Chuck Mallory's Blog
August 11, 2025
Slutty, Discount Vacant Vape, and a Crummy House
For your amusement. Since the book isn’t yet released (not till Aug. 20), I can’t tell you too much. But I can show you a little editing.
Recently I edited an ebook with the hilarious title The Meanest Bitch in Bismarck. It’s a romance, believe it or not. The romance tropes that go with it (these categories were a short but interesting learning curve): contemporary, small-town, mom-daughter, blue-collar. I guess there are so many romance novels out there you need these types to find your particular oeuvre. A bit like grocery shopping.
In continuity editing, an editor goes through the manuscript to find things that are not consistent. This can be tough for an author, who “sees” other things when reading the story. And who might have written many drafts and not realized these anomalies poke out. This was the final run-through.
Some manuscript layouts don’t get this last-minute neuroediting. But it’s essential. Somehow, book reviewers can find one tiny inconsistency and write half the review about that. Even if they miss a dozen other good things.
This is my raw list. Explanations follow each item.
Ch 1
Slutty – This word implies Rayann was a whore in high school. Pick something milder.
Discount vacant vape stores – comma key not working? Commas please. You meant 3 types of stores.
Ch 2
neighbor lady has his daughter – look again. Neighbor man?
I suspected her check was welfare – she already said it was welfare earlier in chap, fix this
Ch 3
better off not telling people I knew my own mother – reword, obviously wrong intent
Bakin’ and Eggs – This 1st mention is italics. No other restaurant name does. Kill italics.
Ch 4
pick up after their dogs – just cut the sentence right there. TMI. We get what it consists of.
Ch 5
Jesse never says he OWNS the station; ck but add it “after the gas station came up for sale“
ditched her ten years ago – he doesn’t know it’s Mom yet, just “a relative.” Say I haven’t talked to her in 10 yrs
that crummy house – a couple of crummy houses, there are two
Ch 6 – (these edits don’t appear here because they will be spoilers)
Ch 7
If this was a sign – there are 2 spaces after the a
machine make light noises – 2 spaces in between words here
If yu are thinkin – when did she give Mom her ph #? Does Mom spell it “yu” in all other texts?
Ch 8 – need a page break before chapter heading
hot food – add, at the gas station
That was five men – really? Check back to end of that chapter. Two husbands and two boyfriends?
Emily – I’m sorry I didn’t call back right now – change to “right away”
Ch 9
hadn’t talked to Emily in ten years – but earlier you said “for a couple of years”
West side of town – don’t cap West
Ch 10
The company she worked for – check earlier. Doesn’t Emily own the company?
start a cafe at the gas station – add, and my not being his employee was another monkey wrench in those plans
soft drinks rack – no, it’s a potato chips rack you said 2 chapters earlier
right there during dinner – no, it’s lunch
Someday I will have children and marry – change the line, put marriage first, then children
in a long time – remove the extra period
IF YOU LIKE heading – add that this is a personal note from the author. More people likely to review with the personal touch.
Photo by Jayanth Muppaneni on Unsplash
August 5, 2025
Laura Ingalls and Cousin Lena
When Revisionist History Becomes Useful
Two books almost a hundred years apart. One about Laura Ingalls and one about Lena Forbes. I dare not compare Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books to my Lena book in terms of sales, since the series of books by Laura has sold 73 million copies and my Lena book has sold about 73.
When Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, and all Laura’s books about her life came out, people didn’t ask if the stories were true. They assumed they were. Such was life before Buzzfeed listicles and fodder strewn onto the internet, dancing before your eyes as if it’s news.
Oddly, when Lena, Wild Girl on the Prairie came out, I didn’t expect some questions I got. Some were surprisingly naïve.
–How do you know what happened to Lena day-to-day in 1880?
–How did you find out which restaurant she worked in?
–Is Yankton a real place or did you just make up the name?
In case the answers aren’t obvious, they are:
–I don’t know what happened to anyone in 1880 day to day. Nor would Laura even remember her own life that specifically.
–I know the name of a prominent inn/restaurant that I placed her job in. Lena did work like an adult, even when she was a child, but at the Riverfront Inn? Don’t know.
–Yankton is a real place. I can’t figure out why someone would DM me on that. I could not have written about it without going there. I looked at dozens of old photos and maps of Yankton around 1880 and stood in the downtown, replacing the new stores in my mind, omitting paved roads and automobiles, and visualized it in 1880. It’s one odd skill I have, sort of like having augmented reality abilities in my head.
Some of the Adult Fans Call Themselves ‘Bonnetheads’
Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder books are in two categories, one made up of children, and another of adults, mostly women, who loved the books and/or TV series Little House on the Prairie. There are a few Laura scholars (this really is a thing) sprinkled to and fro, and another challenging comment I get is how dare I name her Lena Forbes when everyone who has read history and background on the Ingalls family and myriad relatives (and they are legion) knows her name was Lena Waldvogel.
Yes, her birth name was Lena Waldvogel. But because her father had shot a man and ended up in prison, and Lena’s mother divorced him and remarried Hiram Forbes, I will be anything that the family started calling Lena and her brother Gene “Forbes” and acting like Mr. Waldvogel never existed. In fact, the 1880 census of Yankton shows the two children named Forbes.
Fictionalizing a life is at least as old as the 1800s. Avid Laura fans in adulthood know this, after the publication of books like Pioneer Girl and Prairie Fires. These books from the past few years blew the lid of the sweet tales we once accepted as biography.
Shocking Secrets of the Ingalls Family!
(Please excuse that subtitle. I’m sadly trying for more traction on getting blog followers.)
Ninety-nine percent of people who have read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and watched the TV series are just fine with the saccharine version they know. But the bunch that wants to know every. single thing. about Laura have discovered more.
An entire little town was left out. Burr Oak, Iowa, was evaporated when Laura and Rose wrote the Little House books, because bad stuff happened there. The authors (yes, Rose helped Laura mightily in writing the books) conveniently shellacked Walnut Grove over that spot. This was because, apparently, Laura and Mary worked in a bar. A man there got so drunk he lit a cigar, and the whisky fumes on his breath ignited him. And a shopkeeper dragged his wife around by the hair. Also, they left town so Pa could skip the rent.
Pa? Not kindly, fair, fiddle-playin’ Pa? In truth, Pa was kind but poor. He moved from place to place when much of the time they could barely eat. They lived with relatives. As scholar Pamela Smith Hill says, “the fictional Pa is more heroic, more noble, and more mythic than the real Charles Ingalls.” And in the looks department he did not compare to Michael Landon, and certainly didn’t yank off his shirt to chop wood so that his muscles could gleam in the sun.
Pa accepted charity. Pa applied for free food. The family did not band together to earn money so that Mary could go to the school for the blind. Charity did it. The books, under the heavy hand of Laura’s daughter Rose Wilder Lane, had to take on a libertarian air. Rose was a big believer in every person should take care of themselves and not beg for assistance—though she asked her mother, Laura, many times for money or loans before the Little House books supported them all.
Laura has somehow been incorporated into fundamentalist Christian America. There are a few mentions of church in the books, primarily around Christmas, and the TV show loaded it on, but even as an adult, Laura and her husband Almanzo never actually joined a church.
The Magically Appearing Nunnery
In Lena, Wild Girl on the Prairie, I wasn’t writing my own story as Laura and Rose were. I even had to create a major falsehood. In my book, there is a crucial element of prejudice against Catholics that required I place the nunnery in Yankton in 1880. It really wasn’t there until 1883. And I had to imagine that, with the extreme poverty Lena’s family lived in, they didn’t move to town. I gave them a shanty outside of town in the country.
And because I didn’t experience prairie life firsthand as Laura did, there were years of rewrites. I can’t list the millions of anachronisms one can find. For instance, it struck me as odd in an early draft when Lena called something “weird.” A touch more research was needed: people didn’t use that word. They called unusual things “queer.”
So the story of Lena sounds so real that people ask me how I “knew” all these things. I didn’t. I just put in years of research and writing into it to get the worldbuilding true, but also to get inside the head of a 14-year-old girl who lived in 1880.
You would think with that done, I’d jump into writing the sequel, Lena in the Hard Winter. It’s happening, but there is more research. This is the same winter as Laura’s The Long Winter, but in a river town where even more tragedy happened than in DeSmet. There’s a lot more thinking, too. It’s hard in 2025 to go back in time mentally 145 years. But also, as any historical fiction writer can tell you, it’s enjoyable to leave the present and go back to a simpler era. Even if that simpler era is not entirely the truth.
May 30, 2025
Achieve Writing Goals Without Writing
My first book. You’ve never heard of it. But I did it.I seldom mention self-help books, because I think too many of us grab that genre as though it’s an anchor and we spend too much time trying to fix ourselves.
Writers especially do this. Only the soupcon of writers who are highly successful—nay, famous—are not included in that category. But even traditionally published authors with decent sales say, “if only my book hit like hers,” or “wonder why his book got so much attention, when mine actually said it better”?
The rest of us schleps know we’ve written till we feel like dry skeletons sitting at a keyboard or plotted so much we’ve forgotten how things work IRL. I often joke, especially when people ask, “Would I know your books?” the same ol’ line: “Most of my career, I’ve clunked around in the bargain basement of publishing.”
This is dishonorable to my self. Sure, it’s a handy get-out-of-this-conversation card when asked a dumb question like “have I heard of you?” That question is akin to telling someone, “Here’s what I’d do if I were you…” If you were me, you’d do exactly as I’m already doing. Because you’d be ME!
This one nonfiction writer, Sue Varma, MD, hit the spot with me. Her book, Practical Optimism, grabbed me with the word “practical.” I’m not into The Secret, see-it-and-be-it visualization magic, and it’s TL;DR for me with great deep thinkers like Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score.
One thing Practical Optimism teaches is looking back at your successes rather than measuring what you didn’t get, a common measuring stick for writers. I believe I have a vast canyon of failures, without thinking about that I once got a job as an assistant to a major literary agent. Sure, I was more of a secretary and only given the slop to read that the agent would never have liked anyway, but I did that.
And I became a literary agent. I sold books. To major publishers. I got a ghostwriting gig in the mid-1990s that paid $60,000. The book was a NYT bestseller and even featured on ABC-TV. I published my first book when I was 30, with a traditional publisher.
Usually when I think of these accomplishments, I season it with, “Oh, I was young and pretty then. It was easy to get up in the world.” I totally discount all the effort and finesse I put in to make those things happen.
Because the reality is, right now I have 37 subscribers to this blog, and I only think of today.
If you’ve been writing for several years, you compare your wishes from back then to the reality that is now. Many of us start out with such bright hope. Then we wither with cynicism and wrinkle with disappointment.
Take time to go back to your accomplishments. You are the same person! Allow your past victories of whatever size to be part of your life now. They’re not gone. Victories never die.
Take whatever you can from your past that helps your current self. Write down those successes and look at them daily. Keep them front of mind, instead of how much money you didn’t make or how many copies you didn’t sell or what you didn’t publish.
And if your following is only 37 readers, like me, smile at that success. I am grateful to that group of people.
May 24, 2025
The Robots Work Quickly
Then Take a Left Turn
Right after my novel Lena, Wild Girl on the Prairie, was released, I went directly to my favorite iPhone app, Perplexity, to see test how quickly and accurately it grabbed the info.
Mind you, most of the time I’m asking Perplexity random questions in a cultural anthropology way, like “Can first cousins marry in any state in the U.S.?” which had the icky answer of yes, in 19. (For you snobs, Arkansas says no and New York says yes.)
Or, I’ll look in my kitchen cabinet and ask the AI app, “What kind of cold lentil salad can I make with onion, carrots, and a savory sauce”?
Bam, there it is. (And it was good.)
Others I’ve tried:
1. Is there a major Mexico news channel on TV that broadcasts in English? (No.)
2. What are the total sales of Laura Ingalls Wilder books? (73 million.)
3. In Ukraine, do they drive on the left side of the road? (No, the right.)
4. What are Martha Stewart’s funeral plans? (None found.)
5. In most people’s opinions, what are the greatest opening acts at the Oscars? (Hugh Jackman, 2009; Billy Crystal, 1992; Whoopi Goldberg (2002), Neil Patrick Harris (2015).
You can see in the last question how this is info is perfect for YouTube use.
As for Perplexity’s results on my own just-released book (please let me promote this one more time: Lena, Wild Girl on the Prairie), I expected some real errors. My book was not famous, I was thinking that first day, likely has sold 3 copies, and is available only through Amazon. Almost all results when searching my historical niche are Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Laura Laura Laura Laura. (Enough of Laura: Lena was tough, smart-alecky, and could easily hold her own in today’s times.)
The results are astounding. I will just let Perplexity speak for itself.
Wow!
Some of this was clearly from the Amazon description, but it’s kind of startling how AI picked up nuances that no human would–at least that quickly.
I’ll accept this, but AI slipped a bit on the last sentence. Laura’s books really didn’t go much into Lena. She was just a tool to further Laura’s story, transitioning Laura from a child to a young teen.
Very good, AI–except when you get a divorce you ARE then single. What AI had picked up, but not explained, was that Docia appeared in the first of Laura’s books, Little House in the Big Woods, as a never-married young woman. This was so the author could hide the fact that Docia was divorced (her first husband went to prison for murder) and also had two young children, including Lena, while living with her parents.
It seems to be picking up some info from the book Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, the controversial 2014 book comprised of Laura’s original manuscript on which her books were based. Many red-hot details were left out of the “Little House” books, like when Laura worked in a bar and a man there caught himself on fire. And when the family slipped out of town because Pa couldn’t pay the rent.
In this app, and in some other AI apps, it suggests follow-up questions. Most of these are an if-you-want-to-know-more situation, which I seldom do. Sometimes it changes the subject slightly, if there is no answer out there, like on the Martha Stewart question.
Yes, I realize that asking about Martha Stewart’s funeral plans sounds kind of cruel, but inquiring minds want to know. Will there be a grand procession of the world’s greatest chefs, or thousands of scholarships handed out to aspiring women entrepreneurs? Will every attendee get a goodie bag that includes Martha Wrap, the greatest kitchen product ever invented? (I wish I had bought 100 rolls when it was still available.)
In my case, though, AI veered onto more famous writers and other, bigger characters named Lena:
Oh well, at least Lorraine Hansberry is good company.
May 10, 2025
This is Just Awesome
#1 on Amazon New Releases in its category
Wow!
After a lot of hard work, I am *really* grateful readers are finding this book and getting it. I had no real idea how this book would do!
If you’re curious, here’s the Amazon link: https://a.co/d/9ysxKg7
May 8, 2025
Understanding Lena Forbes: The Real Story Behind Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Cousin
Lena Forbes was on my mind for longer than seven years. Sure, that’s the time period when I seriously started researching her and writing about her. There was an enjoyable part, learning more about the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder oeuvre. The first step, since I’d read the Laura books and the many nonfiction books about her, was attending Pioneer Girl Perspectives, the 2017 conference from the State Historical Society of South Dakota. Such great, intelligent talks. Such nice people.
I’ll never forget the talk by Ann Romines, a funny, smart, self-realized woman who said of the Ingalls family: “Think about it: four girls and a woman in one cabin, and through all those books, not a single word about menstruation.”
That event wasn’t like Laurapalooza (yes, there really is such), where it was more about fandom. I did like talks at the 2017 Laurapalooza from Barb Mayes Boustead and Caroline Fraser–thoughtful, intelligent researchers who told much about the environment surrounding the Ingalls family. But after I saw “Prairie Barbie” at the silent auction, I headed to the bar for a glass of booze.
It’s very difficult to put yourself inside the head of someone and try to write their story as they would have written it. It was easier for Laura Ingalls Wilder. She knew it firsthand, and her daughter/ghostwriter Rose knew how to catch the rhythm of her own mother’s world.
So that’s why it took seven years to research and write. Most of it was writing. I’d start it, stop it, write it, rewrite it, put it away, bring it back out, start over with a new plot, change that plot, and go on and on and on. Finally in the grueling boredom of 2020 did I make major headway. And I wrote three other novels that year. Still, it took until 2025 for it to see the light of day.
I hope my readers like Lena. She was a real person and is alive again in a novel. Her toughness is so compelling in these times. What I dislike most is when people dismiss Lena as “another Laura.” Lena did not have sweet, fiddlin’ Pa, nor Ma in the kitchen making vanity cakes for her lovely little girls. Lena had it tough, and she still made it.
Every writer knows that story, because they’ve lived it. Sure, we all “make it” in different ways. But doing the writing itself is the victory of the soul.
April 10, 2025
Lena Finally Comes to Life
After 8 years of research and lots of writing, Lena, Wild Girl on the Prairie finally arrives May 1 on Amazon, available for Kindle and in paperback.
Lena was the first cousin of Laura Ingalls Wilder who rode the black ponies with her in Laura’s book “By the Shores of Silver Lake.” People are forever telling me they don’t remember Lena in the TV series.
She wasn’t there. The TV series went wildly off course in relation to the books. For instance, Mr. Edwards never had a pet chimp, and there was no brother Albert who got hooked on heroin.
I was inspired to go ahead with my idea to write about Lena’s life when I read this line in a book called The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure, a funny adventure of Wendy exploring her Laura fandom:
Out of everyone in the [Little House] books, Lena was the character I wanted to be the most…I always sensed that Lena was not from Laura World but another girl protagonist visiting from an epic story of her own, and perhaps even wilder, most tempestuous and windswept….Lena has a foreverness to her, too…she was as free as those black ponies.
After Silver Lake, Lena moved with her family, and six months later, they were in Yankton, SD. Lena didn’t have the happy-home sweet prairie life of Laura. At 14, she had to work to support the family, take care of young siblings and deal with a stepfather who once tried to sell her. When he threatened to hit her, she told him that if he did, she’d hit him back.
Here’s a writer typical submission story you’ll love: when I contacted South Dakota State Historical Society Press for the third time about this manuscript, asking if they had decided (after 7 months of having the manuscript), the editor told me they “were still busy” and “still hadn’t had time to read it yet.” That, for a publication date of 2027.
And this is why I left traditional publishing. Lena’s story needs to be told. I’m not waiting.
There’s a Laurapalooza event this summer, and I could go there and promote it, but I shan’t. Long story there.
If you are interested in preordering, (a) you are my new best friend; and (b) here is the link: https://a.co/d/5lzWFxn
March 22, 2025
No Longer Perplexed
Yet Another AI Story
As a writer who publishes on Amazon KDP, I’m careful not to use AI in writing or cover art. They have a rule against it, and while I suspect some use it, it’s unwise. If you lose your Amazon KDP privileges you have lost a major channel to publish.
But one can ask general questions of AI and even do research. Once you use great AI, it knocks search engines out of the water. There are no “sponsored” results or jimmied answers from SEOxperts.
I started using the Perplexity app on my phone (it seems to be free) and it’s sharp. I tried a bunch. I mean it: the best.
Here are some of the questions I’ve asked it recently. Questions like these do not get good results on search engines:
1. Which did fans like better, Kill Bill 1 or 2?
Typical search engine response: “Watch this here on streaming!” and images of currency.
2. What are universal problems affecting teenagers in all human eras?
Typical search engine response: “Best acne medicines” and “new warnings about teens and social media.”
3. Does North Carolina have a state tax on groceries?
Typical search engine response: Food Lion! Ingles! Harris Teeter! Publix! and images of food.
4. Is there a household stove that is an electric oven with a gas stovetop?
Typical search engine response: ads for stoves at Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and their websites.
5. What is the best and least intrusive free job-search website?
Typical search engine response: about the same! Indeed and LinkedIn. (Any writer can tell you they sometimes look for part-time work.)
6. If you have a metal roof on your house are you better protected from a falling tree?
Typical search engine response: where to buy metal roofs. (It’s been very windy in western North Carolina lately, and after Hurricane Helene, we’ve had our fill of danger.)
You don’t have to use the link above for Perplexity. I don’t get any kind of compensation for this, not even the nuggets of commission one gets from product links.
Just find Perplexity on your phone apps or desktop by putting in the word. I’m grateful to the person who told me about it, and this is a public service announcement from Chuck Mallory.
March 4, 2025
WORKHEALING 2025: Why I Wrote This Book
Most writers have full-time jobs outside of their writing. I had a bunch: Hardees, factory, bookstore (which I did NOT enjoy)*, frycook, assistant to a literary agent (AWFUL)**, leasing agent, apartment manager, blah blah blah.
At one particularly bad time, I did some extensive research and consulted two friends who were in-demand psychologists. That’s when I came up with this thought: work consists of only FOUR things: time, people, tasks, and prosperity.
When it all became a book, I was able to get a publisher. A couple of years later, the audio version came out. I cashed royalty checks. Now THIS job I liked!
This was over 20 years ago. After the book went out of print and I wrestled back control of my rights, I wondered why. The book was terribly outdated. So the past few months, I’ve been rewriting it.
I’m glad to say it’s now out and FREE until Friday March 7 on Amazon. Give it a try:
I would love reviews, because back then I led Workhealing Workshops and I got a lot of great responses, including from people who didn’t really hate their jobs. But if there was one irritant or one snarky coworker, this concept helped them with that.
And now I’ll reveal these mysterious asterisks:
* It was a chain bookstore, and 90 percent of customers came in to buy romance books, which I knew little about. And then they wanted to talk endlessly about them or the author.
** My job as an agent’s assistant wasn’t to read, because I wasn’t being paid for that. I could volunteer (!) to take a lesser manuscript home to read in my spare time. I was more of a secretary. And all day all I heard about was strategy and money.
February 24, 2025
A Writing Break Means Cookbooks
If you like to cook, you will love these
I’m writing a lot these days, but thought I’d take a cookbook break to show you some of my favorite cookbooks. I have over 200, most of them old or obscure. But for newer books, I must have recipes that have high-flavor, in various cuisines, or just easy, new quick dinner ideas.
Here are some great ones! Check them out:
Milk Street Vegetables: 250 Bold, Simple Recipes for Every Season
Get healthier the delicious way, by making veggie sides taste fabulous!
The chefs at America’s Test Kitchen really have it all going on. With Food Network practically 100% cooking competitions and the Pioneer Woman, the only good cooking shows are ATK, Cook’s Country and Milk Street. This is the best of their cookbooks, in my opinion. I always like to make vegetables the star of the meal. And with recipes for chili-spiked carrots, skillet-charred Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes brightened with harissa and pistachios, you know you’re getting inventive, delicious dishes.
Need more info? How about this: Sichuan dry-fried cauliflower, butter-roasted cabbage with citrus, stir-fried mushrooms with asparagus and lemongrass, Persian-style swiss chard. I haven’t made all the recipes in this cookbook, but you can bet I will!
The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs: 100+ Recipes that You’ll Love to Cook and Eat
Kids Will Like Cooking if the Food’s Good
These recipes aren’t just easy or fun, they’re well-researched. Did you know America’s Test Kitchen developed a book for kids in the kitchen? They even worked alongside young folks in the process to make sure the steps were just right.
These recipes, for after-school snacks, breakfast, desserts and more were tested by more than 750 kids. If you want to get your kids to help in the kitchen, this is the way to go.
It also makes a great birthday gift for a kid you know who likes to cook or loves cooking shows.
Perfect gift for a college kid or housewarming gift
Who needs an air fryer cookbook? Just throw fries or chicken strips in there and turn it on.
If you say that, why limit yourself? You can get lower-fat foods, crunchier, tastier items, and it speeds up your meal-making. But, there are so many air fryer cookbooks out there! Here’s the one to have. One thing that’s special is how to convert oven recipes for the air fryer.
There are tips for making vegetable meals and side dishes you would never have thought of. Plus, a timetable for every type of food. And recipes you will love: for meats like poultry, pork, and beef, breads, breakfast, and even no-fuss desserts. With pictures and easy recipes, it makes a perfect dorm-room or back-to-college gift.
I didn’t think anyone could make such great food with only 5 items!
I won’t even get started on how much I love Trader Joe’s! Their popular Crunchy Chili Onion Sprinkle, and the blend with oil, are the best products like them anywhere. This cookbook has the double bonus of recipes being 5 items or less. Very easy cooking! And you can find all the ingredients at Trader Joe’s. Make a great meal in 20 minutes or less with these delicious recipes. You can add variety and creativity to your meals without spending a lot of extra time in the kitchen.
A few of the great recipes: chickpea/feta/cucumber salad, shortcut chicken parmesan sandwich, ginger-glazed pork chops, toasted ravioli, sweet potato tacos, beef birria ramen, dressed-up French-style flatbread, chicken sausage/fried egg hash, miso mushroom pasta, apple blossoms with ice cream. And there are so many more you will have an incredible array of quick, bright dishes to make at every meal.
The Essential New York Times Cookbook: The Recipes of Record (10th Anniversary Edition)
Do I even have to explain the greatness of NYT recipes?
Version 1.0.0The motherlode of all cookbooks. The best of all the NYT cookbooks! This selection is incredible. Long-loved favorite recipes are included, like Purple Plum Torte, No-Knead Bread, the classic 1940s Caesar Salad, Pamela Sherrid’s Summer Pasta, and David Eyre’s Pancake. There are also many innovative ones: Samin Nosrat’s Sabzi Polo (Herbed Rice with Tahdig), Todd Richards’s Fried Catfish with Hot Sauce, and J. Kenji López-Alt’s Cheesy Hasselback Potato Gratin.
This one’s for the kitchen superfans out there. It’s over 1000 pages, so get the Kindle edition from the link above. Or, if you just love big books, you can always spring for the $35 hardcover.
One way I’ve given this in hardback form is a wedding gift: add it to a respectable Dutch oven or quality frying pan, and it’s like you’ve given a double gift!
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Chuck Mallory has written food articles for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, and magazines like Mother Earth News. His food column “Country Cooking” appeared in Grit magazine and now “Carolina Country Cooking” is a popular Facebook page. He has also developed recipes for grocery store chains.
Links in this article may be affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission at no cost to you, if you make a purchase. I only recommend products I trust in and believe will be beneficial to you.
