Southern Plate Cookbook Review

After doing a little math in my head (and counting on my fingers), I realized that I've spent more time in the South than any other region during my life. I lived in the suburbs outside of Atlanta from 2 weeks old until I turned 11, then returned for 3 years of college in Tennessee and one year of teaching in Virginia.

That means I was raised on good Southern cooking (and explains my undying love for Chick-fil-A and sweet tea and not the avocados of California). In my case, my preferences for food formed while I lived in the South. That's why I was excited to see Christy Jordan's Southern Plate at our library. She started a website in 2008 with the same name, southernplate.com, that's filled with many of the same Southern recipes and folksy stories.

I liked that the cookbook had a wide array of Southern food, including BBQ sauces, coleslaw, hoecake, corn chowder, caramel corn, and sweet tea. (The secret to keeping tea sweet is to pour the hot water into a pitcher filled with the sugar and some cool water. If you pour hot water right on the sugar, it scorches it and turns the tea bitter.) The recipes make normal-people food created from easy-to-purchase supplies that deliver true comfort. Jordan also includes memories from her childhood in Alabama and a somewhat sugar-coated view of the South.

I was disappointed that she used shortening so much, since I'm trying to cut that completely out of our diet. Her cake recipes are also typically doctored cake mixes. Overall, I enjoyed the cookbook and will be trying out lots of the recipes in the future. If you're looking for some easy southern recipes, this would be a good bet.