I started reading At Home on the Range on a Saturday and I finished it on a Saturday. The same Saturday. It is that good. If you like what I write about here -- DIY cooking projects, gardening, food adventures and all sorts of other eat, drink and be merry things I think you're really going to enjoy this book.
I've only cooked two things from it so far -- a classic meatloaf and the chicken cacciatore -- and both were delicious. The recipes are all written as this one below -- in paragraphs and often with more insight and voice than ingredients. Page after page of honest and full-of-life stories.
Some selections from At Home on the Range:
"So go our culinary ways with confidence and without apology. Use only one standard in trying out strange foods or seasonings: that you like the result."
"'Which is more necessary in the house, the bed or the stove?' has almost as much chance of being satisfactorily answered. Granted that the three most important happenings in life, birth, marriage and death, take place in bed; three equally vital occurrences, breakfast, lunch and dinner, daily owe their success to the stove."
Followed by this advice for a new couple to purchase the best bed and stove they can afford:
"Don't rush either purchase, for these important articles, like a husband, should last a lifetime if well selected."