Librocubicularist

This book was a gift from a family member who found it at a thrift shop, and boy am I glad! It's circa 1994, and full of the sort of recipes I like: unpretentious stuff at home on the ranch table or a church potluck buffet. There are canned cream soups called for, and packets of onion soup mix, and whipped topping. But there is a definite Montana sensibility: the occasional presumption that the cook will be grinding their own flour or cornmeal, ingredients like elk and pheasant, a preponderance of cold-hardy vegetables, recipes scaled to feed a harvest crew. I'll definitely be cooking from this book.

Most recipes are accompanied by a snippet of Montana trivia or history, which made for a fun read. There are also hand-drawn sketches of Montana subjects on about half of the pages. It's too bad this title is out of print; it would have made a great gift. Hopefully author Patricia Scott Black will consider a fifth printing.

What Went Well:

• Recipe selection
• Bonus trivia

Even Better If:

• Better bound - I have a real dislike of comb binding