Fannie in the Kitchen: The Whole Story from Soup to Nuts of How Fannie Farmer Invented Recipes with Precise Measurements Book

Now I'm wondering if Fannie Farmer's cookbook is one of the cookbooks my mother used.

This is a charming book. It's funny and informative too. Getting to know Farmer via the daughter of the house where she's arrived as a mother's helper makes this woman and her cooking especially interesting for children.

The illustrations are perfect. They look vintage. They're funny: Marcia sitting on a very dangerous pile of things to make long candles, Marcia sulking about Fannie coming into their house with her disapproving facial expression reflected in several pieces of glassware on the table, the cat with a pancake on its head, etc. etc. etc. The details in each picture are fun to view.

The story (despite the appreciated author's note at the back, I'm not sure how much of this is non-fiction vs. historical fiction) rings so true, from Marcia's jealousy of Fannie and of the new baby, to Fannie's cooking and decision to write down precise instructions for her recipes, to Fannie's teaching, first in Marcia's house where she's a mother's helper, then going on to become a cooking teacher at the Boston Cooking School, then on to writing her landmark cook book.

I love how each short "chapter" in this short picture book has meal related titles. Six chapters: First Course (The Soup), Second Course: A Small Success, Third Course: The Griddle Cake Mistake, Fourth Course: The Egg Disaster, Fifth Course: An Excellent Idea, and Sixth Course: Marcia Shaw, Mater Chef. And, in an informative note at the end: Seventh Course (The Nuts): More About Fannie Farmer. There's also a recipe in the back for Fannie Farmer's Famous Griddle Cakes.

This is a delightful book and I'm very grateful to the Children's Books group; it's one of the June selections for its Picture Books Club. I'd most likely never have read it otherwise and I'm so glad that I did.