Return to Sunday Dinner by Russell Cronkhite

A cookbook usually wouldn't be a pleasure read but Return to Sunday Dinner was a fun, interesting read! I still need to do some cooking but this book certainly made me hungry.

Sunday dinners while I was growing up did tend to be nicer than the average weekday, last minute, thrown together meals but honestly this book didn't bring back memories about my childhood but it does make me fondly look back on the many family dinners we have had at my parents house surrounded by my family, my brothers family, my sisters' families as well as any guests that happen to be in need of a good dinner and some noise and mayhem that often are a part of Family dinners.

I loved how the author of this particular cookbook wrote a little introduction for each of the 24 different dinners he describes. These introductions include geographical or historical information behind the type of dishes chosen for these dinners.  He also includes recipes from all types of Americans cooking. There are southern dishes, Quaker dishes, and even south west. So many comfort foods like pot roast, meat loaf and macaroni and cheese. As well as the yummy cakes and breads. Most of the foods in this cookbook are foods I would call comfort foods.

I also appreciated that each dinner is complete. The recipe for the main dish as well as all the sides including vegetables and breads are included in each of the chapters. I loved the side dish recipes almost more than the main dishes. The salads and veggie dishes sound so tasty.

While I don't imagine making fancy dinners like the ones described in this book. Especially on Sundays. We tend to have really simple dinners on Sunday at our house but I do appreciate the recipes to make my everyday dinners a little more interesting. I also really liked that at the end of each chapter there were suggestions for things you could do to make the meals easier to put together. Things you can do ahead of time so that it all runs more smoothly. So if I do ever try to make one of these complete dinners I would be able to put together the meals a little easier. For someone who isn't the one who usually hosts the family dinners I need all the help I can get.

This was the next book I volunteered to review for Book Sneeze.  A very tasty, yummy read. Now I just need to get cooking and baking! Those cloverleaf rolls are first on my list! or maybe the banana black bottom cream pie. It is hard to decide.