When I’m deciding whether or not to buy a cookbook, the first place I look is the Table of Contents.  The Complete Idiot’s Guide opens with the Contents at a Glance, divided into six parts – Cooking Based on the Glycemic Index, Good Starts and Snacks, On the Light Side (Lunches, Appetizers and Hors d’Oeuvres, Sauces and Condiments, and Soups), Main Dishes, On the Side (side dishes of salads, vegetables, potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruit, and grains), and Sweet Endings.  Next is the contents by recipe name and page number.

Comparatively, the For Dummies book  opens with an Introduction that quite honestly baffles me. After explaining what the Glycemic Index is and that the goal of the book is to show that implementing a low-glycemic diet can be simple and delicious,  there’s a headline called “What You’re Not to Read” that tells you that there are boxes on the pages called sidebars that contain “interesting but nonessential information” that you can skip if you “aren’t interested in the nitty-gritty”, and then there’s a “joke” about how none of the information in the sidebars will be “on the test – just kidding, there’s no test of course”. Um, HUH??   Why take up space in a book telling readers that there are parts they SHOULDN’T read, along with a corny joke?

After that, is a headline called “Foolish Assumptions” that says this – “We assume that you’re looking for meal-planning tips and recipes that will help you succeed with your weight-loss goals and healthier living by using the glycemic index diet. We also assume that you’ve done some cooking. In other words, you’re familiar with the right knife to use to slice a tomato without cutting your finger, and you can tell one pot from another. If you need to brush up on your cooking skills, check out (another For Dummies book) before you get rolling.”

SERIOUSLY?  I mean, my jaw hit the floor when I read that.  First,  I think the authors are insulting potential readers of this book by assuming they know why they are reading it.  You know what they say about assume, right? It makes an a-s-s- out of u-and-m-e!  Second, what if this is the first cookbook I have ever bought? What if I’m a college student who just learned she needs a low glycemic index diet for health reasons, and DOES need to know which knife to use to slice a tomato?  Don’t tell me I need to buy another one of your books, use one of your sidebars to tell me which knife to use. Oh, right, I’m not supposed to READ your sidebars based on your “What You’re Not to Read” headline.  EPIC FAIL.

I almost didn’t want to look any further in the For Dummies book, but I promised to give a fair review, so I kept going.  The Complete Idiot’s Guide devotes a short Chapter 1 to Cooking Based on the Glycemic Index, then a short Chapter 2 to Stocking Your Glycemic Index Kitchen, then dives right in to the recipes, which start on page 20.  The For Dummies book devotes SEVEN chapters to explanations, with chapter titles like “Surveying the Many Health Benefits of a Low-Glycemic Diet” and “Using the Glycemic Load to Create Meal-Planning Strategies”. Is this a college textbook or a cookbook?  I found it odd that they don’t think I need to know which knife to use, but I do need to study chapter after chapter of information before I even get a recipe. The first recipe, by the way, doesn’t appear until page 109!  Again, I ask, SERIOUSLY?

Once I got to page 109 in the For Dummies book, I was hoping the recipes would be a redeeming factor.  Unfortunately for them, they aren’t. What I like about how The Complete Idiot’s Guide book prints the recipes is how everything is organized on the page.  When I post a recipe on my food blog, I list the ingredients first, then the directions underneath, which is how The Complete Idiot’s Guide does it, as well as every other cookbook I own. The For Dummies book puts the ingredients on the left side of the page and the directions on the right, which confuses my eye as to where to look.

Also, The Complete Idiot’s Guide book puts a big box on the side of the recipe with the recipe yield, prep and cook times, serving size, and then the nutritional info per serving. It’s easy to see right away whether the recipe will need to be doubled, and where it fits in a day of low glycemic index eating.  The For Dummies book puts the prep time, cook time and serving size at the top, and then puts the nutritional info in tiny print at the bottom. And by tiny, I mean TINY.  In this photo, you can see the difference between The Complete Idiot’s Guide recipe on the left, with the nutritional info box highlighted, and the For Dummies book on the right, with the nutritional info highlighted:

Which one is easier for YOU to read?  I really wanted to be fair, and find reasons to like both books, but hands-down, The Complete Idiot’s Guide book gets my recommendation over the For Dummies book. You can pick up The Complete Idiot’s Guide Glycemic Index Cookbook on Amazon.com for $12.89. I really do think it’s the better choice!

What makes The Crabby Cook Cookbook really fun to read is that in between the recipes, Harper tells hilarious stories. Just wait until you read about how she made homemade pot pie for the first time and ended up with a crust that tasted like rosemary-scented Play-Doh—to serve to Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford. Or how a “very famous wife” made her so nervous she forgot the husband’s name. Every recipe tells how it came to be, along with stories of Harper’s childhood – her mother had six kids and never had a problem getting a meal on the table, the pancake, um, incident. It’s not like any cookbook I’ve ever read!

The recipes vary, some are extremely simple (cheese crisps made by sprinkling grated cheese in a skillet and frying until crisp) and some are extremely complicated – her burrito recipe has 17 ingredients and her turkey chili has a whopping 21 – but mostly, you’ll find recipes for food every home cook should know how to make, like roast chicken, bean and cheese quesadillas, and chocolatey brownies. Look for recipes marked with a red star for the “Miracle Foods” recipes that Harper says anyone will eat!

And then, as if she isn’t funny enough as a writer, Harper has a blog with more recipes and stories, a Twitter account where she shows her wit in 140 characters or less,  a Facebook page, and a YouTube channel where you can watch her in her kitchen making butter, Christmas cookies, and butternut squash soup among others.  I like this video where Harper crabbily contemplates going next door to borrow sugar from her glamorous TV star neighbor and whether she would have to whiten her teeth first. Ha!

The Crabby Cook Cookbook: Recipes and Rants is available from Amazon.com for $10.49. I received a complimentary copy for this review. No other compensation was received. The links in this post are Amazon Associates.

Fay has a real knack for creating characters that readers will care about, and the ones in this book are no exception. My favorite in this book is Alder, Dana’s 16 year old niece who shows up unannounced-and gets into a car accident right in front of Dana’s house-asking to live with Dana. When the book ended I found myself trying to imagine what would happen next, and that’s a mark of excellent storytelling for me.

Juliette Fay is the mother of four children, ages 8 to 17, and has a background in child services. Her experiences were the inspiration for many themes running throughout the book, including:

* The pressures women and girls feel to be “perfect” and how that can steer us wildly off course.
* Going beyond “superficial truths” to discover a deeper self
* Overcoming the crippling insecurities that stem from the desire to fit in
* Drawing inspiration from unlikely sources

Pick up Deep Down True using my Amazon Associate link below or look for it at bookstores. It’s humorous, heart-warming and you won’t want to put it down!

disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Deep Down True.