Paula Deen's The Deen Family Cookbook

This is a fun book with lots of color photos of the recipes as well as of Paula and her various family members. There is a great family photo on the back of the dust jacket. Of course there are recipes from Paula but also, her husband, Michael, his children and brother, her son's Jamie and Bobby and Jamie's wife, her Aunt Peggy, brother Bubba and his children, her cousin, Johnnie and several others as well as her friend, Katie Lee.

Each recipe includes a brief story of who the recipe is from and a little something about why it's a family favorite. This is a fun book to read as well as cook from. Many recipes are what you would expect from Paula with a few surprises. If you're a fan of Paula, love southern cooking, want to learn more about how her family really eats or want to get a peak into her family life, then this is the book for you.

For the most part recipes are either all on one page on continued on a facing page. There are a couple exceptions to this rule and you have to do a bit of page turning on a few recipes. Type is black ink with the recipe name and ingredient list in a green color.

I read this one from cover to cover when it arrived by way of a paperback swap friend. Then I marked several recipes to try and finally made the first one a couple weeks ago.