True Women Cookbook: Original Antique Recipes, Photographs, & Family Folklore

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Summary: Recipes You Can Count On
Review: I have tried a number of these recipes. They actually work and will add a spark to your next dinner party.

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Summary: Wonderful flavor of old Texas
Review: This wonderful volume is not so much a cookbook as a reader's companion. And it's perfect for those who loved Janice Woods Windle's historical novel True Women, or who saw the miniseries and want another helping. The recipes from her Texas ancestors are just the icing on the cake. The tastiest stuff here is more of the fixings from her famous first novel. Windle takes us back to the small-town home where she grew up, the home of her great-grandmother "Miss Betty" King. Like someone showing you around her own home, she points out her favorite places and things, fondly recalling family members and friends whose lives touched hers. Their lives touched ours too, of course, if you read True Women with the fascination I did. It was a pleasure meeting these vivid characters again, and seeing their homes and playhouses and burial places, as well as the trees, the churches, the events, that marked their lives. And most of all, the people. Who wouldn't want another session or two with Idella, the ageless fortune teller of African ancestry and uncanny gifts? I learned about Idella's information-gathering techniques, and smiled; I marveled at her unexplainable prophecies, and shivered. Windle tells us how she got an idea for a cookbook of family recipes, and how it grew to be a bestselling novel and a CBS miniseries, bringing her allotted 15 minutes of fame. Her cookbook takes us back to where it all began, with a recipe for Lemon Jelly Cake at Miss Betty's dining room table.