Hoboken Library Staff Picks

The Great American Recipe
The PBS series Great American Recipe debuted in 2022 and both the first season and second season are available to Hoboken patrons on Kanopy. The shows feature American home cooks, from around the country who share a variety of different recipes, hoping to be the winner of the competition which will mean one of their dishes will be featured on the cover of the cookbook which is also packed with recipes from the 10 contestants as well as the judges and host of the show (Alejandra Ramos, Leah Cohen, Tiffany Derry, and Graham Elliot). You can borrow the cookbooks from BCCLS Libraries, but you may want to wait till you watch all the episodes to not spoil who won. The great thing about America is that the contestants can not only pull from the regional ingredients of where they are from such as the fresh veggies and fruits of California or the seafood of Maryland’s harbor, but also from the variety of recipes linked to the native cuisines their family members brought with them to this country. Contestants have a wide variety of backgrounds including Dominican, Korean, Syrian, Italian, Native American, Irish, and Mexican. Each episode features two recipes based around themes such as celebratory recipes or recipes that they learned from a friend. Much like cozy favorite, The Great British Baking Show, contestants are not cut throat, but form a foodie found family who jump in when one of them gets in the weeds. I enjoyed both seasons of the show and look forward to when Season 3 is available this year.

Matty Matheson: A Cookbook
Matty Matheson is a Canadian born chef who I first enjoyed watching on his TV show, It’s Suppertime. The book is a culinary autobiography of the recipes and people that shaped him. The book starts with his family and the recipes that stood out in his childhood and then moves on to signature dishes at restaurants where he worked as a chef. One recipe I hope to check out is the blackberry coffee cake with brandy based on a recipe from his grandparents, Lionel and Dorothea Poirier, who made the cake using blackberries from their own backyard (unlike Matheson, I love to bake). Another recipe that I’m sure will be a likely favorite with my own family is the Double-Bone Pork Chop with Maple Jack Daniel’s Bacon Sauce from Oddfellows, one of the restaurants where he worked. Matheson’s fans will be pleased to find that he narrates the audiobook version of the book. Matheson’s follow up cookbook, Homestyle Cookery: A Home Cookbook, is also available to checkout; where as the previous book focused on the foods that shaped him, the second cookbook is more about giving home cooks the basics to form their own culinary identity. I look forward to checking that one out since I have enjoyed his recent series of complimentary Youtube videos.

Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering
by Joanna Gaines
My husband and I enjoyed watching, Joanna Gaines and her husband, Chip, on the show Fixer Upper. After the show ended she released her first cookbook Magnolia Table, which also shares the name with the couple’s Magnolia Network providing food, home renovations, and home decorating shows. The couple have a charming, homey aesthetic that carries over into Joanna’s food. The book has a focus on family meals as well as entertaining guests. The book features many family recipes some of which take advantage of the Gaines’s family garden, but others that also allow some quick convenience cheats like using refrigerated crescent rolls for her Quick Orange-Walnut Sweet Rolls. Some recipes I bookmarked to try out in my own kitchen include her recipe for Chicken Spaghetti, Baked Chicken with Bacon Bottom & Wild Rice, and an orange scone recipe. For fans of the Gaines family, you’ll enjoy the personal stories and photographs sprinkled throughout the book. If you enjoy this cookbook also check out the two follow up volumes 2 and 3.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

Tags: Joanna Gaines, Matty Matheson, The Great American Recipe