24 June, 2010

The Quilter's Kitchen

The Quilter's Kitchen by Jennifer Chiaverini

This is the 13th book in The Elm Creek Quilts series.

I'm still really struggling with Tracks, so when I got notice from the library that The Quilter's Kitchen was in, I decided to take a break.

For the first time, I wasn't impressed at all with an Elm Creek Quilt novel. Basically the new chef and Sylvia are cleaning out the kitchen in preparation for it's remodelling. As they clean various items trigger Sylvia's memories of her family and the role of the kitchen in the house. Each chapter is accompanied by a bunch of recipes. In a 220p book, (large print - it was the only copy the library had) only 75 pages were story. The rest were recipes that while interesting, I feel could have been made into a stand alone book rather than having a story attached to them. For me, the story was written simply to give a reason to publish the recipes. The Elm Creek franchise by this stage is strong enough that a book of Elm Creek Recipes most probably would have sold anyway without the lure of a story attached. Given I only read the stories and not the recipes, I will be honest and list this as only having 75p. in my page count.