[.ca] Favorite Comfort Food: Classic Favorites and Great New ... (ISBN 0609804413)

Essential for Foodies!:
This was the first cookbook I ever purchased and it is still the one I use more often than any in my growing cookbook library. So much so that the pages are falling out and I may have to get a new copy. I purchased "Comfort Foods" because the photographs of the food looked so good they made me groan like Homer Simpson. Recipes listed included new twists on the classics I loved as a kid: Roasted chicken, meatloaf and mashed potatoes and the best from-scratch brownie recipe I have ever encountered in my life. One bite of these brownies and you will NEVER go back to brownie mixes For the more daring, also included are some Indian, French and Italian dishes I never knew I loved until I tasted. Be forewarned: the recipes are specific! Some dishes (like meatloaf) require a ruler. This may turn some people off but for a beginning cook like me, I prefer having detailed instructions because they cut down on the chances of me making a mistake. Every time I pull a beautiful, perfectly golden roast chicken out of the oven, my twenty-something friends look at me like I'm a wizard. I now have people over for homemade meals and frantically trade recipes with my Grandmother. It is honestly due in large part to my purchasing this book. Everyone learning to cook starts somewhere. For me personally, this was a great introduction and money VERY well spent.

This book is a waste of money:
I thought that perhaps I should try some of Martha's recipes since on her shows the food usually looks really tasty. I've heard from a couple of friends that her recipes are not as good as it looks but I figure I should still purchase the book and try things out. This is the worst recipe book ever. First of all, there are only a limited number of recipes. Second of all, all the food I made from there turned out to be the worst tasting food ever. The mac and cheese was gross. The chicken noodle soup was swimming in too much salt. I will NEVER try any of her recipes or purchase another book of hers again.

Picked it up at a thrift shop and it is awful:
I bought this book ... at a local thrift shop and it was a waste of money. I prepared one of the receipes for friends at my home. I was assited by our English live-in maid and she is a very good cook. The results were awful. Everyone smiled but the dinner was dreadful. Thanks to Martha - our neighbors no longer invite us to their monthly dinners which is awful. I wish I could give it zero stars. My husband reminds me of the dinner on a regular basis.

Perfect (almost)...:
My mother bought this book and I ended up receiving it due to my not-so-surreptitious glances and its frequent disappearance from the shelf. This book is a repository of the most classic and tempting foods I can imagine. They are presented with the Martha Stewart Living twist. For example, although I was curious to try the macaroni and cheese (Sharp white cheddar plus Gruyere? Hmmm...) this dish has become frequently requested and often talked about. Now onto the potato dishes and beyond! I phrase my only complaint as a warning: if a reader attempts to make certain recipes from scratch beginning to end, be prepared to spend some time :)! Thanks for reading.

I was disappointed.:
This is a thin book with a limited number of recipes. No doubt each recipe leads to a tasty product, but my overall reaction was "there's nothing really new here." In the meat categories -- beef, chicken, lamb, pork -- there are only two or three recipes at most for each critter. Personally, I could not recommend this particular cookbook to anyone.