Country Kitchens Remembered: A Memoir with Favorite Family Recipes

Authentic, if uninspired, country recipes are served here amid graceless woodcuts and family reminiscences, proving that someone else's memoirs can be as tiresome as their photo albums and home movies. Kluger (Preserving Summer's Bounty, etc.) spent her childhood on a southern Indiana farm in the 1930s, and she rhapsodizes about a pressed-glass spoon holder, her mother's precise rendition of angel food cake, the peddler's wagon, her father's orchard, washdays, threshing day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Jewel, whom she calls ""the hired girl'' although she was married to a cousin. The hearty, uncomplicated fare reflects some German influence and includes a variety of pies (chocolate cream, chicken pot, green grape, green tomato, buttermilk, mincemeat, sorghum nut, boiled cider, peach custard, blackberry, chess and golden delicious apple), as well as chicken-fried beefsteak and milk gravy, and roast goose with sauerkraut and apple stuffing. (March)