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Everybody’s talking
about Cookin’ Up A Storm……
 What a feast this book is. With
infinite Grace Lee Rankin gifts us with her beloved Annie, her life
and her food. This goes on the “keeper” shelf where in a few weeks
it will be stained and splattered. Each recipe is a little siren’s
song and I have no intention of resisting.
Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of public radio’s The Splendid
Table®
I highly recommend this cookbook. Cookin' Up A Storm is a
power full story about an unforgettable woman featuring classic
Southern recipes. It is a must have for every cookbook collection.
Nathalie Dupree author of Southern Memories: Recipes and
Reminiscences
A body could live on just these timeless dishes and never want for
anything else to eat.
John Egerton, author of Southern Food: At Home, on the
Road, in History
I’m a great admirer of this book. With compassion and warmth, Jane
Lee Rankin pays homage to the fortitude and culinary mettle of a
beautiful woman.
John T. Edge, author of Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food
Lover’s Guide to the South, Director of the Southern Foodways
Alliance |
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“Cookin’ Up a Storm preserves the marvelous wit and wisdom of
a generous, loving old Southern cook and her very real Old South
recipes—Buttermilk Pound Cake, Fried Chicken and Gravy, Chicken and Dumplin’s, and Sweet Potato Pie…dishes that you would have loved not
just in your childhood, but would love in your life today. Now, with
Annie’s recipes, you too can Cook up a storm.”
Shirley Corriher, Food Styles, LA Times, Syndicate and author
of Cookwise.
A Book Review...
Jane Adams Finn (Independent food writer for The Washington
Post).
The stories and biographies of many white women who grew up in the
South are incomplete because they do not include the African
American women who taught and nurtured them. This omission is often
because the subject is simply too delicate to confront. Jane Lee
Rankin, in her warm and personal book, Cookin' Up a Storm,
has confronted it head on and with grace.
Rankin's account of the life of Annie Johnson explores the extreme
differences in the opportunities which they were afforded and the
close relationship which developed between them. These differences
brought about that relationship and, no doubt, account for much of
its value to both of them.
Annie Johnson entered the Rankins' Louisville home as a housekeeper
and cook when the author was six weeks old. Her journey there and
the time they shared are recounted in their own words and touch upon
difficult points in both lives without rancor or self-pity.
The recipes, meticulously transcribed by Rankin, provide simple
directions for classic and whimsical Southern fare. They are a
special gift to those of us who grew up with delicious Southern food
and whose providers left it to us to figure out how to cook much of
it by observation or osmosis.
When Annie Johnson and Rankin join forces to produce the food for
seventy-five of Johnson's family and friends, the bond between them
is as adhesive as flour and water.
Cookin' Up a Storm should be a treat for anyone who has
shared a kitchen with a mentor and it will inspire some to
re-examine, and perhaps to write about, their own special
relationships. I know that I shall.
Jane Adams Finn (Independent food writer for The Washington
Post).
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