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'Mama Dip's Kitchen'
by Mildred Council
The University of North Carolina Press - 1999
Buy it on Amazon

Mildred Council (also known as Mama Dip) has been serving up old-fashioned, down-home soul food at her legendary restaurant, Mama Dip's Traditional Country Cooking, in Chapel Hill, N.C., since 1976.

In this half-memoir, half-cookbook, Council explains how she learned to cook without recipes, relying on her senses and going by look, feel and taste. She calls her methodology "dump cooking."

Thankfully, despite the slightly unappetizing term, her compilation of 263 traditional Southern recipes -- from fried catfish to peach cobbler to chow-chow -- hits all the right marks, just in time for comfort-food season.

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

As the weather turns chill and the holidays loom dimly upon the horizon, one's thoughts begin to turn to comfort food. But who's able to take the time to prepare lengthy, old-school recipes or ready to pack one's gut like a hibernating bear?

Luckily, Sonic has combined the flavors of a favorite old-fashioned, homemade dessert with the speed of the drive-thru in their new Banana Pudding Shake. The shake is made with genuine Nilla Wafers, just like the it should be (seriously, without the Nilla, it is not banana pudding), as well as vanilla soft serve, bananas and something called "pudding-flavored syrup," topped with a scoop of whipped cream the size of a monkey's head. A large monkey.

The chunks of banana and Nilla render it a bit chunky to suck through the straw, but when you savor a mouthful of shake and a crunch of cookie, it's a truly delightful moment. I personally wish the puddingshake tasted a bit more strongly of banana and packed a bit less vanilla-ness, but it's still a welcome coming attraction for one's post-Thanksgiving desert hoedown. And I will battle unto the death anyone who has the temerity to argue with the brilliant idea of a pudding-flavored shake. Unless, of course, they can hook me up with a few gallons of pudding-flavored syrup.