[7ZK]≡ Read Relax It Only Dinner Whether With Family or Company You Can Eat Splendidly Without Losing Your Mind Cheryl Merser 9780684811666 Books

Relax It Only Dinner Whether With Family or Company You Can Eat Splendidly Without Losing Your Mind Cheryl Merser 9780684811666 Books

Download As PDF : Relax It Only Dinner Whether With Family or Company You Can Eat Splendidly Without Losing Your Mind Cheryl Merser 9780684811666 Books

Relax It Only Dinner Whether With Family or Company You Can Eat Splendidly Without Losing Your Mind Cheryl Merser 9780684811666 Books

I bought this cookbook several years ago and highly recommend it. The recipes are delicious and a little bit different from the dinner party standards you're probably familiar with. The book itself is very readable; the directions are user-friendly and detailed and it opens with two well-written essays about grocery shopping and stocking the pantry. Also, Merser cites Peg Bracken (of the "I Hate to Cook Book") as one of her inspirations, which is a sure vote-getter as far as I'm concerned. My only caveat is that, having cooked a few of these recipes, I don't think they're quite as easy as they're made out to be. I imagine the neophyte cook might get a bit flummoxed if trying them out for the first time. Also, the side dishes/accompaniments she recommends can add quite a bit of work time to dinner, although they're very good. My take on the book overall was that the menus as they stand are probably not good weeknight meals without simplifying them at least a bit.

My advice: this book is great for cooking company dinners, but you might want to try out the recipes first for practice before making them for your guests. That said, the menus are not *that* hard and your guests will love what you've made.


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Relax It Only Dinner Whether With Family or Company You Can Eat Splendidly Without Losing Your Mind Cheryl Merser 9780684811666 Books Reviews

Simple, clear recipes with outstanding step by step instructions. Does not assume you know anything about getting around the kitchen. Particularly great for novices.
Although it's from the backfiles, "Relax!" remains a source of refreshing, do-able menu ideas for frazzled cooks. It's also a comforting guide for newbies wanting to move beyond basic standbys. Cheryl Merser's low-key wit lights up all of the 30 detailed menus and other creative mix-and-match additions that turn routine dinners into something special.
Her recipe instructions come across like a good cooking video, with Merser's "voice" there to help with unfamiliar steps. The book's layout also invites readers to add notes in the wide margins. My own copy has every second page dogeared or splattered, with jottings like, "This is great with ..." or, "Keeper sauce -- make and freeze!"

If/when it's reprinted, colour photos would be a great addition. But Merser always describes how to present each dish most effectively, singly or as part of a full dinner.

You can't have my copy of "Relax!" It's on my short shelf of cookbooks I won't lend (along with several others listed in her end notes). But used ones are easy to order online, and if it really has nothing to teach you, someone you know will certainly want it.
I bought this book on the recommendation of a review in The Dallas Morning News. Most of the recipes do not suit my family, however, I did find a few recipes that are now standards at my house. The recipes that stand out for me are tropical salad, summer squash soup, ham salad, and frittata. Just having these recipes is worth the price of the cook book.
Type is printed in half-tone pastel colors, making it hard to read. Many pages are vertically printed with decorative [?] pink, making the text printed across them even harder to decipher.

Font for ingredients is sans-serif, so it's hard to see where a line begins and ends. "Menus" are printed in drop-out white on bright orange.

Lines of type are so wide that you can't read or scan them easily. Page margins are so narrow that type ends/begins within ½ inch of the inner gutter.

The designer could have spared lots of production $$$ by using solid black ink (rather than all these pointless colors). Wasting less blank space would have let readers allow the book to lie flat. As is, you cannot read the crammed-into-the margins recipes without forcing the book open like a butterfly under glass.

So you know who to watch out for--
"Designed by [two extra spaces, for no reason] Bonni Leon Berman".
I bought this cookbook several years ago and highly recommend it. The recipes are delicious and a little bit different from the dinner party standards you're probably familiar with. The book itself is very readable; the directions are user-friendly and detailed and it opens with two well-written essays about grocery shopping and stocking the pantry. Also, Merser cites Peg Bracken (of the "I Hate to Cook Book") as one of her inspirations, which is a sure vote-getter as far as I'm concerned. My only caveat is that, having cooked a few of these recipes, I don't think they're quite as easy as they're made out to be. I imagine the neophyte cook might get a bit flummoxed if trying them out for the first time. Also, the side dishes/accompaniments she recommends can add quite a bit of work time to dinner, although they're very good. My take on the book overall was that the menus as they stand are probably not good weeknight meals without simplifying them at least a bit.

My advice this book is great for cooking company dinners, but you might want to try out the recipes first for practice before making them for your guests. That said, the menus are not *that* hard and your guests will love what you've made.