My New Cookbook-- The Pioneer Woman Cooks

In my last post I said how excited I was to get my new cookbook. Well it came, I read, and I loved it... for the most part. Here's a quick run-down on the book.

The Bad

• Not a lot of recipes. The book is a good inch-inch and a half thick, so when I first saw it (after Andy had lovingly opened it for be before I got home) I had dreams of reading and perusing my new cook book for a few hours. Then I opened it and looked through it and was a little disappointed by how few recipes there are. I expected somewhere between 50-100 recipes, but I would be willing to bet there was only 25-30 recipes. For a first cookbook this wouldn't be bad, but considering she has a blog where she has been posting recipes for a year or two I expected a lot more. How hard could it be to add some of those blog posts? I know they need to be original recipes, but I would expect her to have more original recipes on her site.
• Long introduction to herself and her family. Like her blog, this book has more than just recipes. She has photographs of her family and the ranch, which is great... but I'd rather have more recipes. If you've read her blog, you already know the whole story about how she got started and I just don't see anyone buying the book who hasn't read the blog.
• Not spiral bound. This may be silly, but I think the best cookbooks are spiral bound... not hardback. It's a lot easier to keep a spiral bound book open on the counter while you cook. And it stays cleaner because you're not trying to find ways to keep it open (like setting your bowl on top of the book).
  

The Good

• Lots and lots of pictures! Like in her blog, Drummond illustrates each step of the cooking process. And she took all the pictures for the book as well, so as a beginning cook it's nice to know that an actual human being made the actual food I'm looking at (and that it hasn't been enhanced by a food artist). However, the downside of the pictures is that one recipe can take up 2 or more pages (which leads to the thicker, more expensive book with less recipes).
• Real recipes! Growing up in the Midwest, these are foods I grew up with! Although my mom may not have made all these foods, I knew what they were and I loved them. She doesn't use a lot of fancy, expensive ingredients that you can only get if you live in a big city, I can get any of the ingredients I need from my local supermarket.
• Lots of variations... even on the recipes that may call for more expensive ingredients, Drummond has lots of different variations for making a more traditional (cheaper) version of the food... or for making a more exciting version.
  
• Hands down the best part though... this is just good reading. Even if you don't have time to make the recipes, it's a funny book. Drummond's character and sense of humor comes through in her recipes. There are some instructions where I just had to laugh out loud.

So, overall, this was a good book. I don't know that I would've bought it for myself, but that's just because I'm cheap and it's $27.95 (or something very close to that). If you've been an avid fan of The Pioneer Woman for awhile I'd be sure to look through it before you buy it because I've read a couple reviews that say she did take some of the material from her blog and they didn't like that (personally I would love if she did more of that! who really wants to hunt through a blog to find all your favorite recipes??).

The best thing about this book though, is that it gave me some inspiration for helping my sister make a college cookbook for my brother for Christmas (or if she decides not to do that then I'll make it for a graduation present for him). After trying to get some family favorite recipes from my mom I've decided that my brother needs a step-by-step compilation of recipes so he doesn't have to try to get my mom to explain how to make something (chop up some of this, add some of that, stir until it looks right... we all know people with those sorts of directions and measurements).

YAY! For Free Books!!

Those who know me know me or have lived with me know I have a slight addiction to cookbooks. I blame it on my job. Every afternoon I walk through the BYU Bookstore to go home... and I walk right next to the Bargain book area... and the first things I see are the bargain cookbooks. I accidently bought 6 in one month and then Andy told me I was no longer allowed to buy cookbooks (so I just didn't tell him when I bought a new cookbook after that). Luckily, when I had gotten tired of looking at all the pretty pictures in those books and reading all the interesting tidbits (really... you thought I bought cookbooks just for cooking?) I got married... and got lots of free cookbooks (especially dessert cookbooks) and life was happy once again. I've almost forgotten what all cookbooks I have (like the time I was frantically looking for a good pancake/waffle recipe completely forgetting that I have a whole cookbook DEDICATED to pancakes/muffins/waffles!!). But... I now get to add one more to my collection.

I won a raffle on Goodreads for a free copy of the upcoming "Pioneer Woman Cookbook." For those of you who don't follow any recipe/food blogs religiously (umm... I follow three and two of them are in my links) Pioneer Woman is the originator of a lot of the recipes circulating around. I've never really looked at her site, but that doesn't mean I'm not excited about winning the book! Because A) who doesn't love winning something and B) I get a new cookbook.

Every day I spend the day wondering if this is the day when the book will show up at my apartment... If I'll get to spend the night curled up with my new cookbook looking at all the pretty pictures (I firmly believe that cookbooks are just picture books for grown-ups) and then deciding which recipes to try out.

Moral of the story: Goodreads is amazing! Lots of new authors give away copies of books in order to get some good reviews of their books going, so it's a great way to try to pick up a few new books! Also, if you're ever in doubt as to what sort of present you should get me, a cookbook is a very good option... especially if it has lots of pretty pictures or it's written by Martha Stewart, Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa anyone?), or some other fabulous chef.

P.S. I've also updated the look of my blog a little. What do you think?

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Feminism is often seen as a dirty word in society today--especially inside the Church. Inside the Church, feminists or even just women who don't have a desire to get married and become stay-at-home moms immediately are often looked down on as someone who obviously doesn't know the plan of salvation--even though we all know it should be a question answered by the woman, her husband (if she has one), and the Lord. Even in Provo, a city full of people dedicated to the pursuit of high education, I've gotten my share of comments from people who don't understand why I'm choosing to pursue a master's degree right now and why I'm not having children right away since I'm only 2 months away from my B.A.

Even I had been asking myself these questions. Since this is the first semester I've been married and in school, this is the first time I've had the ability to completely control how clean my apartment is and be able to make the food I want when I want it (don't worry, I do let my husband make some decisions when it comes to food). Unfortunately, because of school I haven't been able to do those things the way I'd like. I don't have the time to do a lot of the things I'd like to do. Because of this, I've found myself asking why I care so much about getting an M.L.S. now and Ph.D. sometime in the future. My husband and I could just as easily use the money we have saved up for my tuition to make up for my not working so I could be a full-time homemaker and begin having children.

This book reminded me why that's not the path I've chosen, and why we as women need to resist being told we need to fit in that role to be the perfect woman. I have friends who have chosen that role (and there's nothing wrong with choosing it), but it should be something that is an individual choice and not something that anyone feels compelled into. Before reading this book I knew it kind of started the Women's Movement in the 60s and 70s and assumed that it was a man-hating, anti-children, pro-career manifesto. After reading this book, I can say that it is not at all that way! I wish there was a condensed version for women (and men) who aren't interested in all the theoretical stuff (aka... lots of Freud) but still included all the information about the "problem with no name" as Friedan names the depression that many housewives faced at the time (and continue to face now). Although some of it is a bit extreme, I found it refreshingly honest.

And this book isn't saying that being a homemaker is bad--being a housewife is, but being a homemaker isn't. Friedan argues that every woman needs to have a creative outlet not tied to the home. Whether that be a part-time or full-time job, innovative community service, or continual education every woman should have something meaningful to engage her mind throughout her life. That is what feminism is all about. It's not about saying that one image of womanhood should be privileged over another or that every woman needs to do it all. It's saying that every woman deserves to be seen as a whole woman with interests outside of being a mother or hoping to be a mother.

Society however, cannot see things in those moderate terms. In my English class we were talking about a recent study on CNN stating that homemakers are now happier than women who work. I believe it's because women who work feel the need to do it all, keep a perfect house, make a gourmet meal every night, be involved in their children's lives, and be involved in the community. These are all worthy things to be doing, but it leads to someone who is completely burned out. As women and as a society, we need to demand the rights to be allowed to be imperfect people, but individual humans with interests in many different things first and foremost.