The Cookbook Ladies.: January 2009

Jan 28, 2009

Then and Now

NOW:

Barbara (L), Gwen (sitting)

THEN: Circa 1982

Gwen (L), Barbara (R)

Have we changed much?
(Don't answer that!)

Jan 26, 2009

Fast and fabulous cheese recipe.

Here's a longstanding favorite of ours.

You'll be surprised how fast it will disappear!

Jan 25, 2009

Tracking down great barbeque.

Gwen McKee (and the infamous van) with Pete Jones, owner of
the famous Skylight Inn in Ayden, North Carolina.

We drove a long way to taste the famous barbeque of Pete Jones,

whose Skylight Inn restaurant boasts a replica of the capitol on the roof! It had the delicious flavor of true wood-smoked North Carolina barbeque. Every region truly does have its own distinct flavors. That's the main reason behind having a specialized cookbook for each state.

~ Gwen

(See North Carolina's cookbook)

Jan 21, 2009

Eating our way through the South.

Gwen (L) and Barbara visit Hurricane Mills, Tennessee

Tasting the local fare is one of the best bonuses of a trip through any region in search of great recipes. In Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, we visited Loretta Lynn's Kitchen and found tasty local vittles and recipes for how to fix them.
It had become an interesting, sometimes fascinating,often exhilarating process... and we knew we were hooked on wanting to explore each state and taste their cuisine.

(Best Tennessee Recipes)

Talking to town folk was always fun and informative. Very seldom did anyone just say 'no' to our requests. We would usually be directed to someone else, as in "...Go see Sarah at the drugstore; she has lots of cookbooks..."

~ Barbara

Three states down. Forty-seven to go.

Gwen drove and Barbara read the map.

Somehow we always got where we were going.

Our early strategy was to concentrate on those neighboring states because they were convenient to get to. These were the days before the Internet. So our normal method of finding local cookbooks was to actually travel throughout the state by car.

The states we concentrated on next:
d Tennessee
d Florida
d Alabama
d Georgia
d Kentucky
d North Carolina
d South Carolina

Gwen usually did the driving and Barbara, with map in lap, the navigating.

We stopped at bookstores, gift and kitchen shops, restaurants, bed an breakfasts, chamber of commerce offices, tourist bureaus and any other place that might offer the possibility of discovering a popular local cookbook.
Without fail, in every state, the BEST thing was the people they met and the information they so proudly shared.

~ Gwen

Jan 20, 2009

Almost as big as Texas.

It took four separate trips to fully cover the state of Texas!
We selected 94 cookbooks from one end of the state to the other and chose the 500 most popular recipes to make up the Best of the Best from Texas Cookbook which, at 356 pages, is one of the largest books in our series. Just like the Lone Star state. (How the Texas Cookbook turned out)

By now it was 1985 and we had finished cookbooks for Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

With these three states under our belts, we now had a mission and a motto:

"Preserving America's Food Heritage"

~ Gwen

Jan 19, 2009

Have van will travel.

Best tasting recipes of Gwen McKee across America

We went through four different vans in our cross-country quest for recipes.

We bought them used...and then really put some miles on them.
Photo by Cookie Snyder

I know how it is with my own cookbooks. There are recipes...and then there are recipes. Those are the ones that I highlight: the really good ones that turn out nicely and get lots of compliments.

Quail Ridge Press recipes and Gwen McKee cookbooks

Well, Gwen and I decided to collect those 'highlighted' recipes from all the cookbooks in a state and publish them in one cookbook.
So Gwen had finished the Mississippi cookbook and now I was on board. We decided to move on to Louisiana. It's right next door and that's Gwen's home state. And finding great recipes in the 'Bayou State' seemed like a slam dunk!

As we set out, we set as our goal to search for recipes that really capture the local flavor...the ones that people really eat. We were also looking for kitchen-friendly recipes that anybody could cook and enjoy. So we packed our bags and headed to Louisiana.

We got a used van and packed it with stacks of boxes, luggage, grocery bags, cooking paraphernalia and headed out to find our recipes.

Talk about a road trip!

The first Louisiana Cookbook.

Since the Louisiana cookbook was published in 1984 it has been reprinted seventeen times. And it remains to this day our #1 best seller of every state in the union.

~ Barbara

Jan 16, 2009

Try this at home.

From: Fast and Fabulous Party Foods and Appetizers, page 141.

Jan 15, 2009

Barbara to the rescue.

Barbara Moseley is my golfing partner and my longtime friend. After putting together the Best of the Best from Mississippi Cookbook, I realized just how much work this business was going to take and that I could use some help.
So I asked Barbara if she would be interested in working with me. I told her I couldn't pay her at first. But we are so much alike and she loves to travel, so she said "When do we leave!"

~ Gwen

Jan 14, 2009

A business is born. On my kitchen table.

I was 37 years old and I had never published a book in my life. Or owned a business, for that matter. But all that soon changed.

At first, I worked alone. I called my new company, Quail Ridge Press, named after the street I lived on at the time. After The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookbook was published, a lot of my friends and family members started asking me to recommend cookbooks. That's when Barney had the idea. "You ought to do a book on the best of the best cookbooks," he said.

(See my first "Best of" cookbook)

So I started gathering up all my favorite local cookbooks and put together the Best of the Best from Mississippi Cookbook. We printed 4,000 copies of it.

It sold out in three weeks. That was 1982 and we knew we were on to something.

~Gwen

Jan 13, 2009

It all started with a little red book.

So how did two housewives from Brandon, Mississippi get started publishing cookbooks?
Well, back in 1978, when I was just about to get my children grown, my husband Barney brought home an idea for a new book. At the time he was the director of the University of Mississippi Press and he had received a little manuscript called The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookbook that two ladies named Ruth Moorman and Lalla Williams had written.
(

Take a look at it. )

It seemed like a great idea for a book, but one his scholarly publishing house couldn't publish. When I told him that it's just too clever of an idea to pass up, he said, "Why don't you publish it?" So I decided to give it a try. Crazy, huh?

~ Gwen

Jan 1, 2009

List of our Quail Ridge Press Books

Recipe Hall of Fame Collection

The Recipe Hall of Fame Cookbook (Paper bound)

Recipe Hall of Fame Quick & Easy Cookbook (Paper bound)

Recipe Hall of Fame Dessert Cookbook (Paper bound)

Recipe Hall of Fame Cookbook II (Paper bound)

Recipe Hall of Fame 4-book set (Paper bound)

The Recipe Hall of Fame Cookbook (Comb bound)

Recipe Hall of Fame Quick & Easy Cookbook (Comb bound)

Best of the Best State Cookbook Series

Alabama
Best of the Best from Alabama 2-Cookbook Set

Best of the Best from Alabama Cookbook (All-New Edition)

Cookbooks:

Fast & Fabulous party Foods and Appetizers

500 Fast & Fabulous 5-Ingredient Recipes
The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookbook
The Complete Venison Cookbook
Louisiana's Best Restaurant Recipes
Best of the Best from Calling All Cooks Cookbook

Best of the Best from Bell's Best Cookbook
Telecom Pioneers 2-cookbook set
The Little New Orleans Book
The Little Gumbo Book
The Southern Cook's Handbook
Best of the Best Air Force Cookbook
Fine Dining Mississippi Style
Fine Dining Georgia Style
Fine Dining Tennesseei Style
Fine Dining 3-book set
Hors D'Oeuvres Everybody Loves
Hors D'Oeuvres Everybody Loves II
Smoke in the Mountains: Barbecue
Checkered Flag Cooking
Best of the Best from QVC Cookbook
Best of the Best from America Cookbook
Best of the Best Cook's Essentials Cookbook
Beyond Grits and Gravy
Lite Up Your Life
A Salad a Day
The Little Bean Book

Inspirational Titles

Regional Titles

Alabama

Best of the Best from Calling All Cooks Cookbook

Best of the Best from Alabama Cookbook (All-New Edition)

Best of the Best from Alabama Cookbook (2-book set)

Best of the Best from Alabama Cookbook (Original Edition)

All Over Alabama

Georgia

Best of the Best from Georgia Cookbook (All-New Edition)

Best of the Best from Georgia Cookbook (Original Edition)

Best of the Best from Georgia Cookbook (2-book set)

Fine Dining Georgia Style

Louisiana

Best of the Best from Louisiana Cookbook

Best of the Best from Louisiana Cookbook II

Best of the Best from Louisana Cookbook (2-book set)

The Little New Orleans Book

The Little Gumbo Book

Louisiana Alphabet

Louisiana's Best Restaurant Recipes

Mississippi

Best of the Best from Mississippi Cookbook (All-New Edition)

Best of the Best from Mississippi Cookbook (Original Edition)

Best of the Best from Mississippi Cookbook (2-book set)

Best of the Best from Bell's Best Cookbook

A Decade of Beach Walks

Gary Walters: Delta Dreamin'

Everywhere in Mississippi

From Manhattan to Mississippi

Miriam Weems: Mostly Mississippi

Fine Dining Mississippi Style

The Southern Cook's Handbook

Mississippi Alphabet

Inventing Ott: The Legacy of Arhtur C. Guyton

Somehow:A Miracle of Spiritual Rebirth

Written in the Bricks:A Tour of Fifteen Mississippi Hometowns

Straight Ahead: Memoirs of Governor Bill Waller

Amidst the Fray: Memoirs of Governor William D. Mounger

Ready, Aim, Right!

Mississippi Stories for Young People

Mississippi Mysteries

Following the Water, Working the Land

Roads from the Bottom

Mississippi Mysteries

Tennessee

Best of the Best from Tennessee Cookbook (All-New Edition)

Best of the Best from Tennessee Cookbook (Original Edition)

Best of the Best from Tennessee Cookbook (2-book set)

Fine Dining Tennessee Style

Smoke in the Mountains: Barbecue

Checkered Flag Cooking

Texas

Best of the Best from Texas Cookbook

Best of the Best from Texas Cookbook II

Best of the Best from Texas Cookbook (2-book set)

Texas Alphabet

Texas State Bird Pageant

2-book set:Texas State Bird Pageant and Texas Alphabet

Children's Titles

Laurie Parker Books

The Turtle Saver

Everywhere in Mississippi

Mississippi Alphabet

All Over Alabama

Louisiana Alphabet

Texas Alphabet

Other Children's Books

Anna's Choice

Inventing Ott: The Legacy of Arhtur C. Guyton

The Turtle Saver and other books by Laurie Parker

Cat Hymns

Mississippi Stories for Young People

Texas State Bird Pageant

Meet our Quail Ridge Press Authors
John Bailey

Jo Barksdale

BellSouth AT&T Telephone Pioneers of Mississippi

Jerusha Bosarge

Catherine Carter

Mary Rose Carter

Amanda Gladney Conrad

William D. (Billy) Mounger

Bonnie Carter Travis