Baker's Magic by Diane Zahler, 2016

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Bee is an orphan, alone in a poor, crumbling kingdom. In desperation, she steals a bun from a bakery, and to her surprise, the baker offers her a place at his shop. As she learns to bake, Bee discovers that she has a magical power. When a new friend desperately needs her help against an evil mage, Bee wonders what an orphan girl with only a small bit of magic can do. Bee's journey to help her friend becomes a journey to save the kingdom, and a discovery of the meaning of family.

(336 pages)

First, a confession: I'm writing this the night before it goes live. I usually have my reviews written at least a few days before they're scheduled, but with this one it took a long time to even access the book (because apparently, Capstone doesn't let you read their Netgalley ebooks on Kindle). I just finished reading Baker's Magic yesterday, and I figured I'd go ahead and review it now anyway because a) it just came out the first of the month (so it's still new enough that it would be better for me to post my review sooner) and b) I'm having wrist surgery this coming Tuesday, and I don't really want to have a late review hanging over my head while I'm doing all of my typing one-handed.

Anyway, that's probably far more than you really wanted to know about the inner workings of my scheduling woes. You're really here to read about the book, aren't you? And I'm happy to say that this is definitely a good one! Rather dark cover - which actually made me hesitate to request it in the first place - aside, this is a fun, though not necessarily fluffy, book that plays with a large number of tropes so subtly that you barely notice what's going on at all.

Take Wil, for example. He's a nice boy, the blacksmith's son who's trapped into following his father's footsteps, and he and Bee have a fun, bantering relationship right from the beginning of the story. But do they fall in love? It's not much of a spoiler to say that they don't - and that the story lacks nothing for having no love interest for the main character. What's more, all of the usual tropes - the pirates, the quests, the mages, the princess, etc. - all play out differently than you would expect. I don't want to say much more about how things turn out, or I'll spoil the entire book, but suffice to say that it is a pretty fresh take on things.

Also, I really love the story line with the trees. That's an entirely new angle, and it is really cool - especially because Bee is a baker, and so she really appreciates the entire worlds of opportunity that open up with fruits like lemons and apples to cook with. I can't imagine living in a world without wood, but that is the environment Bee and her friends grew up in and so it's really cool seeing them encounter trees for the first time as the story goes on.

This wasn't the absolute best book I've ever read (I will say that the pacing was a tad strange), but it was a very enjoyable one that I am glad to have gotten the chance to read. If you give it a go, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary ecopy of this book through Netgalley.

Whitney Miller's New Southern Table by Whitney Miller, 2015

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Following her great-grandmothers examples of creatively stretching meals during the Great Depression, Whitney Miller transforms recipes from her Southern roots, preserving flavors of traditional family dishes while offering the excitement of her own special touches. She offers a taste of her family table with dishes like Southern Horchata, PB&J Chicken Satay, Dehydrated Okra Chips, Sweet Corn Grit Tamales, Peach Bread Pudding with Sweet Tea Rum Sauce, and much more. Using new techniques and cooking methods, Miller reimagines classic recipes and experiments with flavors from around the world, inspired by her travels since winning MasterChef.

(288 pages)

Okay, so I saw this cookbook available for review and I thought it would be fun to have an excuse to try out some new recipes. I always want to cook but never have time for it, so this was meant to be my motive for actually getting my butt off the chair and into the kitchen.

Yeah, it didn't really work. I tried one recipe (the olive oil biscuits - definitely recommend!) and then handed the book off to my brother and made him cook a few of the recipes for school. I know, I'm an awesome teacher, aren't I? This is what happens when you make the sixteen-year-old her brother's Spanish teacher. It wasn't a complete waste of time for him, though: he had to translate the recipes into Spanish first and then use his copy to make the recipe. I don't think I've ever seen him so motivated to do his Spanish homework as when he was scrambling to try out that homemade white hot chocolate recipe!

All of the recipes that we tried were pretty easy - once we managed to track down the ingredients, that is. Whitney Miller may have stone-ground grits or pear juice just sitting in her pantry all the time, but we had to wait for our mom to get some. She kept forgetting when she went to the grocery store, so that significantly slowed our progress in the recipes. Assuming you actually have everything you need, though, the recipes are quick and easy (far simpler than the recipes in my beloved Harry Potter cookbook, which are delicious but ridiculously convoluted).

Now for the big question: are the dishes in the cookbook tasty? And from our experiments, I'd say it's a very strong maybe. Some of them are delicious - I don't think I've ever had such wonderful biscuits before (though to be fair, I'm not exactly a biscuit aficionado). Other recipes, though, produced rather mixed responses in our taste testers. The white hot chocolate that my brother was so excited about, and that he slaved over for half an hour on the stove, was certainly tasty but it was so rich half of us got stomachaches afterwards - including me, and I couldn't even bring myself to finish my cup, it was so rich. And this from the girl who absolutely adores white chocolate.

There are still a number of dishes I really want to try, especially the Pb&J Chicken Satays, which looks extremely delicious. There are others, though, like the Creole Succotash Salad that don't really appeal to me - they're just a little too far outside of my comfort zone. All of the recipes seem very good, though, and I think it's just a matter of what sort of food you like. I like about two-thirds of the foods in this recipe book, so I think it will be supplying me with tasty new treats to try for a long time.

Especially if I can't even manage to get myself into the kitchen more than once a month.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the BookLook Bloggers program in exchange for an honest review.