Customer Reviews

The Church Supper Cookbook: A Special Collection of Over 375 Potluck Recipes from Families and Churches Across the Country

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought the Church Supper Cookbook after seeing the ad that came in the mail with beautiful looking pictures. I also tried the Barbara's Peachy Chicken & it was delicious! However, once I received the book, I found out that there are absolutely NO pictures in the book at all. With all the pictures in the ad, it led me to believe there would be pictures in the book.
I must admit that I am one of those non-professional every-day cooks that wants to see how it looks before I attempt to try it. So I was very disappointed.

This book is well worth the cost. I have tried several recipes and have found all are easy to prepare and the book gives great instructions. Most of the recipes are from northern states but easily fit into any regional church dinner. When I serve recipes from this book to guests at my home I always get compliments and requests for copies of the recipes. Makes a great addition to any cookbook collection.

I love this book. When you are having company, you do not want to be bending over a stove as your guests arrive. With these casserole type recipes, you put them in the oven well befoe the guests come, and smoothly take them out when you're ready to eat.

Also, guests love this food! It may be simple and old fashioned, but it is delicious. I just served a dinner party with macaroni and cheese, spinach squares, cole slaw and pineapple upside down cake. Sophisticated guests (I live in NYC) and they all went back for seconds.

I also find that these are very reliable recipes. They are simple, easy to follow, and if you cook them the first time for guests, you can have confidence. I really never use any other cookbook when people are coming over. (It is one of several I use for everyday cooking, because it doesn't use enough fresh ingredients for every meal in our health conscious age.)

I don't know about you, but I've never been to a bad church supper. People traditionally bring out their best for these occasions, and over 400 of those wonderful "bests" are featured here. This revised edition gives the contemporary cook guidance, encouragement, and easy to follow steps so that he or she can reproduce the best of those delicious church potluck recipies. Heavy on the desserts, this huge collection also icludes a number of recipies for feeding a crowd.There are conversion charts, conventions, equivalents, and an index. The next time you're invited to a potluck of whatever size, you'll find the perfect make-ahead dish here. Enjoy!

The subtitle is very misleading.Having lived in New England, I love it as much as anyone, but to say the recipes come from across the country is a misrepresentation. Ninety-five percent of the recipes are from NH,CT,and NY. There are a couple from CA and one from another state, but that is it. The recipes are fine, but certainly not what I expected.

I love cookbooks and when I saw this one I had to have it. I am going to start a side cookbook collection of Church cookbooks and this one is awesome. It has a lot of northern recipes that I have never heard of before, but am ready to try.

We have a church potluck every Sunday and I am always trying to come up with new ideas.. every recipe I have ever tried has been a success from this book.. The Tiny Pecan Pies are fantastic and cheaper than a pecan pie. This is a winning book. Who needs pictures? It's the recipes that count.

There are two dangers in evaluating this book. One can overestimate it's value by focusing on the very reasonable price for an advertised 375 recipes, and buy it's patter that these recipes include valuable secrets which will produce better results than what, a New York celebrity chef, probably. Alternately, one can look down one's nose at the source of the recipes and claim that there is little value in these homespun recipes.

There are elements of truth in to both positions, but both positions are guilty of not appreciating the audience for which the book was written. The book is a grown-up and slightly citified version of recipes assembled by church groups into a book to be sold to make money for the parish or womens group or some other worthy civic cause. Almost all recipes will produce tasty results without resorting to any hard to find or hard to make ingredient. Few, if any, will ask you to skin a sweet pepper or bake a fillet in paper. Even better, the book contains homespun versions of classic cuisine such as Cassoulet and Coq au Vin and is not shy about asking you to use a few cups of wine in some dishes. This is a perfect cookbook for rural New Hampshire. It does not even bother me that most of the recipes came from the same part of the country. The book may have been better with a better representation of southern, New Orleans, or southwest cuisine, but I don't think the book's audience will really miss it.

What I am afraid the book's audience will miss is an original culinary experience. I just don't see the point of making Coq au Vin with boneless chicken breasts as this book's recipe suggests. You can get a reasonable dish with a winey taste in mushrooms and white meat, but that isn't Coq au Vin. To get real Coq au Vin, you must go to Julia Child or David Boulud. You would even find something more authentic and worthy of the name in a Martha Stewart volume.

Another problem with this book is that there is a lot of inconsistency in the style of recipe writing, even with the single experienced editor.

I think this book would have been a lot better if it had left out all of it's baking recipes. The recipe for pastry dough will probably work, but it totally ignores the wisdom of every good pastry chef I've seen of the Food Network regarding using cold ingredients, handling the dough sparingly, and having a delicate touch with the butter. Good cooking often requires finesse. Good baking always requires finesse. I especially dislike the statement at the beginning of the book which recommends substituting butter for margerine. This substitution can be disasterous in some cases such as cookie baking, and somewhat grim in many other cases, especially if you happen to hit upon a margerine with the warning against cooking in small print.

The book has a patina of erudition in it's naming classic dishes such as Paella Valenciana, but a native of Valencia would probably get heartburn over the statement that Paella Valenciana is made in all sorts of different ways. It is true than hundreds of culinary writers have said this about `paella', but not about `Paella Valenciana'. A sample of false erudition there.

This is a good book for what it does. I would recommend it as a second cookbook, as long as the first cookbook was `The Joy of Cooking' or `James Beard's American Cookery' or some other well regarded basic cookbook which gives proper attention to the subtlties. For a more sophisticated first cookbook, the old standard `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' is as good as it was 40 years ago.

it came fast so i was able to give it as a Christmas present. my friend likes it. she found a couple good recipes. the book was in very good shape. thank you.

I got this book and it was okay but it really is for someone who cooks big meals or has a rather large family . Other than that I had heard of some of these recipes before . I also gave it as a gift to someone rather than seeing it sit on my shelf .