Autumn from the Heart of the Home

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Summary: Experience a New England autumn where ever you are
Review: Branch's latest book "Autumn from the Heart of the Home" is packed with quotes, stories, decorating tips, gift ideas, and, of course, the delicious recipes she is known for. Readers can enjoy appetizers like Indian Shuck Bread with Maple Butter and "football fan tested and approved" Crunchy Chicken. Side dishes like Potatoes Anna with Branch's own special twist is sure to make mouths' water. The Main Dish section includes such delicacies as Braised Lamb Shanks and Lime Salmon. There are also kid-friendly meals like Chicken in Cream Sauce over Happy Rice, Macaroni and Cheese, and Potato Bugs.

Like all of her books, Branch has included a selection of delectable desserts. Fall favorites like Gingerbread Cake and Cranberry Apple Crisp provide homey warmth as the days grow cooler. For those special occasions, readers will want to try the French Éclair Wreath or Toasted Snowballs in Chocolate Sauce. Branch also provides several cookie recipes (the brownies truly are "the best"). "Autumn from the Heart of the Home" also has ideas and recipes for Halloween parties, Thanksgiving gatherings, and fall picnics.

Branch's books just keep getting better and better. Each one motivates me to add special touches to my home and fill my house with friends. By sharing her stories and memories, she inspires me to carry on my family traditions and create new ones with my children. I think this book is my favorite so far. Since moving to California, I miss those New England autumns. Reading "Autumn from the Heart of the Home" was almost like taking a trip back.


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Summary: summer girl embraces autumn....with a little help.
Review: I have to admit, I am a big fan of Susan Branch's books. There is something comforting about cracking open one of her new books and delving in. I don't know if it is the colorful, homey drawings, the short little asides about her family or her traditions, or if it is that the recipes are so easily made and delicious. I just love the books and "Autumn" is no exception.

I am not one that normally gets excited about fall, being a summer lover, but I can't help to love all the rich colors and fantastic recipes. This year I made the sweet potato casserole, which includes sherry and walnuts, and it is a favorite for our Thanksgiving celebration.

I have tagged the pages of recipes I want to try, and, well, let's just say it will take me a while to get through them all, from simple ideas, to more labor intensive recipes. Her recipes are simple, with ingredients that you know, and will find in your pantry more often than not. It is the kind of book that you will cook from often, like recipes that your mom has handed down to you for just good old home cooking.

I also loved the small section on halloween, and especially the halloween punch, with the highlight being the ice hands that you make by cleaning a latex glove, and pushing stemless cherries in the fingers and filling with water and freezing....make two she suggests, so that when one melts you have a new hand to throw in the punchbowl.

If you are a fan of Susan's or would just really enjoy a beautifully put together book, with quotes, colors and wonderful recipes, this is for you.



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Summary: Supercalifragilistic
Review: This has to be the best of all from Susan Branch -- how she keeps her work so fresh and interesting is absolutly amazing plus
she has the best recipes you can find in any book -- I get her annual newsletter "Willard" and in it she says she tests all that she includes --and I believe it. That shows me how hard she works and how much she cares ... She let us all know AUTUMN would be coming out in her letter and I was one of the first in line to get it -- and could not lay it down until I had read it cover to cover -- It`s that interesting! --and the artwork is--
-- a work of ART ! Facinating ! I cant wait for October to get here so I can make that Gingerbread Cake for Halloween . My daughter says,"when she grows up she wants to BE Susan Branch!"
This is a smart kid ...and Thank You Susan , You Made Our Day !

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Summary: If you like Autumn, you'll LOVE this book!
Review: This is the perfect book for celebrating all the joys of Autumn - cozy recipes, decorating tips, memory-provoking stories, and ideas for all-out Autumnal merrymaking! Get this book, put on your coziest sweater, make yourself a cup of tea or cocoa, light a little candle or the fireplace, and dive into the beautiful pages. Then, tomorrow, dive into a pile of leaves!

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Summary: Evocation of the Season in New England. Not just a cookbook
Review: `Autumn' by Susan Branch at first appeared to me in its Amazon listing under newly published cookbooks to be simply a cookbook of dishes appropriate to Autumn produce. As you in the know about Susan Branch's series of `Heart of the Home' books chuckle over my misunderstanding, I have to shift gears and change the criteria by which I judge the book, as it is not intended to be only an Autumn produce cookbook, and at almost $30 list price, it is not worth the money as simply a seasonal cookbook.

For those of you who are like me and are encountering Susan Branch's series of books for the first time, this is the twelfth book in a `From the Heart of the Home' series which provide at least three things.

First, the books are cookbooks in that they contain recipes appropriate to the season or holiday theme of the book. This full priced book contains only about 100 recipes, of which at least a third are very well known garnishes, drinks, cookies, dressings, and sauces. For 60 more recipes at 2/3 the list price, you can get the Food Network cookbook with a full serving of new recipes from around the world. Also, for 2/3 the price, you can get the full 800 pages of James Beard's American Cookery which, I will bet, contains virtually every recipe in this book, plus an additional 1000 more. On top of these numbers, there is the consideration that the book is `written' and not `typeset'. The pages are literally photocopied, very artistically to be sure, from what looks like handwritten text. The text is probably a computer created script font, but it is still not as easy to read as a conventional New Times Roman in a reasonable font size for reading in the kitchen while you are following the steps in the recipe. When you reach 60, your eyes need all the help they can get, and these recipes are simply not the easiest to read and follow. They are also not written in the form of numbered steps. This makes them even harder to follow and remember where you were after stopping to answer the phone or to check out Emeril's latest dish on the Food Network in the Living Room.

The second aspect of the book is the pages dedicated to Autumn crafts and entertaining techniques. In this department, the book works a little better, but it still does not work as well as some alternate sources of information. You will probably find close to the same amount of fall craft instruction in three issues of `Martha Stewart Living' as you find in these pages. And, the `...Living' editors give us much more detailed instructions on `how to'. Ms. Branch's strength is in demonstrating the efficacy of these suggestions by making them in a context which really succeeds in putting you in the mood to get your 7 closest friends or family members together for a party under the brightly colored leaves on autumn trees. Many of the suggestions on the craft / entertaining idea pages are so simple and so obvious, you wonder how anyone has the chuzpah to charge $30 for a book containing them. Examples are recommendations for using lamps instead of ceiling lights, lining tomatoes up on a windowsill to ripen, and getting a cat or dog.

The third aspect of the book is what in other contexts may be called marginalia. These are brief sayings intended to be relevant to the season, to home, and to the style of the book. Frankly, most of the quotations simply do nothing for me. Quotations from sources I recognize such as Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), Kenneth Grahame (`The Wind in the Willows') and Woody Allan (dozens of films), are nice, like hearing an old favorite song on the car radio. Most of the quotes from unfamiliar sources simply leave me cold. For example, a quote on a page giving suggestions for prepping a guestroom is `Meet Me in Dreamland, Sweet Dreamy Dreamland...' attributed to Beth Sloater Whitson. What is the point? I have seen cookbooks make excellent use of inspirational quotes. For example, the books by Benedictine Monk Brother Victor-Antoine D'Avila-Latourrette have quotes that are not directly related to the recipes, but they have meat on their bones. Most are from Christian writers, yet they have the power of a Zen koan to mystify and reveal at the same time.

After all of this grousing about details, I confess the book comes across as much more than the sum of its parts. If you allow for the fact that it is just a bit pricy for the amount and quality of its contents, it does work as an evocation of autumn in New England. And, the book really is talking about Autumn only as it is realized in New England. But like books on Tuscany, Provence, the Galapagos, and San Francisco, the book is as pleasant to read in a Baltimore row house as it is in a Concord Cape Cod.

The place for this book and its siblings in Ms. Branch's series may be in one of the suggestions she gives about stocking a house, especially the guest bedroom, with classic feel good books such as `Heidi', `Little Women', and `Pollyanna'. I confess I am more inclined to stock up on Stephen King, `Lord of the Rings', `Catcher in the Rye', and Sherlock Holmes.

If you know and like these books, nothing I say will change your mind. If you do not know the books in this series, I would weigh very carefully what it is you want in a cookbook and judge accordingly. Martha Stewart and Sheila Lukins have great cookbooks for seasonal dishes and holidays.