Sunny's Kitchen, Sunny Anderson

Sunny’s Kitchen: Easy Food for Real Life 

 

Sunny Anderson

Category: Cookbook

Synopsis: Food Network star Sunny Anderson shares her favorite recipes.

Date finished: 1 March 2014

Rating: ****

Comments:

It’s been awhile since I’ve spent much time in front of the Food Network. I enjoy the Pioneer Woman and Trisha Yearwood’s cooking show, but most of the rest I am pretty out of touch with. Something about this cookbook intrigued me, though, so I ordered it for the library and put my personal notification in it.

Well, I ended up ordering my own copy about halfway through.

I enjoy Sunny Anderson’s spunk. She seems a little bit fearless and thoroughly enjoys what she’s doing. So many of the Food Networks folks get too analytical. And I’m not talking good ole Alton Brown-analytical, either. Some Foodie folks just don’t seem to enjoy food. They don’t make it fun. They make it science. And I know science is involved, but so is heart. And Sunny’s got heart.

There were a number of recipes in the cookbook that I’d like to try. And I’d taste just about every one of them if offered. The recipes have a number of influences due to Sunny’s travels as a child and as an adult in the Armed Forces. I love cookbooks that read like a scrapbook of someone’s life.

A few things that bothered me:

• The layout of the recipes was awkward. (And “awkward” might be charitable.) The list of ingredients ran on the left column of the left-hand page and the right column of the right-hand page meaning it was quite possible that you’d not realize the ingredients continued on the next page. Time and again this would trip me up.

• Sunny is obsessed with letting meat rest on the counter for two hours before cooking it. She assures her readers that the USDA says this is fine. Still. Shivers.

• She gets a little bossy. I don’t like bossy cookbooks.  I don’t like being told what salt to use. I don’t like being told what spoon to use. It makes me defiant.

• My number one pet peeve with cookbooks is when they don’t have a photo for. Each. Dish. Because, as Food Network star Rachael Ray, says, “You eat with your eyes first.” This book did okay overall, but there were still several recipes that did not have photos. A cookbook without a photo of each recipe is just plain wrong.

I know that sounds like a lot of gripes, but the important part—the food—is varied and interesting. Just what one needs to get out of  that winter rut.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes.

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The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays, Ree Drummond