The I Hate to Cook Almanack: A Book Of Days- Recipes & Relief for the Reluctant Cook and the Harried Houseperson

by Peg Bracken

A collection of Peg Bracken's most loved recipes.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Food

283 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the author, I do like to cook, but I’m unable to do it as much lately for health reasons. That’s why I decided to take a look at this book. It’s written in a funny, chatty style, and there are lots of ideas for simple meals that taste really good. It’s an older cookbook, so you won’t find a lot of the newer convenience foods, and you won’t find a lot of things like quinoa or Goji berries. You will find ideas for food that you and your family will enjoy, and there are lots of ideas for making the process of cooking easier and more fun.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read my mom's old paperback copy over a cold, snowy new years and found it to be one of the most comforting, delightful books I've ever encountered. While many of the recipes are oh-so fat and salt-laden by today's standards, the sentiments are timeless. It's the kind of book you want to force upon all your friends. Peg Bracken is a kind of godmother to (and outshines) current tv celebs like Rachel Ray and Sandra Lee. Don't count her out.

[Suzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read parts and plan to read monthly for updates. I really needed a fun book since my husband broke his ankle and I am doing all-the-everything in the house and he's at the grumpy stage and wants the heat on 80. We live in Florida. He wants it on 68 in the summer when he's grumpy. He has hijacked my favorite spaces in the house and wants quiet when he sleeps and that is whenever he pleases. Maybe Peg Bracken has a book on poisons????

[Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book falls flat from the original and the second "the I hate to cook book"s. It is more rambling stories about family friends than recipes or funny antidotes. It's worth reading, but be ready to be less whelmed than you were with Bracken's other funny books.

[ஐ Katya (Book Queen)ஐ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Recipes sorted by month. Not that good. In fact, although I finished it in 1 day, I threw my copy away (partly due to old musty pages).

[^ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, which has spent time in the boxed up book-overflow in my attic, has been a charmingly, warm, and fun re-discovery. Peg Bracken’s sense of humour is zany, exuberant, and well-paced. As a Book of Days this volume is a failure, because I find myself always wanting to read on, and on, to read more; (cover to cover this time around); re-acquainting myself with a dear old friend. I doubt I’d ever have the necessary willpower to read this book one ‘day’ at a time. The threads of advice on coping with the newly introduced Metric System (this book is an English translation of the American text) had me shaking with laughter aloud; and as for the advice for July 22: … “… Butter the bread on one side quite heavily. Don’t use margarine – the only good use for margarine is for children’s suppositories. …” say no more!

In the style of a common-place book, the author very cleverly employs not only contributions from real, live people (identified at the back of the book); but also from beautifully fashioned fictional witty, contributors whose memorable and educative inventions arise from Peg Bracken’s own vivid imagination.

As a consequence, both recipes and advice are imparted painlessly and memorably to the reader; for example (p.67): “ November 25 … Now lytle birds do search for seeds in the hard fields, and it is a time to replenish the Birdfeeder and quarantine the Cat …”

Well, having fed copious quantities of sunflower seed to the garden birds this last Winter through to Spring; the very last creatures I had anticipated taking up residence in the bluetits’ nestbox has been a charmingly entertaining colony of Bombus hypnorum! Time, perhaps, to read Betty Macdonald’s humorous “Me and the Bee” again? I wonder where my copy’s gone?

I haven’t yet tried cooking any of the recipes suggested (by Peg Bracken, not of Bombus!!!). “Green Pancakes” (p.66) looks very promising: basically incorporating grated courgette (zucchini) and thyme into a blini-sized pancake. Why have I never thought of that for myself before?

Although this book is sub-titled, “for the harried house-person” (what a truly ghastly, clumsy word ‘house-person’ is!); I find myself speculatively sizing-up how much of the contents of this book might actually appeal to a man; or whether the publisher was merely anxious to appear in-step with 1970’s women’s liberation? I don’t remember reading much talk about the wrong-end of babies in this book; so hopefully there do exist a few cost- and time- conscious men out there, who, possessing an off-beam sense of humour, will read this book up & tell me?