Cookbook Review

The first book is titled "13 Colonies Cookbook." I will admit it was just part of a stack of books hastily grabbed from the shelf. Upon opening it, however, i was slightly intrigued. It introduces thirteen cooks, one from each of the original American colonies. Each cook has several (up to 15) recipes they commonly made, and one whole dinner they made at some time. For instance, the New York cook Samuel somethin-or-other made a meal for George Washington and some French ambassador. The book is lacking visually though; only pencil drawings of the cooks and their homes.

The second book is called "The Hundred Menu Chicken Cookbook." It is just that; 106 different ways to cook chicken, most of them some kind of casserole. Each dish is elegantly titled "Chicken with...", arranged in alphabetical order from apples to white wine. Some dishes are repeated with slight variations; chicken with vegetables has five different entries, while chicken with rice has eight. Most items list the country of origin, and all of them have a recommendation of what to serve it with.