How to Eat Your Restaurant Favorites without Leaving Your Kitchen

March 3, 2011 - PRLog -- Community Cookbooks Have More Recipes than Your Momma

  Everyone loves a good meal.  A wonderful crème sauce, fish prepared until flakey and buttery, or a culinary creation that makes you wonder how all the favors exist together. Restaurants, hurt by the economy, have seen customers returning but with an eye on the cost of dining out.  Take-out service has seen a rise as customers want to save the cost of drinks or tip. It is enticing to have the restaurant kitchen as your kitchen; but in these times people are finding ways to have the restaurant experience at home.

  This desire to have the restaurant experience at home has seen an increase in cookbook sales. People are not just cooking more but finding a way to cook on the restaurant level without the chef training.  These home chefs are finding assistance in locally produced cookbooks; often classified as community cookbooks as they capture the feel, culture and taste of a community. A community cookbook captures a region’s food heritage with recipes that have won the most blue ribbons at the fair because of that community’s chef with the popular restaurant that has created new variations on local favorites. These cookbooks allow home chefs the joy of trying to master recipes from their favorite bistro, restaurant or brassiere, which once mastered they can add their own twist.

  Many communities have great cookbooks that feature signature recipes from the local restaurants and chefs.  Chef John Currence, a James Beard Award Winner, shared the recipe from his restaurant City Grocery’s signature dish Shrimp and Grits in Square Tables.  A cookbook that captures the food, art and culture of Oxford, MS.   The book Tables of Content created by the Junior League of Birmingham features Idie and Chris Hastings signature Quail stuffed with bacon cornbread from their restaurant the Hot & Hot Fish Club.

  You can find these cookbooks mentioned here and similar online at The Cookbook Marketplace located at www.frpbooks.com. The best part is that not only do these books help you to cook they support charities in their community from Food Pantry’s, Hospitals, Junior Leagues and the Arts.  How good are the recipes in community cookbooks?   The McIlhenny Company, makers of Tabasco brand pepper sauce, for years sponsored a nation wide contest celebrating the importance of these cookbooks.  The competition was fierce to receive a Tabasco award as the book had to represent the culinary traditions of the area and community to receive an award.  Skip past Julia Child and find the recipes from chefs from great local restaurants in a local cookbook and turn your kitchen into a restaurant quality kitchen.

For more recipes and stories from Square Table Cookbook check out: aroundthesquaretable.blogspot.com or visit www.oxfordarts.com/shop

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The YAC presents high level arts and supports over 20 different various groups. All of this is made possible by the support of individuals and businesses, through memberships and donated funds.