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I love dessert. At my childhood family dinner
table, just after we each
served and passed on the main course, one of us kids (there were four) would
ask, “What’s for d-e-s-s-e-r-t?” Dessert was always spelled out. Correctly. This
must have been in response to a time when one of us shamefully spelled the sweet
finale to a meal with only a single arid “s”: desert. (I don’t remember ever
asking “what’s for d-i-n-n-e-r”, or “diner”. I guess we didn’t care as much.)
Thinking back, once the lasagna, or sloppy joes or other family fare made one
circle around the table, we were “finished” with that part of the meal and
thinking about the real reason for gathering each evening: to eat dessert!
I still love dessert. Heck, I just love sweets: pie, cake, cobbler, ice cream,
fudge and brownies. I’ll eat them all. In one sitting if I have to.
I also love Thursdays at Watermark. Amy always features a sample from our chosen
monthly cookbook. You should have been here the day the café made Almond Coconut
Joy Bars, from The All-American Dessert Book. In one very small bite,
the tasty treat proved how talented Nancy Baggett is at finding the BEST
recipes. (I’m ordering these by the dozen for holiday giving.) Baggett not only
supplies us with incredible recipes, she also gives us the social and culinary
history of desserts in America. Whether because of access to ingredients or
limits of time, we learn how cobbler was invented. Additionally, we learn that a
cobbler can mean different things in different regions. Thankfully, the author
also gives us
the best of the best cobbler recipes, or pie recipes, or Almond Coconut Joy Bar
recipes.
Nancy Baggett has spent three decades writing about and baking sweets. She is
also the author of The All-American Cookie Book. In her travels, she has
determined that “American Desserts offer irrefutable evidence that simple
ingredients handled with wisdom and respect can yield remarkable results!” I
say, "Here, here!"
American innovations that Baggett includes in this mouth-watering volume are:
Indian pudding, invented in New England, dating back to Colonial times; Apple
pandowdy, something like a cobbler, is produced in abundance in the South.
Another Southern invention and the American version of a trifle is banana
pudding. Missouri has the best Black Walnut Ice Cream because of the abundance
of Black Walnuts.
Wherever it comes from, you can count on any recipe you choose from this dessert
book to be scrumptious and worth sitting through a family meal for. You can call
or spell it any way you like, just don’t leave dessert off the menu.
Review by Sarah Bagby, November 24, 2005
October's
Cookbook of the Month was Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, reviewed here:
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/review1005-004.html
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