How to Boil an Egg

Yesterday I started reading "How to Boil An Egg" by Jan Arkless. In the Introduction Arkless states she originally wrote this book for her son when he left home for college. Later on that page she wrote, "Also, fresh fruit or milk is far better for you than soft drinks or alcohol." When I saw that sentence I just knew this book had been written by a mother. Arkless made this book to be a basic self-book aimed at singles who know nothing or very little about cooking and meal planning. In addition to instructions on how to boil an egg she tells you how to fix eggs in other ways--frying, poaching, scrambling and how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. The author writes well and I found it fun to read through her book. I think I will fix her recipe for Murphy's Eggs tonight for dinner. I am pleased with the book and happy I got it but I must admit I am a little bit disappointed with it also. On the cover the subtitle promises, "...and 156 other simple recipes for one." But so many of the recipes are similiar--like the one recipe repeated over and over with slight variations. For instance she put in four recipes for Welsh Rarebit. I wish that the first time she had put in the recipe she had added a note at the end saying, "When making this dish you could ..." Also within the book there is an awful lot of white space. There is one recipe per page and up to a point that makes sense, but not when the recipes are very short. Her recipe for poaching an egg is on one page and frying one is on the next page. She has a large section on vegetables and each vegetable is given a separate page even when the text has only three or four lines. Instead of the 240 pages this same book could easily been issued with 150 pages without making the book harder to read. If she had combined some of the recipes or put more text on a page she could have filled the space with more recipes. The dessert section is especially skimpy and in my way of thinking that is a major shortcome! In her "Snacks and Savories" section she has a page devoted to pizza but she tells how to add to commercial pizza. But making a pizza is so easy to do she could have put in a few recipes with some of the space she saved. This book is good and I do not know if I really can blame the author or the publisher for its shortcomings. I think it is possible Arkless wanted to put out a book with more recipes but the publishers convinced her to hold back material for a second book. And if next year I see an advertisement for "More How To Boil An Egg..." I will know what happened. But I think I will blame her son for not stopping his mother from putting in the line about milk and fruits drinks being better for you than alcohol.