Jack's Skillet: Plain Talk and Some Recipes from a Guy in the Kitchen

Rating:
Summary: Another Cast Iron Lover!
Review: At last! Jack Butler is another person who feels exactly as I do about cast iron skillets! When I bought my cast iron skillets I felt as if I were buying a new friend. Because they'll last you for life, serving you faithfully.

Jack recommends NOT buying your skillets "new", but rather getting hand-me-downs, or flea market finds, but nobody I knew had their old skillets anymore. It seems as people get older handling the weight of their cast iron skillet requires more strength than they have. And the ones I found in flea markets never seemed as heavy as the Lodge skillets I'd see at Wal*Mart! So ALL of my cast iron cookwear is made by Lodge manufacturing. I just won't buy any other brand!

This book is NOT just another cookbook! Jack shares many of the stories of his life with us, and he writes in such conversational tones that I felt like he was speaking to me personally. "Thank you, Jack. I feel like I know you!"

The reason I bought this book was because I wanted to learn all I could about "the care and feeding of cast iron skillets" and I had seen Jack on "Home Matters", a Home and Garden tv show I watched religiously. Jack tells all I needed to know about "the creatures" and I was delighted to find someone else who loves them as much as I do. My very first, and largest skillet-a 12-incher-I have actually named! As I used it over and over again, and happily watched it turn jet black, I started refering to it as my Black Beauty, and a beauty it is! I often leave it sitting out on top of the stove, gleaming darkly in the light.

I love the many recipes in Jack's book. Thanks to him I now know how to make a great Chicken Pot Pie, which I've always wanted to know. And there are so many other dishes, too, such as Steak Fajitas, all made in the wonderful cast iron skillet! In fact, Jack has taught me that I can make ANYTHING in my beloved skillets! "Thanks again, Jack."

I found this book to be very touching at times. For instance in the chapter titled "A Grace For The Old Man", Jack talks about his father's death. I flinched and shed a few tears when I read, "My father died last week." You just don't expect that kind of thing in a cookbook. I am glad he shared this very personal event with his readers.

This is a very interesting book to read, plus all those mouth-watering recipes are great. I love the way Jack tells you in such a conversational tone how to make each dish, then follows up at the end of the chapter with it in regular recipe form.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cooking with cast iron. It really is the best cookwear. It's the ONLY cookwear we really need. Just ask Jack! There isn't a thing I would change about "Jack's Skillet". This book is one of my "treasures" that I plan to keep for life.

Thank you.

Alice Kane
Marengo, IL.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this book.
Review: I have scores of cookbooks from the likes of Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges and others, and yet this little volume is my absolute favorite, by far, and it holds a revered place on my nightstand. Jack Butler teaches creative writing at the College of Santa Fe and has published in The New Yorker, Poetry and the Atlantic, among others, and was nominated for a Pulitzer. His essays, which precede each of the recipes, are splendidly evocative, soulful, full of humor, and rich with insight about food, relationships, religion and life. Mind you, this isn't the vapid stuff of Chicken Soup for the Soul (though there is a splendid recipe for Chicken Pot Pie), rather, Butler weaves touching and amusing narratives of his family, Southern traditions and travel among the recipes, which come from both his family traditions (he's the son of a Baptist minsiter who was frequently paid with the produce from his congregation's gardens) and his fearless sense of improvisation. You likely won't cook everything in this book, but you'll definitely savor every word, and you'll be surprised at how quickly a cast iron skillet will become one of your favorite cooking tools. This book will become an indispensable part of your cooking library.

Rating:
Summary: The best kind of cookbook
Review: It seems to me that there are three kinds of cookbooks:

1> The massive, reference-kind. Containing not just recipies, but info on how to buy an avacodo, the difference between a pinch and a dash, seventy five different things you can do with garlic, etc. For me, these books are useful, but they take all of the fun out of cooking. Worse, they don't encourage experimentation

2> The regional or course-specific kind. You know, books just about chocolate or cajun or brunch. Again, nice to have (especially if you're marrying someone Italian and you happen to be Jamacian... or something like that), but a little too specific for every day use.

3> The book that tries to do a good bit of the above, but focuses more on stoking your enthusiasm, your experimentation, and your built in love of food (you know you have one).

Jack's Skillet is fixed squarely in category number three. This slim book offers 50-odd chapters on every course or occasion or meal that you might come across in a year. Family get-togethers, Easter dinners, oysters, miles of chicken dishes, homemade pizza, shortcake, salads, barbeque, soups, blackberry pies, coffee, margaritas, biscuits, camping, meat loaf, cake and even home made crackers ("more convenient than going to the store").

Each chapter reads like an ode to the food and the situation it's being prepared in. The "flavor text" is entertainment in and of itself. When the time comes for the recipies at then end of each chapter, you're already drooling.

The recipies themselves are straightforward. Jack takes you through them in prose, then again in regular recipe form. The recipies avoid the banal of the over-simple and complex ornate-ness of the caterer. This is home cooking.

While there's a fair amount of regional pride from Jack (who's lived in Mississippi, Arkansas and New Mexico), Jack makes a strong effort to avoid limiting his scope and pulls recipies from all over.

Experimentation is encouraged and the reader is given a nice framework to experiment in.

In short, this is a book that encourages cooking. It gives the reader the enthusiasm that one only gets from a well-written cookbook; not just a book with good recipies. Pick it up!

Rating:
Summary: The best kind of cookbook
Review: It seems to me that there are three kinds of cookbooks:

1> The massive, reference-kind. Containing not just recipies, but info on how to buy an avacodo, the difference between a pinch and a dash, seventy five different things you can do with garlic, etc. For me, these books are useful, but they take all of the fun out of cooking. Worse, they don't encourage experimentation

2> The regional or course-specific kind. You know, books just about chocolate or cajun or brunch. Again, nice to have (especially if you're marrying someone Italian and you happen to be Jamacian... or something like that), but a little too specific for every day use.

3> The book that tries to do a good bit of the above, but focuses more on stoking your enthusiasm, your experimentation, and your built in love of food (you know you have one).

Jack's Skillet is fixed squarely in category number three. This slim book offers 50-odd chapters on every course or occasion or meal that you might come across in a year. Family get-togethers, Easter dinners, oysters, miles of chicken dishes, homemade pizza, shortcake, salads, barbeque, soups, blackberry pies, coffee, margaritas, biscuits, camping, meat loaf, cake and even home made crackers ("more convenient than going to the store").

Each chapter reads like an ode to the food and the situation it's being prepared in. The "flavor text" is entertainment in and of itself. When the time comes for the recipies at then end of each chapter, you're already drooling.

The recipies themselves are straightforward. Jack takes you through them in prose, then again in regular recipe form. The recipies avoid the banal of the over-simple and complex ornate-ness of the caterer. This is home cooking.

While there's a fair amount of regional pride from Jack (who's lived in Mississippi, Arkansas and New Mexico), Jack makes a strong effort to avoid limiting his scope and pulls recipies from all over.

Experimentation is encouraged and the reader is given a nice framework to experiment in.

In short, this is a book that encourages cooking. It gives the reader the enthusiasm that one only gets from a well-written cookbook; not just a book with good recipies. Pick it up!

Rating:
Summary: Title says all
Review: Jack is a good man. He has a light, conversational writing style (but it's obvious that he writes for guys - so it might not suit everyone), and he is the impersonation of the "improvisational cook". His love for life, family, food, and for cooking with traditional tools, especially his iron skillet, is refreshing.

I didn't learn much by reading the book, and the recipes were rather useless for me (a strict vegetarian), but it has been nevertheless an enjoyable read (or rather browse) for an afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Open the door and let him in...
Review: Jack is cool, with the conversational tone of this book, you feel as if he is in your kitchen with you helping you along while you laugh and share a drink. Great recipes. I work at a bookstore and examine all the cookbooks--I'm making this one my personal staff recommendation. There is a lot of love in this book that you can share with the ones that you love. Just pick up a pre-seasoned Lodge skillet (get the 10 inch one and the lid, only 10 bucks each) and this book and get started.
Carpe Diem Jack...Carpe Diem

Rating:
Summary: A feast for foodies . . .
Review: The author is a poet and novelist, but he's also a dedicated improvisational cook. He swears by his black iron skillet, taking the position that anything that can be cooked in a skillet, should be -- spaghetti, bisquits, chicken pot pie, blackberry cobbler -- anything. The essays in this collection are sort of bite-size, most of them revolving around a particular culinary topic. And most of those relate to his Southern upbringing in Mississippi, East Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas -- though he's now in Santa Fe and mutton gets into the act late in the book. Butler's style tends somewhat to the cutesy, but what he has to say about families and meal times and growing up the son of a Baptist preacher is generally worth listening to. And his commentary on the how and why of cooking are always interesting.

Rating:
Summary: "New" uses for an old skillet
Review: This book brings back to life those old cast iron skillets! Although here in Louisiana they never were put away. This books has great recipes for old home style cooking. Making great gravy, fried chicken , and cornbread! I can't wait to try the rest of the recipes. This book is a great gift to those missing home cooking!

Rating:
Summary: I think I love him
Review: Who is Jack Butler?

Author of several books and even some poetry, Jack is a Mississippi born man with a love of Southern food. He's the guy who can sit at a table, gullet stuffed with food and still think about what to have for breakfast tomorrow (a man after my own heart). He doesn't use recipes. Not that he's against these chefs who "measure to the millimeter and time to the split second...more power to them. It's just not what I do, and it's not what this book is about....I'm a cook, not a chef. And besides, food is too wonderful for absolute rules". Amen to that, brother.

"Jack's Skillet" is full of delicious recipes from Jack's experience using his favorite kitchen tool- the black iron skillet. Jack explains what to look for in a skillet (actually, he prefers buying his at flea markets, since they're used and already seasoned, not to mention cheaper)and what to avoid (pass on skillets that feel lighter than they should-unless you're Paul Bunyan, you shouldn't be able to hold a good 12" skillet upright with one hand). Along with these crowd pleasing dishes come stories of Jack's life that revolve around cooking, beginning with his Mother's tomato gravy and biscuits (he finally learned to cook this when he and his new bride were broke as a joke and couldn't afford to eat meat). Jack's motto: "What can you make in a black iron skillet? What CAN'T you make in a black iron skillet?"

From seafood to chili, and apple pie to strawberry shortcake, Jack will convince you to reject Teflon ("We don't talk Teflon in polite company", he says)and use only the iron skillet. Think about it: why are you so tempted by those skillet meals at restaurants? Because they taste so bloody good! Once you properly season a skillet, the memories of thousands of dinners and dishes become infused into your current meals.

What really makes this cook's book delightful is Butler's humorous writing, which does for the Southern landscape what Garrison Keillor did for the midwest. A thoroughly delightful book inside and out. Don't hesitate- you won't be disappointed with this one. It also makes a great gift for experienced cooks, or those wanting a place to start.