Pastry Queen Parties: Entertaining Friends and Family, Texas Style

I love this book! So far I've made the watermelon salad, rustic bread salad, campenacha and curried rice salad. I've brought these things to potlucks and gotten a lot of requests for the recipes. It really is a party cookbook because a lot of the recipes, as written, serve 10-12 people. The Pastry Queen really packs a LOT of flavor into her food. Oprah should hear about her because she's into lots of flavor too. She would love her food. I've gone back and bought her other two books because of "Parties". Thanks Pastry Queen!

How could one not love this beautiful cookbook? It is filled with down-home Texas cooking, over 100 photos, and numerous stories. Pastry Queen Parties, includes not only many delicious recipes, but also tells about some of the long held traditions of the Lone Star state. Ms. Rather also shares cooking tips and hostess secrets. Recipes include: Pineapple Bundt Cake; Vanilla Sand Dollar Cookies; S'mores Cupcakes; Deviled Eggs; Double-dipped Buttermilk Fried Chicken; Gangy's Spoon Bread; Butterscotch Brownies with Brown Sugar Butter Icing. This will easily become one of my favorite cookbooks for party planning.

I have all 3 of the Pastry Queen cookbooks, and have discovered you can rely upon them to be your fall-back recipe for every dish they cover. My whole family loves it when I get a new cookbook of hers, as they know lots of good food will soon follow. Off the top of my head, I know we've had enchiladas, beans and rice from this one, plus the home-made Hostess cupcakes, while looking difficult, were out of this world delicious and easy.

Rather has demonstrated with her other cookbooks that she brings the Southern charm and style to her pastries and other culinary offerings. Here she turns to one of her passions, partying Texas style. A Texas native, she related her desire to do such a book after a lifetime of enjoying Texas partying and her catering biz, etc. So, this wonderful work is organized around the different Texas regions and their partying specialties: e.g. Hill Country, Gulf Coast, Big City, etc. What I find exceptional about this colorful and exciting offering is the writeup on each of these and the absolutely great color photos is one of my favorite things about it. There are so many enticing recipes in this collection, and what is great about them is that one can either mix and match, or go with a theme party as this cookbook is organized around. Those that intrigue me to try include: Roasted Beet Salad with Spicy Pecans and Fresh Chevre; Watermelon Salads with Tequilla-Lime Dressing; Layered Salad in a Jar; Butterscotch Brownies with Brown Sugar Butter Icing; Fiesta Chile Rellenos; Key-Lime Cocunut Cream Cake; Mary's Crayfish Pies; Stuffed Bandera Quail with Pepper Glaze; Sohnne's Mama's Double Decker Blackberry Cobbler. A great Texas addition to one's collection.