For nearly twenty-five years, Mildred Council—better known by her nickname, Mama Dip—has nourished thousands of hungry folks in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her restaurant, Mama Dip's Kitchen, is a much-loved community institution that has gained loyal fans and customers from all walks of life, from New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne to former Tar Heel basketball player Michael Jordan.

Mama Dip's Kitchen showcases the same down-home, wholesome, everyday Southern cooking for which its namesake restaurant is celebrated. The book features more than 250 recipes for such favorites as old-fashioned chicken pie, country-style pork chops, sweet potatoes, fresh corn casserole, poundcake, and banana pudding. Chapters cover breads and breakfast dishes; poultry, fish, and seafood; beef, pork, and lamb; vegetables and salads; and desserts, beverages, and party dishes.

The book opens with a charming introductory essay, a savory reflection on a life in cooking that also reveals the story behind Council's nickname. It is both a graceful reminiscence of a country childhood and the inspiring story of a woman determined to make her own way in the larger world.

You can hold this book the way you hold a child's hand. And you can let this book show you a whole new world, the way a child will reveal the secrets of a secret world if you take the time to stop and watch and listen. God bless Mildred Council and the time she took to get it all down in Mama Dip's Kitchen. And it's not just the recipes that come out of a life of good cooking--there's a great deal of Mildred Council in these pages, and we are better off for the reading, the cooking, and the sharing.

In her acknowledgments, Mildred Council thanks a woman who helped with the book. Then she thanks the woman's children, "Shawn and Chelsea, for playing so nicely while we flipped so many pages." She ends her cookbook with a recipe for a child's birthday party. Her enthusiasm for life growing through all its stages can be found on every page. "I realized my name was my earthly soul," she writes, "which needed to be tended like the pumpkin seed--tended, tilled, fed, and harvested, to have a good life. And that's what I tried to do ever since for my family and myself."

Part of that tending has been owning and operating Dip's, a popular Chapel Hill, North Carolina restaurant where she serves the kind of country food she grew up cooking. Mildred Council calls her style of cooking "dump cooking" because she scoops up ingredients without measuring and "dumps" them in the bowl or pan. It took her a good deal of time to measure out what she was doing so instinctively to be able to share her work as written recipes. But she encourages every cook to use her recipes like a sewing pattern, to experiment, to stretch here and cut there to make the food you like.

Mama Dip's Kitchen is a compendium of straightforward, simple, southern American foods in chapters devoted to "Breads and Breakfast Dishes," "Poultry, Fish, and Seafood Dishes," "Beef, Pork and Lamb Dishes," "Vegetables and Salad," and "Desserts, Beverages, and Party Dishes." In simple foods as in a simple life, the complexities run deep. --Schuyler Ingle

ISBN13: 9780807847909
Condition: New
Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Something must be left out.... (2.0)

This cookbook looked like it was going to a good one, but I made a couple of the recipes, and obviously mama dip is leaving out some ingrediants so that it isnt like her restaurant food because the recipes were horrible... I can see that I am going to have to make the dihes... and then figure out how i can make them the correct way by adding some other ingrediants! so this is more of a guide... not a cookbook... it will steer you in the direction of a failiar recipe... then you add your own ingrediants!

Southern Cooking (4.0)

I purchased several of these to send family. (They are not in the south). I made some great "Sunday Corn Bread", "greens", and "black-eyed peas" for new years day, (from this book), and wanted to share,

Simple, but solid, advice on cooking soul food (5.0)

I really like this book. I am originally from the South, but don't always remember how to cook everything I ate growing up. If I can't get my mom or grandmom on the phone, I consult Mama Dip's book for guidance. I often tweak or change a little something (for ex, I don't eat much pork and will do smoked turkey to season greens) but I always find quality, solid advice in her book. I'm buying one for my sister this Christmas!

Easy to follow recipes (5.0)

A co-worker showed Mama Dip's recipe book to me and I ordered 3:
one for my daughter, one for a daughter-in-law and one for me.
For someone learning to cook, it is so easy to follow the directions and
for me, it helps to break my usual routine with something different.
The ingrediants are already in my kitchen making preparation easy.
Thanks, Mama Dip

Recipes (2.0)

Not really what I thought it would be. The recipes are basic and can be located in less expensive
cook books