A little bit country, a little bit Daniel Boulud

I love to get mail. Every day I check to see if I got any "good" mail. Most days the answer is no, I just got the electric bills and some stupid coupons for the rug doctor and also a yuppie homewares catalog I didn't want, but every two months the answer is YES, I got my new Cook's Illustrated magazine!! This magazine is just the greatest: they test every recipe exhaustively to make sure it is the best and easiest version, and they test ingredients and equipment as well. They are top-notch food scientists, and their research goal is to make delicious food. You can see their nerdy-but-awesome TV show America's Test Kitchen on OPB on Saturday afternoons at 1:30.

Anyway, they just launched a new magazine, and sent current Cook's subscribers a free trial copy. It is called Cook's Country. It's "not about fancy cooking or expensive restaurants or foods with names you can't pronounce; this is honest country fare." Now, since I DO like all those things, the fanciness and the restaurants and the mystery ingredients, you might think I'm not in their target market. You're right, and in fact no one who reads Digest really is.

But somehow, it's still appealing. I mean, the food just plain sounds like food you can eat. Potato casseroles, apple cakes, and ranch-style chili may not be gourmet, but I bet when done right--and that's the point, these guys will do it right--it sounds like tasty food I'd like to eat. The same goes for peanut butter brownies, cheesy mashed potatoes, and jalapeno cornbread.

Most of their recipes seem like simple, filling comfort food, the kind you'd want after a hard day, or when your relatives visit from out of town. Sure, if I'm in the mood for, say, a fancy French cheese plate, or homemade pasta with lemon-cream sauce, or Japanese braised spinach stems in sake, or any number of ethnic or complicated or impressive things, I already have plenty of cookbooks to help me out. But maybe it's just because my mom's mom is a genuine Iowa farm girl, and I grew up eating her food as interpreted by my vegetable-loving California mom, but sometimes you just want a pot roast with some tasty green beans on the side and brownies for dessert. And if that's what I'm after, Cook's Country can get me there.

Some of it doesn't float my boat. They are going for a real country community feel, including pictures of Mattituck, New York's local strawberry festival, a cute watermelon pig Susy DePeyster of Sandgate, Vermont made, and a reader from our own fair city of Portland holding a big chocolate cake she baked. Likewise, I don't really give a shit about that embarassing time you accidentally made purple gravy for your new husband, or your fond family memories of Grandma Lawson's homemade bread and butter.

And plenty of the food ideas aren't going to be that useful to me either. I could do without the cookie decoration tips, and I'm not likely to make any of their kid-friendly ice cream concoctions (though next time my six-year-old friend Hailey visits, I might grab this magazine for ideas). Likewise, I'm not interested in counting calories or buying convenience food, so I won't be using their recipe for low-fat pudding or their tip on top-rated Italian dressings. And, like their parent magazine, these guys are emphatically NOT vegetarian-friendly; they love their bacon, fried chicken, slow-cooked hunks-o-beef, and more.

I guess it's a testament to the excellence of the Cook's team that even I, the kind of person that "real" country folks sneer at for being a latte-drinking, gay-loving, Volvo-driving, tree-hugging, God-hating lefty, like this magazine. At the end of the day, the Cook's team helps you make delicious food, and that's something that we all can get behind.

But don't take my word for it. Try out their S'mores brownie recipe and let me know: are they good enough to unite our great nation?