Tara Mataraza Desmond

These are definitely not your everyday recipes. This cookbook sets out to give you options for the bigger events in your life where sides can really make the meal. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries... Occasions like that. These are not dishes that you will just come home after work and put together. There are main dish paring suggestions given for each recipes which give a lot more thought than I usually do when I am pairing dishes which could be very helpful. Overall though, I don't think there were more than a handful of recipes that I would personally try at home. Being a Deep South girl, for special occasions I tend toward more traditional fare that I know everyone loves and has memories of from childhood, not dishes that guests are unsure of how to eat.

ARC courtesy of Andrews McMeel Publishings, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.(less)… (more)