southerncooker's Profile

From: Boomer, NC USA

Joined: January 3rd, 2010

About me: I collect cookbooks and love to cook and try new recipes. I tested recipes for Leite's Culinaria for almost eight years. I learned to cook from many good southern cooks including my Mom, Dad, several Aunts and my Grandmothers. My children and husband also like to cook and try new foods and recipes. My son still lives with us but our daughter is married. She often visits to cook with me. We are adventuresome eaters willing to try new things.


Latest review:

November 19th, 2018

Bourbon Roasted Pork Loin from Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook

This was delicious. I know she says in the book not to use the good bourbon but all I had was Woodford Reserve so that's what I used. I marinated for about 8 hours in fridge. Loved the apples and onions... read more >


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southerncooker's Reviews


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Cookbook Reviews

Paula Deen's The Deen Family Cookbook

By Paula Deen, Melissa Clark
Simon & Schuster - 2009

April 28th, 2010

This is a fun book with lots of color photos of the recipes as well as of Paula and her various family members. There is a great family photo on the back of the dust jacket. Of course there are recipes from Paula but also, her husband, Michael, his children and brother, her son's Jamie and Bobby and Jamie's wife, her Aunt Peggy, brother Bubba and his children, her cousin, Johnnie and several others as well as her friend, Katie Lee.

Each recipe includes a brief story of who the recipe is from and a little something about why it's a family favorite. This is a fun book to read as well as cook from. Many recipes are what you would expect from Paula with a few surprises. If you're a fan of Paula, love southern cooking, want to learn more about how her family really eats or want to get a peak into her family life, then this is the book for you.

For the most part recipes are either all on one page on continued on a facing page. There are a couple exceptions to this rule and you have to do a bit of page turning on a few recipes. Type is black ink with the recipe name and ingredient list in a green color.

I read this one from cover to cover when it arrived by way of a paperback swap friend. Then I marked several recipes to try and finally made the first one a couple weeks ago.