Bibliography: Editors of Southern Living Magazine, Foreword by Pat Conroy. (2009). Southern Living Comfort Food. Birmingham, AL: Oxmoor House. ISBN: 9780848732660
Review: Southern Living Magazine is one of the definitive sources for Southern recipes, hospitality and entertaining for it’s readers. Each recipe is tested and only the highest-rated recipes make it into the magazine and homes of readers around the country. The focus of this volume is comfort food: recipes that are made for potluck dinners, passed down generations of families, swapped between friends. They have personal stories behind them, remember the time when…the place where…
Because of the nature of comfort food, the 165 recipes are organized less like a typical 
cookbook. Recipes are organized into general categories such as comfort food classics, fresh from the garden, holidays and special occasions and so on. For this reason, the index is essential if you are looking, say, for all the recipes with chocolate or beef or apples. Interspersed between the recipes are short essays and reminiscences about different recipes and food traditions as recalled by editors and readers of the magazine. As someone who loves reading head notes and extra information in cookbooks, I really enjoyed these. There are full page full color pictures of almost every recipe, which along with the essays make this a book as much for browsing as cooking.
The recipes are, for the most part, up to Southern Living’s high standards. I did find it odd that a recipe for pizza called for a prebaked pizza crust. There are some recipes for very classic dishes, such as million dollar pound cake (p. 185), chicken fried steak (p. 42), caramel cake (p. 193) and sweet potato casserole (p. 146). There are some comfort food classics with a twist. Three-cheese pasta bake (p. 13) is an update on macaroni and cheese made with penne pasta, white cheddar, parmesan, and Gruyere cheeses. Pimento cheese panini (p. 53) is like a sophisticated grilled cheese sandwich, and I am dying to try making my pimento cheese with jalapenos as the recipe suggests. Barbecue sundaes (p. 263) are a fun idea, and there is an accompanying essay to go along with the recipe.
One recipe that caught my eye was Pecan Streusel Coffee Cake (p. 80) so I decided to try it out. In this coffee cake, the streusel goes on the bottom and forms a kind of crust for the cake, which makes for an interesting combination of flavors and textures when combined with the contrasting roasted pecan topping. The technique is interesting as well, first you take the dry ingredients and cut in the butter. (I tried doing this, as the recipe suggests, with a pastry blender, but gave up and used my fingers instead.) Then you press half of this mixture into the bottom of your prepared pan. To the other half, you add the liquid ingredients and leavening to make the very thick batter. This goes on top of the crust, and then the nuts are sprinkled over all. Mine took a little longer than the specified time to bake, but that is probably because I used an 8 inch square pan instead of the 9 inch one as listed. The flavor was good, if a little sweet. I did leave out the coffee, thinking that my husband wouldn’t eat it, but next time I will put it in, as I think it would contrast the brown sugar without being too coffee flavored. One suggestion I do have is to cut it into squares while it is still warm. The brown sugar in the crust almost caramelizes, making it hard to cut when completely cool.
I am trying very hard to convince myself I do not need to buy this cookbook, I have more cookbooks than I can use as it is. I guess I will settle for borrowing it from the library instead. But I am considering giving it as a Christmas gift.
Reviewed from library copy.