The Peach Tree Tea Room in Fredericksburg, TX is a delightful place to visit, browsing and shopping in the gift shop before and after having lunch. It is a place I, and other devoted patrons, return to time and again, for ambience and food. The cookbook represents the fare at the tea room, like the corn and potato chowder and garlic-jalapeno-potato bread--delicious there and made at home! The recipes are easy to follow with good results, and what a variety of recipes. Another reason the cookbook is so good!

My wife had this cookbook when we got married in 1993, and she frequently consults it for everyday cooking and frequent entertaining. Although we have not tried every recipe in the book, of the dozens we have tried, all are delicious. As the chief cook in our house, my wife, Joy, likes the logical organization of the recipes and their easy-to-read style. As the chief eater in our house, I like the way Peach Tree recipes taste.

I am a US diplomat, and we entertain guests often at our home in Bangladesh. This cookbook has earned our trust to the point that we have used it to plan dinner parties, without testing the recipes ahead of time. The Peach Tree Cookbook (as it is called at our house) has never let us down.

This is a great coffee table book for all of those interested in the history of flight or the history or Western Pennsylvania. I helped to transcribe a lot of the tapes of interviews for this book and these guys love to tell stories about their early days in the airfields.

Judith Phillips books are a godsend to those of us who garden in the high desert. She understands our highly varied zones and which plants thrive in each area. The illustrations and codes are very helpful. I am a public librarian and have bought many copies of her three books for our library and to use at home. Rather than hitting your head against the wall and wasting precious water trying to make something grow that does not belong in your area, Judith helps you create a great garden that will thrive and be relatively low maintenance. Her suggestions on plant combinations are particularly useful. The only criticism I have is one that happened at the printers: the pages in the back of Plants for Native Gardens which lists a chart of adaptive plants are not numbered. I highly recommend all three of Phillips' fine books.

This book was given to me as a gift....I just love the recipes and the little vignettes about most of the recipes from the author. What a delight. The book is well done and will inspire you to get in the kitchen and start cookin. The only trouble will be where to start, so might I suggest the pecan muffins with the cream cheese center? Yummy. Good home cooking.
I'm ordering the first book today. Thanks Martha for sharing.

The red chile bible has brought the exciting red chile into my life and I am very grateful to the authors for creating such a masterpiece! I would recommend this bible to beginners and aficionados alike.

It's a pity this elegant book is now out of print, since it traces the artistic evolution of Mark Klett, one of our foremost American landscape photographers. Combining his knowledge of geology with his interest in photography, Klett saw himself originally as a direct artistic descendant of great 19th Century American photographers such as Carleton Watkins and Timothy O'Sullivan. Indeed, one of his earliest projects was to photograph again the same locales these photographers photographed during their work as official photographers to several U. S. government scientific surveys. Klett's work shows a deep affection and appreciation of the American landscape, especially the Southwest. Yet it is also a series of cautionary visual tales noting how we have inadvertently ruined that landscape through pollution and other signs of human activity. Hopefully this splendid book will be published again soon.

Sometimes it's tough to be a Texan. It takes a love of unpredictability to make a person strong enough to experience all that our good state has to offer. And it takes a certain native talent to write about the emotions and thrills that make up the everyday life of Texas.

James Hoggard is a true Texan.

A professor of English at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, Hoggard knows the excitement that Texas has to offer, and he conveys these thoughts and sentiments through the stories and observations in his book, "Riding The Wind & Other Tales."

Upon reading the title story of this collection, "Riding The Wind" (a narrative of the April 10, 1979, tornado that ravaged Wichita Falls), I found myself remembering all of the events of that fateful day. Hoggard's imagery and word choice make it seem like only yesterday that the tornado changed my life forever, and I found tears in my eyes as I read for the first time about the young mother who lost her children from underneath her in the tub. I've never heard that story, and I thought I'd heard them all.

Other stories in "Riding The Wind & Other Tales" are not as sad. Hoggard offers tender reminiscences of his Texas childhood and shares adult memories and meditations on life. He writes stories of what he knows best -- family and friends. Some of the tales are poignant, some are witty, some will make you chuckle out loud. This is short literature at its finest.

Great book that focuses on the needs and advantages of growing roses in the Southwest. Unlike most rose books, which focus on growing roses in more temperate climates, this book addresses the unique requirements and opportunities of growing roses in the desert. I particularly liked the references the author made to specific roses (i.e. Gene Boerner, Abraham Darby, etc.) that do well in more arid climates. This book cuts through the rhetoric of the thicker "prettier" rose books and gives the desert gardner the growing know-how they need to create a paradise in the desert!

A friend purchased this cookbook for me several years ago. It's given our family years of inventive, spicy Saturday and Sunday dinners!

While I have prepared many recipes from this cookbook, our favorites continue to be "Grilled Tuna with Honey Apricot Chipotle Glaze" and the "Honey Chipotle Chicken".

This cookbook has been tough to locate where I live -- I've purchased three for friends!