Very nice, with some great tips. Pictures make me want to go buy a hundred canning jars in which to store my entire pantry. Lots of use of sumac, which I've never cooked with. However, I feel like every cookbook makes canning sound really easy when actually I need a giant chapter on how not to kill people due to my novice canning skills. ( )

Except for my Midwestern- instilled love of cheese, Amy Pennington and I share the same palate. It is as if this book was written for me personally. ( )

Amy Pennington offers tips on how to stock a pantry in small living quarters, such as her New York apartment. In this book, she not only offers tips but also a few recipes for each ingredient she recommends keeping on hand. I found that the things she would consider staples and the things that I would consider to be staples are different. While some of her recipes sounded good, others did not. The book has been on my wish list for awhile, and I'm glad that I discovered a copy in our public library and checked it out before purchasing it. I will probably write down or copy a recipe or two for future use, but it's not one I would use that much if I did own a copy. While I enjoyed reading a bit about the various ingredients and some of her stories about recipes and specific tips about recipes, the format got a little old as the book progressed. If you live in a small space in a large urban area, this may be a book you would enjoy, but since I live in a small Southern city near the mountains and have a larger living space, it's not quite as applicable. ( )