Cooking Secrets My Mother Never Taught Me

Rating:
Summary: Badly written, tired junk
Review: I picked this book up at the library, thinking if it had valuable information and recipes, I might go buy it.

The author's style is silly and unhelpful. Here's a couple of examples:

- in the Pasta section, she asks the world to "get with the program" and stop expecting people to eat spaghetti neatly on a fork and just let people cut it up like she does for her children. Her premise is it tastes the same, so why not? Millions of Italians (including Italian children) could answer that question.
- in the Kitchen remodel section, instead of being helpful and giving the pros and cons of different kitchen surfaces, she disses granite as being dark (granite comes in different colors) and hard to clean (it's a completely smooth surface) and then goes on to say you can put any hot item on tile or wood surfaces. Good luck to you if you follow this advice. Of course, the joke is that granite is the only surface you can safely put hot items on.
-in the organic versus preservative-treated foods, she airly dismisses any concerns about pesticides and says "I'm not sure it has be grown by a Virgo in a field of poppies to have nutritional value". She tries to backtrack by saying it's your personal choice but her attitude is made loud and clear by her writing she doesn't want to pay "more for a product with a hand-written tag that says somebody in dangly earrings grew this behind her trailer". I don't buy all-organic but I would never be as dismissive as this woman about the dangers of pesticides.

I could go on about her ... recipes and other dumb advice, but let me just say, go buy a Good Housekeeping or Women's Day magazine. It's cheaper, the advice and the recipes are probably better.

Rating:
Summary: Badly written, tired junk
Review: I picked this book up at the library, thinking if it had valuable information and recipes, I might go buy it.

The author's style is silly and unhelpful. Here's a couple of examples:

- in the Pasta section, she asks the world to "get with the program" and stop expecting people to eat spaghetti neatly on a fork and just let people cut it up like she does for her children. Her premise is it tastes the same, so why not? Millions of Italians (including Italian children) could answer that question.
- in the Kitchen remodel section, instead of being helpful and giving the pros and cons of different kitchen surfaces, she disses granite as being dark (granite comes in different colors) and hard to clean (it's a completely smooth surface) and then goes on to say you can put any hot item on tile or wood surfaces. Good luck to you if you follow this advice. Of course, the joke is that granite is the only surface you can safely put hot items on.
-in the organic versus preservative-treated foods, she airly dismisses any concerns about pesticides and says "I'm not sure it has be grown by a Virgo in a field of poppies to have nutritional value". She tries to backtrack by saying it's your personal choice but her attitude is made loud and clear by her writing she doesn't want to pay "more for a product with a hand-written tag that says somebody in dangly earrings grew this behind her trailer". I don't buy all-organic but I would never be as dismissive as this woman about the dangers of pesticides.

I could go on about her ... recipes and other dumb advice, but let me just say, go buy a Good Housekeeping or Women's Day magazine. It's cheaper, the advice and the recipes are probably better.

Rating:
Summary: My apologies to Joni
Review: I really wanted to like this book. Joni Hilton's housekeeping book in the same series was almost life-changing for me, so I had high hopes for the guide to cooking. Unfortunately, Cooking Secrets fails for many of the reasons Housekeeping Secrets succeeds.

I have already written a gushing review of Housekeeping Secrets, and much of the reason why I enjoyed it so much was due to Joni Hilton's personality. Her bossy, no-frills wit turned a housekeeping book into a funny and informative read. Also, that book truly provided the reader with the key to Martha Stewart perfection in their own home. Not only can your house look like Martha Stewart's, but it's a much more attainable goal when the guidelines are voiced by an ordinary mother rather than some immaculate snob sitting on her porch in the Hamptons.

In Cooking Secrets, however, Joni Hilton's strong opinions, eye to thrift and efficiency, and taste for Hometown Buffet style food sink the book. She seems to spend more time complaining about other people's ideas in this book than the other, but rather than being funny it's sort of awkward and embarrassing. The spaghetti ettiquette the former reviewer took issue with comes to mind. She also speaks lovingly about creamed corn, which is scary because I don't think she's that old. The section on kitchen remodel is not only pushy and opinionated, but full of Mrs. Hilton's (sorry) uncultured tastes and inappropriate for this kind of book anyway. Advice like "make sure your hardware matches," "don't hang curtains where they could catch fire," and "don't put in an island that is so huge the refridgerator or oven doors won't open" sound like a list of mistakes she and her husband may have made while playing amateur remodelers. Worst of all, the recipes are unappealing. This isn't supposed to be a recipe book, but after all the scolding and lecturing, a few appetizing recipes would have at least proved that she knew what she was talking about. There is a heavy emphasis on freezing and making use of leftovers, which everybody knows how to do and hates doing, and nobody wants to read about how it's the best way to get meals on the table. The only really interesting advice in the book is on cake decorating, which sounds like a lot of fun. She obviously loves doing it. If only this same spirit of cooking for fun and pleasure could have been applied to the rest of the book, I would be giving her five stars. I understand the Hiltons had many children and many pets, so getting the meals out must have been quite a chore for poor Joni. That's why most great cookbooks are not written by busy housewives with excellent organizational skills, but professional chefs with plenty of help and a constant flow of praise and appreciation for their efforts.

The biggest disappointment about Cooking Secrets is the air of drudgery with little pay off. Although Joni insists again and again that she loves to cook and is a "foodie," I feel like she has been running a virtual cafeteria out of her home and knows the least exhausting way to get it done. That's fine, but Housekeeping Secrets gave me a Martha Stewart house, step by step, complete with checklists and a guide to stain removal. I learned that a sparkling clean house takes hard work but is within reach, and the rewards are great. Sadly, the same methodical and superorganized approach to cooking is not all it takes to produce Martha Stewart meals. Joni apparently knows that, and doesn't even try to teach them. Pass up this guide, and learn how to cook from somebody who enjoys it.