Book Review: "Make the Butter, Buy the Bread"

I was recently shopping in Daedalus Books in Columbia (a great store, which I often refer to as having "Amazon prices without the shipping") and bought all the things, as I tend to do there. Hubs picked up a copy of Jennifer Reese's Make the Butter, Buy the Bread --a book about what you should and should not be making yourself to eat in order to save money.

In truth, I picked up the book, glanced through the pages and went "this looks like fun, but she lives in California, and the book was published five years ago, so are the prices still true?" and set it down. Then, my friend Allison picked it up and said the same thing. When Andrew picked it up, I decided $4.98 for three people to read the book was a decidedly fair price.

Her writing style is personal without becoming a source of over-share and very positive and witty. However, she does make a lot of references to how her mother's death made it hard for her to continue making a variety of different things...which, having lost several children, I can identify with, but felt was kinda debbie-downer-ish to mention in the book, which otherwise is primarily upbeat. This is the kind of book I like to read (See also: Consider The Fork, or to a lesser degree, The Omnivore's Dilemma).

The layout is a little hap-hazard. Each "Chapter" is broken down by a key ingredient or idea, but this is not always consistent. The first half of the book ends up mostly being about absurd things that happened with her chickens and why they're not such a great idea. Mostly, it left me wondering who fenced her yard for $3,500 (our lowest estimate for a fence was $9000! But, probably we have a larger swath of land than most people in California).

She breaks down (often a bit too simply), the hassle level of making the item and the cost, and whether or not you should make it (or even just try making it to see if you like it better). I don't always agree with her assessment, and clearly she doesn't crank out biscuits all the time as my family does.

The recipes that accompany most of her suggestions of "Make It"s are from a variety of sources, many of which she has added or changed ingredients. We haven't tried any of the suggestions (yet!), but among the items she suggests:
Make it: Bread, oatmeal, yogurt, hash browns, pancakes, buttermilk, eggs benedict, English muffins, hollandaise, hot cocoa, pumpkin choco. chip muffins, flourless chocolate cake, onion rings, doughnuts, and marshmallows
Buy it: butter, eggs, chips, onion dip, fried chicken

Making a 1/4 sized batch of yogurt (and tea) using a recipe from online. Seems pretty simple, I'll let you know how it tastes later.

These are all suggestions from the first half of the book--I was keeping notes on an envelope and stopped tracking them when I ran out of space.

I really enjoyed this book as a narrative, and intend to try some of the recipes in the future. You can find it at Daedalus Books online store here
or
Amazon here 

Even with shipping, it's cheaper at Daedalus.

You can also find out more about Jenifer Reese on her website, The Tipsy Baker

Happy Reading!