A Cookbook For Katie: Upon the Occasion of Her Marriage Recipes and Reveries for the Bride

by Daphne Simpkins

I grew up in a family where we wrote one another love letters. We put them on pillows, in lunch bags, by bedsides. So it was only natural that when my niece Katie asked me to compile some family recipes for her upon the occasion of her marriage that I would place those recipes alongside all the love letters I had been wanting to write and had written in the form of essays that were published in a variety of magazines and newspaper periodicals before their decline.Eating supper hasn’t declined, however, and love letters to brides and nieces have a kind of perennial value if not to the niece then to the writer of the love letter, for it feels mighty good to tell someone—lots of someones, really—how much you love them.That’s the intention of this memoir masquerading as a cook book—this series of love letters with recipes around them. My message to a bride is simple. Share love. Share recipes. Share the good times. And live as happily ever after as anyone can who knows that the daily expression of love is often the answer to the age old “What’s for supper?”The answer a perfect pan of cornbread which is only perfect if you are sharing it with your Beloved. This book is for my niece and any bride or groom who wants to share a life and supper with his or her chosen Beloved. I hope you enjoy reading A Cookbook for Katie as much as I enjoyed writing it. Five years have passed since Katie married Levi, and they are still in love. That girl can cook, too! But my beloved niece didn’t learn what she knows about cooking and love only from me. A lot of people love Katie. I hope you will too after reading this.About Daphne In addition to writing love letters, Daphne writes the Mildred Budge books, a series of stories about church ladies of the South. She has written about caregiving, Christmas, and even Nat King Cole. You can find out more about her by following her author pages on Amazon, BookBub, or Goodreads. Befriend her on Facebook.

Genres: Cookbooks

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 6, 2014

Reviews

[Christy Jarrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely start to my 2017 reading! It was a lovely gift to a niece with the time old southern tradition of stories and family traditions spread throughout the stories and recipes. As an Aunt of two special nieces, I hope when the time comes, to pass along a treasure such as this!

[Channon Coats · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Cookbook for Beloveds

I don't often write reviews: they are judgments that require my intimacy with the author invaded and dissected by parties I don't know and subsequent actions for which I may be partially (or totally) responsible. Okay, this time, I'll take that chance. Daphne Simpkins, you are amazing!! Your love for your family, your niece, your Lord is humble, deep and well-written. You connect on behalf of all four of you. (Okay, if I need to count at least for myself, it's Daphne, her family, her beloved niece, and the Lord -that's four! Yes! I got it right!). The recipes are simple, straightforward, and missing one In would like to have: chicken supreme. I wish you just hadn't brought it up, because now I'm dangerously "hankerin'" as my father used to say, even though we had to eat it with broccoli, too, the broc was on the side. The food is not really what this book is about, though, now is it.

This book is really about beloveds. Being loved. Loving. Christian love. Monumental love. Nonjudgmental love. Take your pick, but TAKE. It's about taking and mostly giving love, and so I will. I do, Daphne Simpkins, and I hope and pray everyone else does, too. Take care.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading cookbooks. I especially enjoyed the family stories and essays included for the bride in this book. I even liked the chapter groupings of recipes. This is a unique family heirloom for the bride that received it, and an enjoyable treasure for the rest of us, also.

[Anne J Brinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Cookbook for all

Love the family members! I plan our family Thanksgiving while reading this! Keep on writing! Would love the third book in series!

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming

A book of memories and recipes. Not a lot, but you keep reading because you come to care about Aunt Daphne and wish Katie well.

[Clarice James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished a book that was part memoir, part marital handbook, part philosophy, and part cookbook: A COOKBOOK FOR KATIE: Upon the Occasion of Her Marriage Recipes and Reveries for the Brideby Daphne Simpkins. Only a few writers can pull this off; Ms. Simpkins is one of them. It was like I was sitting in her kitchen in the midst of her family, passing recipes, stories, wisdom, and love around.

Yes, it has real recipes. But let me warn you exacting cooks, she’s loose with her measurements: a handful, a dusting, a bunch, a lump or a half cup or so. Her instructions are no less rigid: a “tallish saucepan,” “the right cooking pot, which you will have figured out for yourself” or “it usually takes a half hour a pound or a half pound, I don’t remember.” It’s not so much about preparing food as it is about sharing yourself with another.

Don’t let her homespun anecdotes fool you. They’re deeper than the pot she cooks in. One of my favorites: “Hold the demands of life itself accountable for being hard work. Hold yourself accountable for loving to the point of self-sacrifice . . .” How often do you find this in a cookbook?

I wasn’t surprised that I enjoyed it so much because I’d already read two of Ms. Simpkins’ other books, MISS BUDGE IN LOVE and CLOVERDALE. She has crafted another intelligent, witty, and delightful book. I feel happier for having read it.