Tuesday, March 4, 2014

THE PHONY GOURMET





“Somewhere close behind air and water is the need for food.”
L.J. Martin, Cooking Wild & Wonderful
 
THE PHONY GOURMET

By: Pam Young and Peggy Jones
Genre: Non-fiction, Cookbook

Back years ago when I read S.H.E.written by these two ladies I learned a lot about organization.  I recently wrote a review about that book and decided to look into more books by them. 

While I learned a lot from S.H.E.  I am sad to say I was not overly impressed with “The Phony Gourmet”.  I was hoping for quick fix recipes that weren’t based on already prepared foods like Whoppers from Burger King that you harvest the ingredients out of and throw in a crust. 

Sorry ladies, but if I am going to go to Burger King to get a Whooper I’m going to eat it in its original bread product, not skin it and replace the bread with a crust.  That defeats the entire purpose of going to Burger King in the beginning.

Now if I was still mystery shopping to the point I was getting burgers for free three times a day it might be a recipe I’d consider just for a change in texture, but on a day to day basis.  Nope!

I also didn’t care for their fake cooking hints, like cooking your peelings from your carrots and such in a bundle to make your family think you’ve been cooking.  I don’t know about your households, but that would really cause problems in mine. If my guys smell food, they expect food to eat.

After reading several of the 75 recipes in the book I simply skimmed the rest because quite frankly this was not a cookbook in my estimation.  

In fairness to them though I am pretty much a scratch cook and make a lot of my own mixes as evidenced by my blogs Patterson’s Pantry and Patterson’s Pantry Recipes.  Although I do love a good shortcut recipe on my busy days.   These were not the ones for me.
My overall for this book was a C-.  Sorry ladies.
Jan who is too much a foodie for recipes like what is in this cookbook in OK