Customer Reviews

The Blue Willow Inn Cookbook: Discover Why the Best Small-Town Restaurant in the South is in Social Circle, Georgia

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Blue Willow Inn (owned and operated by Louis and Billie Van Dyke) is located in Social Circle, Georgia, and is about as southern as you can get, having been voted the best small-town restaurant in the South by the readers of "Southern Living" magazine. In The Blue Willow Inn Cookbook, regional food experts Jane and Michael Stern have collaboratively compiled a culinary wealth of recipes for drinks, breads, sandwiches, salads, appetizers, side dishes, main courses, and desserts -- plus occasional anecdotes drawn from the history and patronage of the Blue Willow Inn. From Angel Biscuits; Spinach Cornbread; Sugared Pecans; and Fried Green Tomatoes; to Baked Pineapple Casserole; Orange Pecan Glazed Chicken and Wild Rice; Banana Pudding; and Coca-Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting, The Blue Willow Inn Cookbook is a perfect celebration of Southern dining and a wonderful addition to any kitchen cookbook collection.

My mom gave me this book for Christmas. I have tried numerous recipes. We have loved them all! I cooked for numerous family and friends during the holidays. They all raved and wanted the recipes. Some of them are so simple and they surprise you how incredibly good they are. It doesnt have to be hard.

This book is a cookbook with one recipe per page but more than that it tells a lot about the people and history behind this small-town Georgia restaurant. The cooks and owners get interviewed, and many photos of both the restaurant and the food they serve are in the book. Some of the recipes are for basic things like Deviled Eggs that you may not need, but others are interesting Southern specialties like Tea Sandwiches and Coca-Cola Cake with Peanut Frosting! I enjoyed just reading about Southern dishes like Fried Okra and Chicken-Fried Steak, which I've never had.

The bad reviews this book has gotten here are from non-Southerners, thus a lack of appreciation for the simplicity of home-cooked food, food without the frills and put-on's of "entertaining" dinners and wines that are used to IMPRESS others rather than to love,appreciate, and serve them. These recipes are of down home, Southern bred, God-loving and God-fearing people, the people who are most in touch with life as God meant it to be lived. Get this book and re-live your childhood as Grandma meant it to be. Though I really don't think my grandmother would have used canned green beans, but that's beside the point. :)

I just received this book and am giving it to my mother-in-law as a Christmas present. After flipping through it, and reading quite a few excerpts out loud to my husband, I just wanted to give my impression of the recipes.

I was quite impressed with the 'true southern flavor' of this book. Having been raised in eastern NC, I have been eating "Southern Cuisine" all my life, and am quite frankly fed up with all the "southern" cookbooks that I see on the shelves. They all seem to put weird ingredients in the dishes just to make them photograph better, or to appeal to the mass markets. This cookbook tells it like it is -- no low-fat, vegetarian dishes. All the veggies have fat-back in them, and most have butter and cheese added. Most of the congealed salads have graced my family's table over the years.

For the reviewers that have critized this as a full-fat, Cheese-Whiz, Cream of XXX soup, cookbook -- I say yes, you are correct. But these recipes are time-tested, good, basic recipes to feed your family on.

If you are looking for good authentic Southern recipes for your table, this is a great place to start. The recipes are simple, but not boring, and the instructions are very clear.

As a side note, the stories are a great read too!

I grew up less than an hour from Social Circle. All of these recipes took me back home, back to my grandma's kitchen. I have tried several of the recipes and they tasted just like my grandma's. The history and stories included in the book made you feel like you were there. I will definitely visit The Blue Willow Inn the next time I am back in Georgia.

There are two components to this book: the Blue Willow Inn and the Sterns.

The Blue Willow Inn: If you own any self-published community cookbook from small-town USA, you have these recipes. There isn't one surprise here (unless you mistakenly thought the restaurant cooked completely from scratch).

The "theme" of the restaurant and these recipes is Sunday dinner at your Southern grandmother's. Well, I happen to have had a grandmother from Greenville, South Carolina. She would have felt very much at home with this food and the manners espoused by the Inn's owners. So I vouch for the excellence of the way the Blue Willow has carried out this theme.

The Sterns: I own several of the Sterns' books. I especially enjoy their WAY OUT WEST and ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BAD TASTE. The Sterns are both funny and astute.

While reading through the BLUE WILLOW INN COOKBOOK, I had a picture of the Sterns just trying to hold themselves back from taking easy potshots. From time to time, the temptation must have been too much and they crossed the line into unkind. It is the only time I have seen them do that.

All in all, keep your money.

I live approx. 10 miles from The Blue Willow Inn Restaurant and we there very often. I have to say it's one of the best restaurants I have eaten at for southern cooking. Elegant atmosphere to boot and all of the southern trimmings like real homemade lemonade and the best peach cobbler you have put in your mouth. I also have this cookbook and I am very disappointed with a lot of the recipes in it. They are most definately not the same. As a matter of fact they have several cookbooks and if you will notice the mac n' cheese recipe is different in all of them. I have one cookbook (can't remember the name) but it is from an author that toured a lot of southern restaurants and had two or three recipes from each restaurant. That cookbook is the only one that actually has the "restaurant" recipes. So, if you have never been to the Blue Willow Restaurant you will be very happy with the cookbook, but if you have eaten there or plan to you will be very disappointed with the cookbook because you will be expecting those same wonderful dishes as soon as they come out of the oven only to get something not as good.

This is the best cookbook. My mother does not have recipes written down for potato salad or meatloaf, etc. She just adds a little of this and that. Well I needed a cookbook for these favorite southern dishes. It has become the most used cookbook in my kitchen. I love it!

One of the other reviewers on this page is probably right that most any Southern grandma will already know most of the recipes listed between the covers of this book. But as American food, like the rest of American culture, becomes more monolithic and regional distinctives are paved over, even recipes as generally undistinguished as most of the ones here are, are certainly worth preserving -- especially by fans of the food and culture of the American South.

It's true that The Blue Willow Inn isn't on the cutting edge of haute cuisine. Billie and Louis Van Dyke would never have been invited to compete against Masaharu Morimoto ("I summon Iron Chef Southern!"). Nevertheless, the restaurant is, to hear the Sterns tell it, immensely popular, proving that there's still a market for sweet potato biscuits, chicken divan, and fried okra, with a big peach cobbler for dessert. Readers browsing this book are much more likely to find things suitable for a church potluck than for an elegant dinner with friends or romantic evening for two (unless your beloved likes Coca-Cola cake with broiled peanut butter frosting). I don't think the word "wine" appears anywhere in here, though "Southern champagne," sweet tea, is the very first recipe.

Fans of the Stern's food-writing will find a decent balance here of their commentaries on recipes and a few small articles on aspects of The Blue Willow Inn -- interviews with personnel, a bit of history, a section on rocking chairs, and the like. Even if you never find yourself -- or could never even imagine yourself -- making any of the recipes from this bastion of Southern cookery, I think food fans, or fans of the Sterns, will probably find this a trip worth taking at least once.