Scratch: Home Cooking for Everyone Made Simple, Fun, and Totally Delicious

Rodale, CEO and chair of Rodale Inc., believes that anyone can learn to cook, and this title shares useful techniques and necessary instruction for beginners. The recipes are designed to deliver tasty meals using real food in the simplest way possible, and Rodale appears to have hit her mark. This is not a trendy health-focused cookbook; it is a book that reflects the way Rodale was raised and the way she cooks for her own family. Rodale begins with basics before moving on to the more complex recipes. The first chapter, “Rise & Shine,” begins with silky buttered eggs and ends with a breakfast quiche, with a whole spectrum of recipes sandwiched between. Salad dressings, stocks, homemade pasta, and even homemade Italian sausage are covered in other chapters. This is a basic cookbook that contains some interesting and special dishes, such as Australian damper and dip, a quick campfire bread and curry dish that originally called for kangaroo (Rodale uses bison), and Aussie ANZAC biscuits. This down-to-earth, totally accessible cookbook will take any cook from breakfast to dessert. Photos. (Oct.)