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‘Fannie Farmer’ Has Junior Cookbook

Molly Lopez Los Angeles Times

For grown-ups, “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook” has been an extremely popular book for many years. For kids who like to cook, there’s now Joan Scobey’s newly updated edition of the classic “Fannie Farmer Junior Cookbook” (Little, Brown, $19.95).

This new cookbook is wellorganized and has a lot of good recipes for beginning cooks as well as more experienced ones.

It begins with six helpful chapters: the Good Food Guide, Tools of the Trade, Coming to Terms, Good Cooking Tips, Safety Pointers, and Menu Making. You learn about ingredients and utensils and what to look for when you buy various foods.

Patience Brewster’s illustrations of the various gadgets and appliances are helpful. Different methods of cutting and chopping, measuring equivalents and oven temperatures also are discussed. The reader even finds out the best way to wash burned pots: Fill the pan with cold water, add a tablespoon of baking soda and heat slowly on top of the stove. Then wash with hot soapy water.

Recipes include soups, breads, biscuits, meat and fish, vegetables, pasta and grains, salads and dressings, cakes, pies and lots of cookies.

I compared the oatmeal raisin cookie recipe in the “Fannie Farmer Junior Cookbook” with the one in the regular “Fannie Farmer Cookbook.” The instructions for the one in the junior book are much more detailed and geared to kids.

A spongecake recipe was fairly easy to follow - I made it for my brother’s birthday. The only problem was that I mixed up the egg yolks and the egg whites and had to start over. I also tried a peanut butter bread that was very easy to make and even easier to eat!