Customer Reviews

The I Hate to Cook Book: 50th Anniversary Edition

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Peg Bracken's "I Hate to Cook Book" sure has an awful lot of good, simple recipes for a book that purports not to be about cooking. It's fun, fun, fun to read and the recipes truly are simple and good.

The best thing about the book is Bracken's inimitably breezy voice. When she tells you to stir "Company Carrots" until they're well-coated, she writes, " . . . stirring so that all the strips get well acquainted with the sauce." When introducing a recipe for "Rosy Radish Salad," she prefaces the instructions with, "This next one uses up radishes and some of your canned beans." No doubt she's always eager to get beyond dinner because she wants to get out of the kitchen and be seated with her guests, enjoying the conversation! She's a hoot to read, and the recipes work. I love the recipe names: Lamb Shanks Tra-La, Elevator Lady Spice Cookies, Sour Cream Cinch No. 1 and No. 2, Philosopher's Chowder, Breakthrough Salad, Immediate Fudge Cake, Dazzleberry Tart (which begins, "If the dazzleberries aren't ripe yet, use canned cherry pie filling"), and more. Even the chapter names are funny (No. 22 is entitled "Stealing from Knowledgeable People"). Get this book if you enjoy cooking or hate cooking--it doesn't matter--but definitely get it if you like a good laugh and good, plain, simple recipes.

My first (and favorite) mother-in-law gave this to me as a wedding present, twenty years ago. At the time I fancied myself quite the gourmet cook, and was mildly insulted. Finally, out of boredom one day, I read it cover to cover. I fell in love with it. There are several laugh-out-loud phrases in it, and Hilary Knight's illustrations are gems. Then, as I started working longer hours and no longer wanted to do something en croute for my husband for dinner, I turned to the recipes. They are simple, good and fast, and most of them can be crammed down a child's throat without too much fuss. They were written in the days before we knew about cholesterol, but hey, not everything's perfect. Are you tired of presenting Tuna Helper to your family? This will give the effect of a much more home-cooked meal. Good everyday family meals, relatively nutritious.

You should also read Peg Bracken's other books. They're terrific, too.

I am rapidly completing my Peg Bracken library. If you're my age (I'm in my 30s) or younger, you have probably never read -- and likely have never heard of -- Peg Bracken. She's pretty much lost to our generation. I'd heard of her but never read her stuff until I inherited the "I Hate to Cook Book" and "I Hate to Housekeep" from my grandmother (who probably didn't care for either of them).

If you like humor writing and things retro, you should at least read those two. Peg harkens back to the days when you were supposed to have a martini and slippers waiting for your husband and meet him at the door in your negligee, but she was so not into it. I hear she got divorced shortly after the first book came out, and that her husband hated her writing. Loser! Peg is also a reminder of the days when girls got their MRS degree before becoming domestic engineers...her ability with a phrase is testament to a keen knowledge of things other than casseroles and dustcloths.

You can't find a lot of info on Peg online. I hear she is still kicking, though. I like the fact that, in her author photos, she's sitting at her desk with a ciggie a la Fran Leibowitz. She was the original Cynthia Heimel. She was way ahead of her time.

I loaned somebody my copy of the Compleat I Hate to Cook Book a few years ago (and have yet to get it back), so I bought this book to replace it. It's not a replacement, though. It's missing one of my favorite chapters, "Cooking if Alone", and I miss Hilary Knight's cover art from the older edition.

Still, it's a Peg Bracken classic and I'm glad it's been reissued. Just maybe next time, include all the chapters from the old one?

I thought this book looked familiar and sure enough, my mom gave me a copy when I first got married 25 years ago. I have been using the Turkey Divan recipe for years (I substitute chicken) as a lazy way to make a casserole for pot lucks. I finally sat down and read through the whole thing last night. Not only are the recipes wonderful, easy and elegant, but I never noticed the humor there as well--you have to READ this cookbook for the off-the-cuff humor that hasn't dimmed in time. I found myself laughing out loud several times.

My favorite recipe:

Turkey Divan
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup (thinned with 2 tbls sherry and a little heavy cream)*
-- I used plain old milk to thin it a little
1 package frozen broccoli, cooked (or thawed and drained)
6 good-sized slices of turkey*
-- I use 3 good sized chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
grated Parmesan cheese
--use the good stuff, it makes all of the difference in the world.

Put about one-fourth of the soup mixture in a buttered casserole. Put the broccoli in, cover it with the slices of turkey (chicken cubes), and pour on the rest of the sauce. Sprinkle the Parmesan generously on top and bake at 350, uncovered, for about 20 minutes. I sprinkle some Panko bread crumbs on top as well.

I learned two things about myself after reading this book: having a cookbook on a kindle is a really easy way for me to forget to bring the recipe to the store, and I really don't like to cook. The book is great reading. Bracken's irreverence and humor shine through. The recipe I did try (sweep steak) was very successful, and there are several others that sound good and easy. Now if I can only remember to bring the thing with me to the grocery store on Sundays.

Growing up, on my mother's book shelf nestled between the red and white checked Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and my mother's personal recipe journal was The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken. With its distinctive cover designed by Hilary Knight and its provocative title it was easy to spot. I always thought it was a curious choice because my mother loved to cook. Homemade noodles, fresh donuts and Sunday roasts my mother cooked it all.

Now as an adult with a copy of the 50th anniversary edition of this classic cookbook I finally get it: Bracken's book is one part recipes and the other part philosophy/humor. The recipes seem to hold up fairly well over the years, notwithstanding the generous use of butters and creams (which can probably be easily adapted to modern dietary concerns). But what I really relished about this book was Bracken's wit. For example, I loved these lines:

"We who hate to cook have a respect bordering on awe for those Good Cooks Who Like to Cook . . . . But we've little to say to them, really, except, `Invite us over often, please' And stay aware from our husbands."

To women in the 60's these words must have sounded like the sermon on the mount! Even today I still can relate to them. In short, Bracken had a gift for getting her point across with clarity and humor.

The I Hate to Cook Book is as refreshing today as it must have been fifty years ago!



Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Anv edition (July 26, 2010), 224 pages.
Advance review copy provided courtesy of the publisher.

As you probably know, the late great Peg Bracken wrote three "I Hate to Cook" books (the second presented as an Appendix to the first, the third in almanac format), which she combined--along with some new material--in the '80s as "The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book." It was that omnibus version I had expected. However, that wouldn't have been right: it isn't the 50th anniversary of the other books.

Aside from the new cover art, which suits the period of the original, and an introduction from Peg Bracken's daughter Johanna, who seems to have taken on her mother's nom de plume the way Melissa Rivers did, the first book appears here intact (the "Compleat" version changed a word or two here and there).

The title, of course, is a trifle misleading. As the author explained in a later book, it's the dailiness of cooking that's the problem. So for nearly a half century she was inured to being asked if she hated to cook. (As she put it, "Write a book called 'I Went Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel', and people will ask 'Did you really go over Niagara Falls in a barrel?'") Anyone, regardless of one's actual feelings toward cooking, can revel in the time-saving recipes, and the wit and sense with which they are presented. Despite technological advances and updated attitudes toward food itself, nearly everything in the book is still good. (The only change I'd personally make is regarding the "hobo party" in the chapter about children's parties. If only Peg Bracken were still around so we could discuss it!) SPOILER ALERT: She did recant about Irish coffee in the "Appendix" book.

I'm now hoping for a 50th Anniversary edition of the 1962 "I Hate to Housekeep Book." This was my own introduction to Peg Bracken, and it's a near must-have for anyone starting a household, whether a newlywed or a college student moving out of the dorm (which I was when I first encountered the book).

Vivent Bracken, mere et fille!

Never have I read a cookbook beginning to end. Who does that? Normally we just read the recipes that caught our eye in the table of contents. However, this cookbook was actually rather entertaining! Not only did it contain some easy recipes that could be thrown together (in many cases, literally), but the writing in between the recipes had me grinning and at some times laughing. The only thing I wish was different was that it was spiral bound to make keeping open a page easier. Otherwise, this one's a keeper for my cookbook shelves.

So happy to see at least one title on Kindle. Hoping for more. Kindle editions in general still overpriced, though, and selections limited.