Don’t expect Chef grade recipes , just good ole southern fairly simple recipes . The pictures are great and the stories are sweet .

A wonderful cookbook full of "food for the heart!" Love it!

I only found one recipe that I would make. The cookbook shows more emphasis on dolly and her sister than it does cooking good food. The photos of the food are not professional quality. The photographer emphasized more on dolly and her sister than they did good pics of the food. It mostly looked over cooked and dry.

Long story short, this is great book, Dolly fan or not. If you love delicious food and sharing it with loved ones, this book will inspire you to invite them over. It's full of southern cooking. That means butter, bacon, sugar and a cast iron skillet. The recipes read like your aunt let you in on the family secret recipe. The recipes do not reinvent the wheel. They are straight forward, easy to follow and you can tell by the ingredient list, delicious. If you are a home cook with an affinity for butter and shortening you probably already have your own version of many of the recipes. These include busicits, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, meat loaf, black eyed peas, banana pudding and coleslaw. Where this book shines is in the way it highlights that the occasion isn't special so much as the people you share it with make it so. The food brings the people together. The book gives you the menu for the event from start to finish all preplanned for you. The ingredients primarily are items you already have and kitchen staples. Some recipes have special cuts of meat but none of the ingredients are things you've never heard of. Many of the ingredients are repeated through the recipes so you'll never end up with some weird random ingredient you'll only use once. You'll probably want a cast iron skillet but for the most part the rest of the specialty items are optional or can be substituted for things you already have. You don't need an electric/stand mixer but it sure does make it easier. Same with a food processor. You probably already a 9×13 baking dish, a 9×9 baking dish, a Roasting pan, a bundt pan, and a Dutch oven. This book utilizes other equipment like a deep fryer, grill, electric skillet, Mellon baller, jello mold of a brain, muffin pan, spring mold pan, kitchen twine and mentions the use of a slow cooker. I think most items have more than once use in the book so if you were to pick up say a bundt pan you'd have more than one recipe that uses it. This book was very thoughtfully put together and makes me want to make my own to share with my own family. Some recipes have fully made from scratch recipes and some have a few store bought short cuts, just like we all do in our regular cooking. This really is a book for people who love food and love cooking. I really like it. Read it from cover to cover. The simple ingredients and instructions let me know exactly what they will taste like and the pictures don't show anything that wasn't mentioned in the recipes. Very much what you see it what you get. The book is organized by month and in the back it is broken down by category. It can easily be reference through the index. This may not be for you already make southern basics and have for years like Dolly and her sister. You probably won't find anything new or innovative. It's real food for real people and if you already make that, this may seem like a waste. So far I've made a salad and an appetizer with things I already had in my house. Both were very good.

Lots of really delicious recipes! Awesome for a Christmas gift as well. Very well illustrated, quality very well put together for every month of the year. Thanks Dolly!

First of all I love Dolly. I ordered this book as soon as Amazon posted the book. I waited several months to receive it. I was so excited waiting to receive this book. The pictures of Dolly & her sister were wonderful. The recipes were nothing I didn't know already. IF I would have known this I wouldn't have ordered this book. It was pricey & I could have bought groceries. To make recipes I already knew how to make. So anyone thinking of ordering the book if your a Dolly fan & enjoy looking at pictures it maybe worth buying for the recipes it's not worth buying. ITS up to you..

I pre-ordered in March and couldn't wait to get mine in the mail. I love this book because of the stories and the delicious recipes. My favorite is the prime rib with Au Jus and horseradish and I cannot forget the Chocolate Cobbler.

If you want to be the STAR of every family gathering, buy and use this cookbook. Simple to follow directions with ingredients you can actually find in the real world, this book is packed with recipes for the food we grew up on. Beautiful photos and layout from two beautiful ladies. A Kentucky girl sends her sincere thanks for sharing.