Heart of the Home: A Vegetarian Cookbook for People Who Want to Make a Change But Don't Know Where to Start. [Paperback]

Both irreverent and down-to-earth; open at any page and you'll know "Heart of the Home" isn't like any cookbook you've seen before. This is vegetarian cooking, down-home country style, and this is literature.

"If you have Cancer in your astrological chart, you will love making gravy, stir to your heart's content." Reassuring those who haven't ever picked up a pot before, nudging old hands to take chances they've never taken, this is a book for anyone wanting to connect or reconnect with the essential experience of cooking for others. Beyond that, it's a walk into one woman's extraordinary collection of warm moments and memories of special encounters, mostly in the kitchen.

Meet my old friend Ann Jackson. Truly a unique and original talent, when I first knew her she was the cook for a warehouse full of vegetarian men and women running one of the biggest natural foods operations in the West. I was the produce manager. Every morning Ann would come around the corner of that big walk-in cooler looking to see what was fresh and good and it was like the start of another day's adventure.

There's a whole cast of characters here, and every recipe is delivered with definite personality. Patsy, Senter, Dorita, Lindsey, Licorice, Tommy Merritt and a roving cast of truckers, girlfriends, pets, produce dealers and crazy Italians wander the range of food and adventure, covering the ground from "Prem Nagar Pea Soup" & "Solidarity Borscht" to "Milwaukee Street Squash" & "Nostromo Noodles." One of my favorites is "Mama's Dark Secret," and if Ann didn't invent "Chicken Fried Tofu," she sure perfected the form toward true immortality.

"What good is it how healthy something is if it doesn't taste good?" Healthy and good food that doesn't weigh you down and doesn't bore you either. I remember Ann used to call it "meat and potatoes vegetarian cooking." This is cooking for an American palette, without the usual American reliance on cheese and meat and processed additives. One of the author's goals is to encourage us to escape our dependence on cow, but she is never dogmatic, and most of the recipes can go either way. "_If you don't want to use soy milk, fine, use milk, use cream for all I care (they're your thighs), just get in there and do it!" Her other objective is to introduce us to a whole range of possibilities for vegetarian staples like tofu, tempeh, miso, seaweeds, grains, rice and noodles, while proving that we don't have to leave behind such traditional fare as Potato Salad (the best I've tasted), Corn Fritters, Chocolate Cream Pie, Hushpuppies and Baked Beans.

Ann and her husband own and manage 'Time After Time,' a very successful 2nd hand clothes store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They live amidst a fantastic collection of folk art and memorabilia (from which the 50s illustrations that adorn "Heart of the Home" are taken). The kitchen is clearly near the heart of their home, and with this cookbook we're all invited to sit around the kitchen table to share a few good stories and a lot of good eating.