Big Food Big Love: Down-Home Southern Cooking Full of Heart from Seattle's Wandering Goose

by Heather L. Earnhardt

Overview

Featuring over 100 Southern recipes alongside “heartwarming” anecdotes, this cookbook is “a celebration of Southern hospitality, local ingredients and good cooking” (Chef Emeril Lagasse).
 
When Heather Earnhardt opened her tiny, magical café, The Wandering Goose, in Seattle, she infused a little Southern comfort into the heart of a city that’s skies are often gray. Her specialty is biscuits, slathered with butter and homemade jam, piled high with fried chicken and bread-and-butter pickles, or country ham and an over-easy egg.
 
In Big Food Big Love, this “red-dirt girl” shares stories from her childhood in the South and 130 recipes that contain a satisfying mix of nostalgic and traditional Southern favorites. Served up with a side of Southern charm, this is genuinely good and unfussy food that’s meant to be eaten with family and friends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632170613
Publisher:	Sasquatch Books
Publication date:	09/06/2016
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	664,940
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Born in North Carolina, Heather Earnhardt grew up with thick red dirt on her toes and food, food, and more food. Heather owns The Wandering Goose café and lives in Seattle with her husband and five children.

Table of Contents

Lines Connect 1

Southern Vagabond 5

My Red Dirt Roots 12

3, 2, 1 … Open! 17

Grazing Snacks & Starters 22

Gravy Where It All Begins 46

Big Love Big Biscuits Savory & Sweet Biscuits 60

Supper The Midday Meal & More 88

"And All on It" Supper Sides Eat Your Veggies Y'all 118

For the Big Pot Big Love for All! 144

All About the Pickles Jar It Up 158

Sauces & Dressings Dress It Up 170

Big Breakfast No Seriously, Eat Breakfast 182

Jellies, Jams & Butters Butter It Up 200

Big Cakes & Bundts Bigger Is Better 210

Pies & Tarts It's Jus' Pie 234

Cookies, Bars & Bread Pudding Big Treats 252

For Sippin' You Could Use a Drink 270

A Big Love Thank-You 279

Acknowledgments 281

Index 283

Editorial Reviews

Eat Your Books "Best Cookbooks of 2016" Honoree
Powell's Books Staff Pick for "Best Cookbooks of 2016"

"Filled with heartwarming and personal stories, Heather Earnhardt expresses pride in her Southern roots through Big Food Big Love. Her recipes and witty stories are a celebration of Southern hospitality, local ingredients, and good cooking." 
—Chef Emeril Lagasse
 
"Heather calls her Southern-inflected food messy and loud. Try cooking a meal out of the book—from a platter of crispy hush puppies fried in a cast-iron skillet to a towering layer cake oozing with coconut frosting—and then squeeze everyone you care for around your table. Boisterous conversation, laughter, and memory-making festivities will ensue. Big Food Big Love indeed." 
—Tom Douglas, chef/restaurateur
 
"Big Food Big Love is more than a cookbook—Heather Earnhardt takes us on a journey into a way of life, featuring soulful recipes from The Wandering Goose matched with utterly delectable photos and interwoven with stories of people, places, and growing up in the South. Reading it makes me want to be in her world, live it, and cook every recipe in it, from simple biscuits and all the variations to classic American condiment staples—and of course the fantastic Brownstone Front Cake."
—Pichet Ong, chef consultant and author of The Sweet Spot

"I’ve been lucky enough to know Heather from our early restaurant days in Seattle, and from day one her warmth impressed me. The Wandering Goose truly shines with hospitality and big, bold flavors, and the recipes are so approachable and delicious. Heather’s book is playful, soulful, and generous—just like her!"
—John Sundstrom, chef/owner of Lark

"Heather serves food with the same affection and generosity she gives to writing about people, like her indefatigable Carolina grandmother who first lured her into the kitchen. With these recipes, I may at last begin to make biscuits as tender crumbed, collards as savory, and grits as creamy as the ones I’ve long enjoyed at The Wandering Goose."
—Sara Dickerman, author of Bon Appétit: The Food Lover’s Cleanse and Dried and True

"As an Alaskan boy with Southern roots, Heather’s food speaks to my DNA. This book makes me yearn for sweet humid air, cold tea, crispy fried chicken, a soft buttermilk biscuit, and a warm embrace from any one of one hundred cousins. Big Food Big Love is right. It’s hard for a yankee to put a finger on what makes something or someone quintessentially Southern; Heather’s food and writing immerses you in it."
—Brendan McGill, chef/owner of Hitchcock Restaurant Group

"Heather is not only an awesome baker but an awesome person as well. Her southern spirit really shines through in both the sweet and savory food she makes and the way she lives her life! Buy this book, you'll love it and her!"
—Ethan Stowell, restaurateur

"No place in the bottom 48 states could be as removed from the South as Seattle, Washington; yet chef Earnhardt’s Wandering Goose restaurant is one of the city’s top tables, where fans find a huge variety of biscuits, including an over-the-top maple, bacon, and date version. Earnhardt’s recipes are accompanied by full-color photographs throughout."
—Booklist

"Big Food Big Love is a mouthwatering must for anyone who wants to master cooking, and devouring, Southern fare."
—Foreword Reviews

"Southern favorites get a modern twist in this approachable, highly recommended bakery-cafe cookbook."
—Library Journal

“Chef Heather Earnhardt’s hefty, buttery biscuits are drawing ever-longer lines of hungry customers to her Seattle restaurant, the Wandering Goose. In…Big Food Big Love, Earnhardt shares the secrets to their fluffy perfection. Whether you whip up the classic buttermilk version or the sweet and savory variations, get ready to have friends gathering outside your door, too.”
—The Oprah Magazine

“Southern transplant Earnhardt brings a bit of North Carolina to the Pacific Northwest.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Big Food Big Love…seems on brand for Reese!”
—Go Fug Yourself (on an image of Reese Witherspoon carrying the book)

“[Reese Witherspoon is] in the market for new recipes."
—InStyle (on an image of Reese Witherspoon carrying a copy of the book)

"Earnhardt deftly and vividly writes about dozens of early food memories, slipping into the stories as easily as a worn-in pair of boots."
—Tamba Bay Times

"As I dove deep into Big Food Big Love, I began to read her generous headnotes in what I imagine her voice must sound like as it dances over words and phrases like 'potlikker' or 'hush now.'"
—Austin American-Statesman

"One of [Andy Samburg's] favorite Seattle restaraunts."
—Scott Carty

“Southern treats.”
—Daily Mail

“[I]t's time to get on board.”
—E!

“[A] blend [of] Pacific Northwest food with southern comfort classics.”
—Seattle Met

“Big Food Big Love is a mouthwatering must for anyone who wants to master cooking, and devouring, Southern fare.”
—Foreword

“[A] little slice of country.”
—Seattle Met

“Lots of recipes for southern dishes: hams, fried chicken, biscuits.”
—Capitol Hill Times
 
“You can almost hear her slight Southern accent in her lovely, fluid style of writing. Reading it is like talking to a lifelong friend who happens to know all the stuff about cooking.”
—Seattle Times

“A feast awaits anyone who picks up this beauty of a cookbook—southern cooking that embraces the Pacific Northwest.”
—Elliot Bay Book Co

“One of the hottest chefs in the country right now.”
—Seattle Refined

“Don't even get me started on her cracklin' cookies.”
—ShopStyle

“I am equally obsessed with the recipes in Heather L. Earnhardt's [Big Food Big Love] as I am with her storytelling.”
—PopSugar

“Wandering Goose shout-out. I love that restaurant.”
—Andy Samburg

“A beautiful tome dedicated to [Earhardt’s] interpretation [of] Southern comfort food.”
—Seattle Magazine

“It’s not a dainty affair by any means, but I rarely want dainty.”
—A Sweet Spoonful

“The best.”
—Extra Crispy

“Few [other cookbooks] take up good ol' Carolina cooking in as big-hearted and inviting a manner as this.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Impressive.”
—Eat Your Books

“Earndardt…dishes out some of the best southern comforts in Seattle.”
—Evening Magazine

“Recipes and recollections from [Earnhardt’s] native North Carolina.”
—USA Today

“A culinary manifesto based on the philosophy that cooking is both personal and meant to be shared.”
—Girl Friday

“Big, bold flavors to fill your soul as well as your belly.”
—Powell’s Books

“A book you’ll want to bring to the kitchen or just curl up on the couch with for a good read.”
—425 Magazine

“Gorgeous pastries and hearty biscuit breakfasts.”
—Omnivoracious, an Amazon.com blog 

“Scrumptious down-home comforts.”
—Foodista

“As much fun just to look through as to cook from.”
—Seattle Times, Shopping Section

“The queen of Southern cooking.”
—KATU-TV

“The operative word here is BIG, big flavor and big portions.” 
—Mock Paper Scissors

“Stands above the rest.”
 —Yahoo News

“Blue ribbon-worthy.”
—The Daily Meal

“[One of the] top ten cookbooks of 2016.”
—Right at the Fork

“Will send you running for your mixer.”
—Seattle Magazine

"Chefs know best."
—Rodale's Organic Life

"[These recipes] will keep you coming back for seconds. And thirds. Maybe fourths. We’re not judging."
—Leite's Culinaria

"From [Earnhardt’s] childhood in the South with her close-knit family comes this collection of traditional Southern favorites that makes use of all of the delicious food ingredients available here in the Pacific Northwest."
—Silk Road Diary

From the Publisher

08/01/2016
After introducing the family members and personal experiences that influenced her cooking style, chef Earnhardt (coauthor, The Wandering Goose) brings together meals and baked goods from her restaurant, Wandering Goose. Classic and contemporary Southern foods are the heart of this cookbook, featuring such recipes as everything biscuits with a baked egg on top, Friday night fish fry with French remoulade, and lusty lemon layer cake with lemon cream cheese frosting. Balancing comfort foods with elegant and lighter dishes, this book is similar to Sara Foster's Foster's Market Favorites in that it can meet most everyday cooking needs. VERDICT Southern favorites get a modern twist in this approachable, highly recommended bakery-cafe cookbook.

Library Journal