New York Times Review

Review by AMANDA HESSER
Published: May 28, 2006
Many spring and summer cookbooks are like plays that get tried out in New Haven in hopes of making it to Broadway. Publishers nudge them onstage before a small house, hoping they won't choke, praying for a sleeper hit.
Yet even at this Off-Broadway time of year it's hard to get anyone's attention, because there's a glut of grilling books, as well as celebrity cookbooks. This spring, Giada ? aren't we on a first-name basis by now? ? Mario and Rachael all have new marketing tools to peddle. Still, the careful shopper can find some quietly terrific cookbooks.
The most entertaining among them is SAUCEPANS AND THE SINGLE GIRL (Warner, $13.95) by Jinx Morgan and Judy Perry, a reissue of their 1965 edition. Entertaining, other than in the Martha Stewart sense, isn't a word that applies to many modern cookbooks, which have become so serious, so earnest, so painfully dry. But not nearly so dry as the pitcher of martinis Morgan and Perry recommend keeping chilled in the refrigerator. Drinking a lot was a good idea back then, because ,except for Julia Child, the 1960's weren't a high point for the American culinary arts. A single girl's staples included such divine edibles as instant potatoes, garlic powder, dried parsley and MSG. And smoked salmon was as rarified as goat gizzards. So how did two young women from California survive? By making do, with dishes like onion-glazed pork chops, prepared with dried onion soup mix, that aren't half bad; sardines and cream cheese; and the flawless "Ye Olde Snack Mix" (that is, homemade Chex mix).
Morgan and Perry write in a fast-paced, amused tone that recalls Lucille Ball. Dishes aren't served, they're carried "flaming to the table." Shrimp are cooked for 5 minutes "or until you get bored." When shopping for a honeydew for "Soused Melon," they advise: "Ask that nice motherly lady pushing her cart around the produce section to find a ripe one for you." Punctuating a list of variations on scrambled eggs is this: "Haven't you any imagination?"
Rather than updating the book within the original text, Morgan and Perry have smartly added footnotes that sustain the flair of the original. Beneath a recipe for heating up canned wild rice, they write: "Someone should have held our heads underwater in a distant rice paddy when we even gave voice to this idea." With a Jell-O and ice cream parfait pie, they add, "Oh, dear."