COOKBOOKS

So I made my way over to the Barnes & Nobles and found this collection of cookbooks.

I was definitely craving sweets that day so staring at the top shelf was whirling me into a candyland I couldn't get to. So, yeah... that was a bummer. I thought the shelf right below was funny. It was just such a drastic change. Delightful&sweet to MEAT and STEW.

And there were books where people had already made a name for themselves in the culinary world so they were using their famous name to attract people to buy their cookbook. They didn't put up a picture of a delicious dish on the cover of their books; rather, their favorite picture of themselves.

The first book I decided to analyze was Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove Cookbook. I think its intended audience is anyone who loves to bake homestyle delights or anyone who wants to bake like a grandma. The cover reminded me of Hansel and Gretel.

This quote,“I believe that food is central to the important relationships in our lives, and a good dinner sustains us in more than the obvious ways. Preparing and serving a meal is probably the ultimate expression of hospitality and friendship, comfor and love”, tells me this cookbook is for someone who’s looking to make people content and happy with food. Its welcoming, cute, and warmhearted colors and pictures that make you feel like you’re right at home contributes to its central theme of openness and bringing people together around the dinner table with food. It presents a theme of famiy-style, traditional cooking very well while giving you a cottage, 'back to the country' comfort feel.

The Cookbook is very well organized. Its broken up into 9 sections: Breakfast, Lunch, Tea, Appetizers, Dinner, Dessert, Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and these are color coded as well. It's easy to flip through and its organization makes it great for giving ideas as to what to cook for a certain meal. The visual component of the book is very warm and inviting. This book really makes me wish I had one of those grandmas who baked! Haha. The pictures are large, the pages are colorful, and she even inserts small little cursive notes about confessio’n, tips, or just amusing little notes i.e. “ I’m here to tell you real men do eat quiche. Just ask Ben.

The next book was Great Fast Food.

This book definitely had a different feel from the previous one. It seems like it’s more for a working parent who wants to cook and make home made meals and avoid the freezer dinner but needs to be able to make the meals in a short amount of time. Or maybe just for anyone who wants an easy, quick cook. It's all about Convenience.It also gave me a very “down to business” feel.

I mean, look at its contents pictures.Theme: Fast cooking, getting the meal done. Being efficient. Its organiaztion isn't as nice as the one prior. Its contents are divided into seasons: Spring, summer, Fall, and winter. I find this to be sort of an odd way to organize the dishes because for example, how was I suppose to be so certain to find the recipe for Baked Ravioli under Winter. But the overall organization of the book is very neat. It’s actually a bit bland but it makes sense because someone who wants a fast recipe would want a book that gets straight to point and lacks any nugatory décor around the page. The visual component of the book is very basic and consistent. Even the items in the pictures are consistently arranged in the same way.

-Zulaikha