My mother was a terrific cook, but could not get me to learn. She collected recipes for 80 years and put a little note on many of them telling where they came from. When I married, I was helpless in the kitchen. My gravy would hold up a spoon, fried chicken was often raw inside. Over the years I've come to appreciate good cooks, my mother, her sister, my dad's sister were the best, and so I learned to cook. I inherited my mother's recipes when she passed on, and when my publisher asked me if I could write a cook book for him, I jumped at the chance. In this way I might be able to make up to my mother my stubborn insistence that I didn't need to cook. Today, thanks to her recipes, I'm a pretty good cook myself. All the recipes in the book are "from scratch" and teach the basics of making good gravy, cooking rice and macaroni, feather light biscuits, and delicious fried pies, as well as a variety of menu items popular in the Ozarks.