New cookbook for those who “can’t cook
By Glenn Dromgoole
Abilene author Johnnie Lou Avery Boyd has written a cookbook that’s not your usual cookbook.
A Cookbook for Non-Cooks ($13.99 spiral-bound) is, Johnnie Lou says, “about my journey to learning to cook after age 70.” The book’s subtitle is “80 simple recipes with tips for success!”
The tips do, indeed, deserve an exclamation point, as they offer a running commentary throughout the book, often humorous.
For example, after her recipe for Superb Pork Loin Roast, which includes rosemary as one of the ingredients for the spice rub, Johnnie Lou’s tip is: “I do not use rosemary because I’m not familiar with rosemary, but it is so good without it, if you don’t have some, just forget that ingredient.”
“I seriously made a commitment to learn to cook at the age of 70 and have found the experience especially difficult, unfulfilling, and non-rewarding,” Johnnie Lou writes. “Nevertheless, because I set a goal, I soldiered on.” Her goal was to cook 75 different things.
In the first seven years of the project, she learned to make 32 dishes. The next five years, 26. During the pandemic year, 22, bringing the total to 80. Voila!
“Non-cooks, take heart,” she writes. “I am a living example of a most unlikely cook who can now cook 80 dishes.” And have a few laughs along the way!
You can get autographed copies of A Cookbook for Non-Cooks at Texas Star Trading Company. Four years ago, Johnnie Lou wrote MizHat, the biography of Roy Helen Ackers, that was a very popular Abilene book. It sold out.