More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen

More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin

Nonfiction

2021 Harper Perennial (originally published in 1993)

Finished on November 24, 2022

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Following the success of Home Cooking, Laurie Colwin returned to the kitchen to cook up this delightful mix of culinary recipes, advice, and personal anecdotes. With down-to-earth charm and wit, she discussed the many pleasures and problems of cooking at home, including such topics as “Desserts that Quiver,” “The Duck Dilemma,” “Real Food for Tots,” “Turkey Angst,” and “Catering on One Dollar a Head.” As informative as it is entertaining, More Home Cooking is a rare treat for Colwin’s many fans and for anyone who loves to spend time in the kitchen. 

This 2021 edition features a new cover by Olivia McGiff and a foreword by Deb Perelman.

It's been almost exactly twelve years since I read Home Cooking, Laurie Colwin's first nonfiction book about just that, home cooking. I loved that book, as shown by my lengthy review. More Home Cooking was published posthumously; Colwin died in 1992 of an aortic aneurysm. She was 48. 

More Home Cooking is about food, as well as the author's glance back on her family life. I enjoyed her anecdotes, and marked a few recipes for future possibilities, but I didn't love this book as much as I loved Home Cooking. Perhaps having just read two fantastic books (These Precious Days and House Lessons), I set the bar too high, expecting another 5-star read. Or maybe my recent lack of enthusiasm for cooking colored my response to the writing. I was entertained, but this one didn't resonate as much as her previous work. 

On Roast Chicken:

There is nothing like roast chicken. It is helpful and agreeable, the perfect dish no matter what the circumstances. Elegant or homey, a dish for a dinner party or a family supper, it will not let you down. 

On Shortbread:

After you have been a very good person for a very long time and are thin as a bean, you may decide to fall briefly into sin. You will want something simple and elegant that cannot be made without butter. There is only one thing that will do: shortbread.

On Coffee:

Not a day goes by that we are not given a list of things that are bad for us. These lists, which always mention coffee right away, are usually published in the health column of the daily paper, which we read as we drink our morning coffee.

I have gone without coffee. I did not get the jitters or begin to drool. Nor did I lose my memory or regain lost energy. I simply missed that wonderful taste, that sweet, pungent smell, that warm feeling in my chest.

Turns out that all the recipes I marked are desserts! 

Old-Fashioned Gingerbread (page 66)

Katharine Hepburn's Brownies (page 73)

Classic Shortbread (page 97)

Karen Edward's Version of Buttermilk Cocoa Cake (page 157)

I'll let you know how they turn out and if there are any keepers.