New England Open-House Cookbook: 300 Recipes Inspired by the Bounty of New England

This cookbook contains several recipes I have been looking for. I love the photos and the anecdotes about New England. The book was in like new condition even though described as "Used-Very Good"; packaged securely in a padded envelope and arrived soooner than expected. Thank you!

This is a wonderful book. Full of tasty, homey and doable recipes you can make on weeknights, weekends, and parties. The name says it all, you will get lots of recipes with seafood and ingredients that are available in New England and maybe hard to get everywhere else, so beware of this if you don’t live in New England and would not like to search for New England ingredients.In a time where Mexican, Indian, Arab, Korean, and fusion food are all the rave (and I LOVE them all), finding a cookbook with contemporary dishes and old time favorites with simple, soft, and “kind” flavors is a breath of fresh air. This does not mean that the recipes are boring or tasteless, all the opposite, they are full of fresh, vibrant, interesting and delicious flavors. And yes, New England also has the influence of many cultures and cuisines from the people from around the world that has called home that part of the Northeast, and you will see that on some recipes.The book took 5 years to be completed and Mrs. Chase searched through many community cookbooks, old recipes, family and friend’s kitchen and her own twist on local food. The collection of recipes is so interesting you will find a dish for every time, season, celebration or holiday, all New England style and all delicious.My only complaint? As with so many cookbooks, you don’t get a list of recipes on each chapter so if you want to find a specific soup you made some days ago, you better remember the page or some of the ingredients to search on the Index or worst, the name of the soup, which I never memorize, and again you have to go to the Index to find it. This fashion of no recipe list has to come to an end and soon, please!

Interesting compendium of anecdotes (Sarah Leah Chase has family and friends who are foodies, food columnists, chefs, and "ordinary" home cooks), and tasty recipes. The digital version Table of Contents contains links to chapters, but no links to individual recipes, and it is necessary to page through each chapter to discover the variety of recipes within each chapter heading. And she uses mayonnaise in some recipes, but includes a link for 'homemade' in addition to suggesting commercially-available brands. Other recipes (Beer Can Chicken) recommend using specialty purchases, such as locally-available soda, high-hops beer, and so forth, but these can be modified to utilize ingredients available to your own region's stores and kitchen.Being a born-and-bred New Englander (living many other places for "work") myself, I find it interesting that most of the recipes have an upscale, global cuisine tone. However, since much of New England was settled, and visited, by sea-faring traders as well as immigrants from many nations along its history, this approach has some historic relevance. If, though, you are looking for "old fashioned" New England recipes which hearken back to the centuries-old treatments of locavore items ("old-timey" pies, cakes and cookies, thrifty candied fruit peels, sumac and berry compotes, home cured meats and cheeses, etc), look elsewhere. If you are looking for tasty entertaining and home-table fare which nods toward locavore providers and incorporates cosmopolitan approaches to techniques and ingredients, this is a great exploration of Sarah Leah Chase's lifelong appreciation of the treatment and tasting of food.

I LOVE this cookbook! I ordered it because of the fact that she and Ina are friends, and I just happen to be an Ina fan as well. I loved browsing the recipes in this book, and I loved reading the "essays" as to how and why and where these recipes came from. Also, being new to the greater Boston area via the beaches of Southern California, I was looking for something to deepen my appreciation and love of my new home. This book has really helped with that! And her recipes are AMAZING!! They fool you with how good they are! I found myself, on more than on one occasion, feeling a bit apprehensive with the combinations of ingredients and flavors I was assembling into a dish, but the finished product has always been amazing. Sarah Leah Chase is obviously a master at this, and it is reflected in her recipes. It is true however, that this book does speak "New England" fare, so if I ever found myself calling a beach city in Southern California my home once again, I'm not sure how much I would refer to this book. But, there is a southwestern influence in her cooking which I find interesting and very much appreciate. Buy this book! You won't be disappointed!

Sarah Leah Chase's recipes get 5 stars but the Kindle version of this book is all but unusable. I have most of her other books in print and love her recipes, so it pains me to give so low a rating, but this kindle version deserves no stars.A cookbook is a reference book, so some listing of the recipes is an absolute must. There is no listing of the recipes anywhere. There is no index, nor pull-down for each chapter in the Contents, nor listing of recipes at the beginning of any chapter.I don’t expect linked indexes, although I’m thrilled when cookbooks have them, but publishing a cookbook without any list of the recipes it contains is unforgivable.

I have loved ALL of her books

Great present for daughter in law

Love it

Wow love it!!!!