| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
Tom Chaney: review of The Way to Cook by Julia Child A warning: This review will make one hungry for Country Ham, make one pine for Sulphur Well, and hungry for home cooking - almost a religion in North Metcalfe County, KY. It's about Calvin Trillin and Tom Chaney's aunt Daisy and the Napoleon Hill of Cooking, Julia Child and the bible of preparing food, The Way to Cook. First published in Hart County News-Herald 6 November 2005. The next earlier Tom Chaney column, New Year's Resolution and the Myth of Eden By Tom Chaney The Way to Cook A new preacher came to a small rural church and was visiting his new parishioners. He arrived at the house of a young couple with a small boy. After talking with the family, the minister asked if it would be permissible to read a passage from the Bible. The family agreed and the minister asked that they provide the Bible. "Son," the father said. "Go get that book yore Mammy loves so well." The little boy's eyes lit up; he rushed from the room and returned with a Sears and Roebuck catalog. The preacher was taken aback and the mother blushed. Were I to be asked for the book I love so well, it would have to be a cook book, and the book would be Julia Child's The Way to Cook. Published in 1989, it cost me thirty bucks. I've got my money back in pleasure time after time. A good cook book is fine reading if one never makes a dish. This one is superb on both counts. I had occasion to deal with Mrs. Child a dozen years before the book was published. Calvin Trillin writes an occasional food column for The New Yorker. I had met Trillin when I worked for a newspaper in northern Kentucky in the mid 1970's. He was in the territory to do a story on a northern Kentucky mayor. A friend of mine had known him before and knew of his search for excellent fried chicken. Bert invited Trillin to have dinner with my house mate and me, and then told me they were coming. I fixed my usual superior fried chicken and opened a quart jar of Aunt Daisie Carter's green beans. He thought the chicken was good, but he fell in lust with Aunt Daisie's beans seasoned with bacon grease. Later in the year he called me about coming to Kentucky to do a piece on barbecued mutton. As he put it, he wished "to rescue Kentucky's culinary reputation from the clutches of Colonel Sanders." I agreed to lead him to the best barbecued mutton if he would deign to sample a little country ham first. He came to Horse Cave and Aunt Daisie, my father Boots Chaney, and I took him to Mrs. Porter's in Sulfur Well. He was hooked, although he did turn up his nose a bit at the sulfurous water from the gum. Boots even sold him a J. T. Mitchum ham. Trillin wrote his New Yorker piece in February of 1977. That spring a friend of mine fetched up at a party in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where another guest was Julia Child. She asked my friend, himself a Kentuckian, where she could get an authentic country ham. She had read Trillin and wanted a ham to take to a New Year's party in the south of France. My friend became the broker and Mr. Mitchum provided the ham -- all quite illegally -- and she took it in her luggage to France together with my mother's receipt for its preparation. So, when her cook book was published in 1987, I had to have a copy. A few years later Julia Child was honored at a book signing at The Cook and The Book celebration in Philadelphia. She was the guest of honor for her contribution to American cooking. Those folks were selling spanking new copies of The Way to Cook. Of course I showed up with my by then well-thumbed copy for her to sign. She spoke delightedly of the ham. I could fill page after page singing the praise of The Way to Cook. It is the epitome of clarity and good sense. Mrs. Child organized the book around methods of preparation rather than by types of food, showing clearly how one method of cooking beef for example may be transferred to pork or lamb. Her soups are marvels of flavor and ease of preparation. She explains how to boil eggs flawlessly and how to store ready-cooked poached eggs in the refrigerator. Her mustard/garlic sauce works as well for fish or chicken as it does for the lamb for which it was designed. It is the perfect all-purpose cook book gift for a bride or the experienced cook. And it works just fine for bedside reading. As Mrs. Child wrote on the half title page of my copy, "Bon Appetite!" Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, planning his next meal, and occasionally selling books at THE BOOKSTORE Box 73/111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749 270-786-3084 Email: Tom Chaney http://www.alibris.com/stores/horscave This story was posted on 2012-01-08 07:49:52
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books:
Tom Chaney: No R743: New Year resolutions and myth of Eden Tom Chaney: No R742: Christmas Violence Tom Chaney: A Carol for Christmas Tom Chaney: Faith and Politics Tom Chaney R739: The Pleasures of Biography Tom Chaney R738: Essay, Seize the Day Tom Chaney, a Cumberland Co., KY, Thanksgiving Story Tom Chaney R737: Resurrection Man Tom Chaney: R736: Thinking about Christmas Tom Chaney: No. R735. John Grisham - creative imagination View even more articles in topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
