Customer Reviews

Heart of the Home: A Vegetarian Cookbook for People Who Want to Make a Change But Don't Know Where to Start.

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

"The moon was in Scorpio, and I was three sheets to the wind_" Thus begins the recipe for "Enchilada Sauce," just across the page from "White Woman's Bar-Be-Que Sauce."

Both irreverent and down-to-earth; open at any page and you'll know "Heart of the Home" isn't like any cookbook you've seen before. This is vegetarian cooking, down-home country style, and this is literature.

"If you have Cancer in your astrological chart, you will love making gravy, stir to your heart's content." Reassuring those who haven't ever picked up a pot before, nudging old hands to take chances they've never taken, this is a book for anyone wanting to connect or reconnect with the essential experience of cooking for others. Beyond that, it's a walk into one woman's extraordinary collection of warm moments and memories of special encounters, mostly in the kitchen.

Meet my old friend Ann Jackson. Truly a unique and original talent, when I first knew her she was the cook for a warehouse full of vegetarian men and women running one of the biggest natural foods operations in the West. I was the produce manager. Every morning Ann would come around the corner of that big walk-in cooler looking to see what was fresh and good and it was like the start of another day's adventure.

There's a whole cast of characters here, and every recipe is delivered with definite personality. Patsy, Senter, Dorita, Lindsey, Licorice, Tommy Merritt and a roving cast of truckers, girlfriends, pets, produce dealers and crazy Italians wander the range of food and adventure, covering the ground from "Prem Nagar Pea Soup" & "Solidarity Borscht" to "Milwaukee Street Squash" & "Nostromo Noodles." One of my favorites is "Mama's Dark Secret," and if Ann didn't invent "Chicken Fried Tofu," she sure perfected the form toward true immortality.

"What good is it how healthy something is if it doesn't taste good?" Healthy and good food that doesn't weigh you down and doesn't bore you either. I remember Ann used to call it "meat and potatoes vegetarian cooking." This is cooking for an American palette, without the usual American reliance on cheese and meat and processed additives. One of the author's goals is to encourage us to escape our dependence on cow, but she is never dogmatic, and most of the recipes can go either way. "_If you don't want to use soy milk, fine, use milk, use cream for all I care (they're your thighs), just get in there and do it!" Her other objective is to introduce us to a whole range of possibilities for vegetarian staples like tofu, tempeh, miso, seaweeds, grains, rice and noodles, while proving that we don't have to leave behind such traditional fare as Potato Salad (the best I've tasted), Corn Fritters, Chocolate Cream Pie, Hushpuppies and Baked Beans.

Ann and her husband own and manage 'Time After Time,' a very successful 2nd hand clothes store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They live amidst a fantastic collection of folk art and memorabilia (from which the 50s illustrations that adorn "Heart of the Home" are taken). The kitchen is clearly near the heart of their home, and with this cookbook we're all invited to sit around the kitchen table to share a few good stories and a lot of good eating.

I am vegan and bought this for a friend who is from the south and thought she'd get a kick out of trying some dairy free/meat free southern recipes considering the rave reviews it got. I don't understand how this cookbook can claim to be dairy free when many of the recipes call for buttermilk, cheese, butter, and condensed milk. For example, the cheesebread recipe calls for swiss cheese and cheddar cheese. Huh? I am disappointed but more confused than anything.

This cookbook is both hilarious and delicious. Whether you are a full time vegetarian or just want to cook the occasional meatless meal, you will find numerous simple and healthy recipes to widen your repertoire and amaze your friends. Fried Chicken Tofu has become a favorite of my entire family and even is liked by my sons' teenage friends who would never before eat something called soybean curd. Please treat yourself to a good time and buy this book!

I love this cookbook, and reviewed it a few years ago, i wanted to add that the new edition[which is the 3rd] has a great new cover, some new pictures and most of all is now fully indexed, which makes it even easier and more fun to cook southern.

There is something that happens to me when I read through Ann Jackson's cookbooks. Simply put: I am filled with the most pleasant longing for something GOOD. She makes my mouth water weather or not I am hungry upon the time of reading! I love her books so much that I've taken them both to bed to read. How many cook books are there that you can thoroughly enjoy from cover to cover like that?

Any woman who can make me laugh while teaching me the alchemist craft of transforming tofu into something that tastes deliciously like chicken will now and forever more only receive my praises!

Jackson writes the kind of cookbooks that are meant to be absorbed--and with her inspiring stories, charming anecdotes, FANTASTIC graphics and fun retro fonts it is easy to do just that. From there, all the actual recipies are easy and it's like by reading her cookbook she teaches you how to cook southern via attitude vs. precision.

She makes you want to cook from the heart, while heartily enjoying your life in the process....and when I do just that, my friends think I'm the queen of the kitchen. Can you say that a cookbook has changed your life? Well, there...I just said it.

xxoo, her biggest fan

ahh...my fear of the kitchen has been conquered. For someone that is all thumbs in the kitchen, I found this book to be funny, informative and most of all encouraging. The fried chicken tofu recipe is to die for. I found it a joy to read...who knew a cookbook could be filled with such great stories. Who knew I could be a good cook.

this book is for the pro or beginner. if you get one you will find yourself using it daily. fried , chicken, gravy, gingerbread or doughnuts it is simply a must for any chefs library !!

This book has some great comfort food recipes (biscuits, shortcake, pecan pie), but I was disappointed in its presentation and tone--there are many recipes that call for eggs with a cursory note to use "egg replacer"--I doubt whether the author has seriously tried to bake most of these recipes using vegan egg replacer. Also there are recipes that call for cheese--that again, I seriously doubt whether she has tried to make using dairy-free cheeses.

There are typos all over the book, the degree sign for temperature is somehow missing, knead is spelled "kneed," plum is spelled "plumb," and there is no help as to number of servings each recipe is supposed to make. The references to "big black mammies" and, in the intro, for "girls"--"find out what his favorite foods are" and "wear a little apron" were unnecessary. While some would consider it irreverent, I find it annoying.

This book could be great with a little editing and attention to detail. Maybe the fourth edition...

Heart of the Home, by Ann Jackson is an essential for every Southern vegetarian's kitchen. When I first bought the book I treated it lika a novel, reading each humorous story and looking over the recipes. A few hours later I was in the grocery store selecting ingredients for Southern Fried Tofu, Wee Blu Inn salad dressing, Milwaukee Street Squash, Palumbo's Provincetown Mushroom-Barley Soup and Gingerbread.

The gingerbread is really wonderful. I've tried many recipes but Ann Jackson's is the BEST! The tempeh salad is to die for! It has become a lunch staple at our house.

If you're a lover of cooking and good food, buy this book for, as Owen Meredith put it, "We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without poetry, music and art; We many live without freinds, we may live without books; But civilized men cannot live without cooks. He may live without hope, what is passion but pining? But WHERE is the man who can live without dining? (Taken from the pages of Heart of the Home.)

"Heart of the Home" isn't the thickest vegetarian cookbook I've ever seen, but it's perhaps the most useful and practical ever published. You'll be hard pressed to find another cookbook that has so many recipies that become staples in your regular weekly diet. From "Fried Chicken Tofu" to "Dirty Rice," the recipies are easy-to-follow, tasty, and usually made with a "southern twist." The vintage illustrations are hilarious and worth the price of the book alone. Any vegetarian wanting great traditional southern recipies will love this.