Dinah Shore American Kitchen, The: Homestyle Cooking with Flair

Encompassing a wide range of ethnic and regional specialties, this compendium of more that 250 recipes that represent the best in American home cooking, in a collection that features anecdotes and commentary on each dish

It's difficult to tell what's particularly American or "homestyle" about these recipes from the television personality from Tennessee--unless, of course, the combination of adjectives is a code for "amateur." In lieu of outlining Shore's approach to food, cooking or entertaining, the introduction concentrates, rather oddly, on the weight that the celebrity and her friends gained while devising the recipes that follow. An incoherently eclectic smorgasbord, the fare here includes dishes that nod blithely at many ethnic cuisines without scrupling over authenticity (chicken breasts with kielbasa a la Cordon Bleu; a dip featuring canned artichoke hearts and jalapenos; shrimp prepared with vodka, ginger, scallion, soy sauce and peanut oil). The desserts, however, feature an array of quintessentially hospitable Southern pies (buttermilk, chess, sweet potato-praline) and sweets. And cooks whose idols are in the entertainment industry, not the kitchen, will certainly lap up Shore's goodnatured name-dropping: "Barbara and Frank Sinatra were coming to dinner. . . . Try the meal Shore served them to the tune of 'Come Fly with Me.' " Photos not seen by PW. First serial to the Star, second serial to the National Inquirer.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.