Paula Deen Celebrates!: Best Dishes and Best Wishes for the Best Times of Your Life

Had to throw this away, it reeked of cigarette smoke.

Although this book shares a lot of the same recipes as Paula's last book, "Paula Deen and Friends," I bought it anyway because this one covers holidays and special occasions. Ever wanted to have a party like Cinco De Mayo, but had no idea what to serve besides chips and salsa? Then this is the perfect cookbook for you. Lots of new ideas and old favorites. As always, Paula's recipes are simple and easy to understand, and just as easy to prepare. She is a cook that everyday Americans can relate to who uses ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry at home. This cookbook is a must have for the home entertainer!

If you love Paula, you will love this cookbook. Many of these recipes I have seen on her show; however, her book has a lot of stories that go with the recipes...it is a good book to read. The recipes are easy and are prepared with everyday ingredients.

Just in time for the holidays, I got this book. I love Paula Deen's show and her cookbooks always have amazingly simple dishes to prepare. The author's personal stories and remembrances are what really made this book for me. As a girl from the south, these recipes are like things your Mammaw and Mama used to cook up for the family for a special occasion. These recipes aren't necessarily things that you would eat in your everyday meals; they're for celebrations. If you're looking for a Southerner to eat tofu and bean sprouts for Thanksgiving, you've got it all wrong and would do better with buying another book. I prefer my tofu marinated in soy sauce and stir fried with pea pods and broccoli, but I'd rather have a turkey and all the trimmins for Thanksgiving. The recipe book, and I hesitate to call it that because it's more of an entertaining book, has wonderful meal planning recipes and ideas for celebrating with your family & friends. Although I'd have loved more entertaining ideas, maybe next time, Paula?

`Paula Deen Celebrates', by Food Network star and home cooking matron, with assistance from "Savannah Magazine" columnist, Martha Nesbit expands Ms. Deen's franchisee in a most logical and expected manner, by being a collection of recipes appropriate to twenty-one (21) favorite occasions to celebrate with food. Among all the various different cookbook styles, the special occasion menu book seems to be the one most useful for the largest number of people next to your basic encyclopedic reference cookbook such as `The Joy of Cooking' and `James Beard's American Cookery'. And, Ms. Paula has, to my lights, done a better than average job at providing both an excellent selection of occasions and recipes for those occasions. Her rather idiosyncratic selection of events is: New Years' Eve Brunch New Years' Day Good Luck Meal Elvis's (sic) Birthday Valentine's Day President's Day Big Easy Mardi Gras My Wedding Anniversary St. Patrick's Day Easter Dinner An Easter Egg Hunt May Day Pink and White Party Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Mother's Day Tea Graduation Potato Bar Father's Day Boating Picnic Fourth of July Outdoor Grill and Low-Country Boil Movie Watching Pizza Party in Bed Thanksgiving Sunday Afternoon Football Party Homemade Christmas Gifts Christmas Dinner One thing that immediately strikes me about the choice of recipes is the emphasis on coordinating food colors and personal traditions, to the total disregard of seasonal availability. For example, for the New Year's Eve Brunch, one dish requires fresh tomatoes and another requires fresh blueberries, both of which are out of season in late December. That's not to say they are unavailable, it's just that they are expensive and not at their best, but price be darned! Paula will have her traditional favorites, come heck or high water. Paula's recipes are written in exactly the same way you have come to expect from her earlier books, with just enough information for a knowledgeable amateur cook. That means a total novice may now and then be at a bit of a loss, as when Paula gives instructions for butterflying a beef tenderloin. A teaching cookbook would include a series of diagrams on how to do it. A teaching book by someone like Jacques Pepin would include additional instructions to get the greatest possible area of meat exposed to the rub being applied to the meat. Similarly, a recipe for shrimp and lobster bisque, done by someone like Jasper White (of '50 Chowders' fame) may take three for four pages and start with some live lobsters rather than steamed lobster tails. But then, Paula's recipes here, just as her endearing presentations on her show imbue the auditor with a great sense of confidence that `you too can cook a great homemade meal to entertain your family'. There is no question that these recipes and menus will appeal most to natives of the southeastern United States, from Virginia to Georgia to Mississippi, to Kentucky, but there is nothing that will turn anyone else off of the recipes. Th