visit Rose. Her chef, Neil Connolly, always made sure there was lobster salad, potato salad, and a platter of roast chicken in the fridge, and in this book, he brings these and other favorites to your home. Included in this cookbook are Kennedy family photos and anecdotes collected personally by Neil.

Here he shares an exclusive recipe from the Kennedy kitchen with us:

Sugar Tuile

These thin, crisp cookies can be cooled flat, but here they are formed into edible cups that can hold ice cream, chocolate mouse, or fresh berries. Note that the cookies are baked in two batches, so that you have time to mold them while they are still warm and soft.

Makes about 8 cookie cups 1 stick (4 ounces) butter, at room temperature 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted 6 egg whites 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven at 375 degrees F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper and draw four circles 5 inches in diameter on each piece of paper. 2. Invert four heatproof, 2-inch-wide glasses or cups on the counter so they are ready when the tuiles come out of the oven. 3. In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the sifted flour, egg whites, and vanilla. Beat until well blended. 4. Spoon the batter into the circles on one baking sheet and spread to the edges with an offset spatula. The batter will be very thin. 5. Bake the tuiles for 5 to 6 minutes, or until the edges become golden brown. 6. Remove from the oven and immediately use a wide spatula to invert each tuile over a glass. Using a mitt, gently press to form into a cup shape. As soon as the tuiles are set, gently lift them off the glasses. 7. Whisk the batter briefly and form the remaining 4 tuiles. Bake and form as directed above. When all the tuile cups are cool and set, store in a covered container until ready for use.

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Price: $20.37 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Stories from a Place That Feels Like Home

Master storyteller Philip Gulley envelops readers in an almost forgotten world of plainspoken and honest small-town values, evoking a simpler time when people knew each other by name, folks looked out for their neighbors, and people were willing to do what was right—no matter the cost.

When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch.

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Price: $3.83 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With over 300 recipes and culinary historian John T. Edge's colorful telling of Mrs. Wilkes' contribution to Savannah and southern cuisine, this rich volume is a tribute to a way of cooking -- and eating -- to be cherished..
Price: $18.72 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book is now limited to an existing stock after which it will go out of print. All copies purchased new directly from Amazon.com will be AUTOGRAPHED by the co-author/editor, Glenn G. Boyer. The combination of going out of print and the autograph, will make this publication a rare collectors' item. (In a short interim period until Amazon's small current inventory is exhausted, some copies will be unautographed, but may be sent to publisher, HRA, at 1702 E. Lind Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85719, and such copies will be returned autographed, postpaid.) This is the memoir of a woman who saw the raw life of the last frontier as the consort of a man who is today the best known Western character of them all. The text of this book is totally attributable to Wyatt Earp's third and last wife, who lived with him from April 1882 when he left Tombstone until his death in Los Angeles, California in January 1929. The sources are what Mrs. Earp said personally, wrote, or are based upon documentation of events with which she was thorougly cognizant as an observer or participant. It is a memoir in the "traditional" definition: that memoirs are most often written by someone other than the subject. (Webster's New World Dictionary. 2d Edition, c. 1970: "a biographical notice usually written by a relative or personal friend of the subject.") That holds true with this book, but though not entirely written by the subject personally, it was prepared by someone who had met her during her lifetime, and became thoroughly familiar from intimate sources with what the subject did and said. This accepted memoir preparation tradition naturally arose from the need for one with writing ability to assemble memoirs in publishable form. Notwithstanding, this work is most largely based directly on dictated interviews of the subject or first person recollections of what she said or wrote to others she trusted. In view of the modern fame of Wyatt Earp as a folk hero, the insights of the one who knew him best make the book absolutely unique..
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A unique collaboration between an Amish grandmother and a modern-day newspaperman, this is an authentic look at a disappearing way of life. This full-color cookbook compiles 75 traditional Amish recipes, photos of the Coblentz farm, gardening tips, family tales, and firsthand accounts of traditional Amish events..
Price: $14.44 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $2.76 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Originally published by UNC Press in 1989, Fighting for the Confederacy is one of the richest personal accounts in all of the vast literature on the Civil War. Alexander was involved in nearly all of the great battles of the East, from First Manassas through Appomattox, and his duties brought him into frequent contact with most of the high command of the Army of Northern Virginia, including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and James Longstreet. No other Civil War veteran of his stature matched Alexander's ability to discuss operations in penetrating detail—this is especially true of his description of Gettysburg. His narrative is also remarkable for its utterly candid appraisals of leaders on both sides..
Price: $16.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]