Pennsylvania "Cookbook Empire"

You'd think that most best selling cookbooks would come from New York City, home of Food Network and all the publishing houses. Instead, as today's the cover of today's NY Times points out, Phyllis Pellman Good has started successful "Fix-It and Forget-It" series out of her home in Lancaster, PA -- which is not so far from where I grew up and very close to where one of my brothers now lives.

Congratulations to Phyllis for making the front page of the Times.

I love cabbage noodles and make them at home using my own recipe that I made up as a I went along: egg noodles, cabbage, onions, butter, salt and pepper and lots more butter. I wonder of she has a cabbage noodle recipe for me?

In the article Christopher Kimball from Cook's Illustrated dresses down the sizzling new world of food media:

"I think the food media has been responsible for creating this whole world of faux food, and this is a media largely consumed by people who eat out six times a week," he added. "We are not all served by thinking of food as a special-occasion product."

Christopher "Killjoy" Kimball is right that cooking every day is a certain kind of discipline and home cooking isn't all about stainless steel appliances and impressing your friends with your wine selections. Still, I don't see what he gains -- besides being quotes on the cover of the Times -- from being such a wet blanket.

The patchwork potholders and kountry kanisters featured on the covers of these cookbooks have been enough to scare me away from them in the past, but I do like the easy to cook with spiral binding. The title also confused me since Fix-It and Forget-It sounded like it was related to Ron Popeil's "Set It and Forget It Rotisserie."