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'The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl'
by Ree Drummond
William Morrow -- 2009
Buy It on Amazon

Ree Drummond started her popular blog, The Pioneer Woman, in 2006 to chronicle her life on an Oklahoma cattle ranch with her husband, whom she dubbed "Marlboro Man" and her four children. Her blog has garnered a cult following -- in part because of the lush, step by step photos she takes for her cooking section.

"The recipes I share on this site are tried and true -- I've made them over and over," she writes on the blog. "And I use only the simplest of ingredients, considering the country market near our home has never even thought about carrying yellowfin tuna, star anise or wasabi paste."

That philosophy of hearty, simple meals carries through in this, her first cookbook.

See what we tested and whether the book is worth buying after the jump.

Coca-Cola will return to Costco shelves next week, the Associated Press reports.

The wholesaler dropped the popular soft drink last month due to a pricing dispute, but that's been settled, Costco says.

Costco CFO Richard Galanti told investors Thursday that Coca-Cola would be back "around Monday," the AP said.

"Our signs basically said it all -- until we can provide our members with these products at competitive prices and provide our members with value, we are not prepared to sell it and we are now going to sell it," Galanti told the AP.

Coca-Cola didn't want to make the price cuts Costco wanted in order to keep profits high for the soft drink maker, the AP said.

Were you bothered by the lack of Coca-Cola at Costco? Tell us about it in the comments below.

[Via Associated Press]

'Nirmala's Edible Diary: A Hungry Traveler's Cookbook with Recipes from 14 Countries'
by Nirmala Narine
Photos by Diana DeLucia
Chronicle Books -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Nirmala Narine, founder of the spice company Nirmala's Kitchen, heads to South America in her latest cookbook, "Nirmala's Edible Diary," a colorful travelogue covering 14 countries, including the one of her birth, Guyana.

With snippets about her travels in each nation, Narine whets a reader's appetite and then satiates it with a handful of recipes.

See what we tested and whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Julie Powell, the writer who blogged her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1," is back with her second book, a sequel memoir about the world of butchery.

"Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession" follows Powell as she has an affair, tries to rebuild her marriage and learns about butchery. As Slashfood alum Rebecca Marx puts it in the Village Voice, "the act of trying to choose between one's bottomlessly loving husband and one's snakey-sounding lover, all while having the financial freedom to hang out with butchers just for the hell of it, is accompanied by the sound of the world's most minuscule violin."

Powell admitted this week that fans of "Julie & Julia" might find it a bit much: "People coming from the movie 'Julie & Julia' and picking up 'Cleaving' are going to be in for some emotional whiplash," she tells the Associated Press. "I don't believe it's going to be a Nora Ephron movie."

Do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below.

"The New Thanksgiving Table: An American Celebration of Family, Friends and Food"
by Diane Morgan
Photographs by Leigh Beisch
Chronicle Books -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Thanksgiving may be all about tradition, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for a bit of experimentation.

In Diane Morgan's follow-up to "The Thanksgiving Table," she looks to new culinary traditions on the American Thanksgiving table. While there are old favorites like deviled eggs and giblet gravy, they share the spotlight with linguiça sausage stuffing and hazelnut popovers. This is not a T-day cookbook for your stodgy grandmother.