The Cracker Kitchen: A Cookbook in Celebration of Cornbread-Fed, Down Home Family Stories and Cuisine

I have quite a selection of "soul" food, "country cooking" and "comfort food" cookbooks and this one rates up high on my list, right along with "Mama Dip's Kitchen" by Mildred Council and "Soul Food: Classic Cusine from the Deep South" by Shelia Ferguson. I have cooked numerous receipes from all and get nothing but compliments on any receipe that I choose to prepare either for family dinner or potluck suppers with friends and family. Living on the Gulf Coast in humid Texas, I have never found a biscuit receipe that worked well at our elevation and with our climate. The "Fundamentalist" Biscuit Receipe donated by the author's own father is so far the best that I have been able to find and prepare.

I attended a dinner party in Florida where all the food served was prepared from recipes using The Cracker Kitchen. The food was delicious! Then I attended a book conference where Janis was on a panel with other writers discussing "food, fun, and friendship." That's exactly what a cookbook should be about--bringing people together for good food, fun, and friendship. This book is a good read AND a good book of recipes--a wonderfully different kind of cookbook!! If you're looking for a new addition to your own recipe collection, this is the book for you. If you're looking for a gift to surprise and delight, this is also the book for you! Linda Busby Parker

this book will make you proud to be a cracker if you are one, or wanting to become an honorary cracker if you aren't. thank you, janis owens, for bringing all us crackers out of the closet and making us proud of our unique and colorful heritage!

I'm a Lowcountry Jew, as alien to the typical New York Jew as a Jewish Cowboy bustin' broncos out West. I'm not a bookworm, but I didn't play football either. I can tell you all about grits, but I didn't know what a bagel was till I went "up North". I talk slow, but I talk a lot. See what I'm getting at here? Who the hell am I? I know now. Janis Owens told me in THE CRACKER KITCHEN. I'm a Jewish Cracker. And everyone in my synagogue down here feels the same way. Why? They're Jewish Crackers too. We read a lot, but we like our grits cooked just the way Ms. Owens and her folks do. And since in our little community THE CRACKER KITCHEN has surpassed even the Old Testament (to say nothing of EXODUS) in popularity, our Oneg Shabbats are so downright mouth-watering and delicious, so divinely inspired by Ms. Owens' recipes, that Hell, even the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Presbyterians are showing up. In THE CRACKER KITCHEN Ms. Owens shows us all two things: who we are, and that the way to a man ( or woman's) heart is through his stomach, Cracker or not, as long as you're using her recipes. Unlike so many books that come out of the South nowadays, Ms. Owens never condescends. She sees our cracker heritage for what it is, and loves us unconditionally. THE CRACKER KITCHEN transcends race, culture and class as Ms. Owens voice-- funny, arresting, disarmingly honest and bold--transcends modern Southern literature. If you don't read this book, consider yourself stupid for life. This from a Jew. This also from a Cracker. Thank you, Ms. Owens. The Cracker Kitchen: A Cookbook in Celebration of Cornbread-Fed, Down Home Family Stories and CuisineThe Cracker Kitchen: A Cookbook in Celebration of Cornbread-Fed, Down Home Family Stories and Cuisine

I have recently procured a copy of this delightful new southern cookbook, and I can already say that on behalf of me and my family, the tasty recipes inside will make you the center of attention at any party or feast. Not to mention that with this cookbook not only do you get recipes for all sorts of courses, occasions, and seasons, but along with them you have funny stories and the author's memories revisited. The Cracker Kitchen makes for a good read as well as a yummy one!