Okay, so the real name of this book is Cooking with All Things Trader Joe’s (the image of the book to the right will take you to the Amazon page for the book). And it uses products from Trader Joe’s (prepped vegetables, vanilla cake mix, goat cheese) to make actual, real foods. I’ve seen copies of this book at the Kepler’s in Menlo Park, CA and just about every Border’s in the Bay Area (except the Palo Alto one) lists this item at ‘Likely in Store’.

My favorite thing about this cookbook is the pictures. I do not make recipes that do not have pictures to go with them. Preferably, color pictures. And this book abounds with color pictures.

If you’d like a small taste of what’s in the book, I recommend you take a look at Deana and Wona’s blog on Amazon.com. They have several sample recipes there and you can get an idea of their writing style.

What I find most interesting are the reviews on Amazon.com. I approach Trader Joe’s as both a way to get delicious stuff (cheeses, nuts, chocolates) for low prices and as a place where I can try something new without worrying about my hard-earned cash. I’ve returned quite a few things to Trader Joe’s over the years, including bland caramels and rotgut wine. Trader Joe’s lets me experiment without worry. Unfortunately, this is not how everyone uses Trader Joe’s and it is not how folks view the cookbook. One reviewer on Amazon said:

The recipes were not “family friendly”, in other words they used unusual ingredients and I know my daughters and their families would not like a big percentage of the recipes. So I sent them back. It’s a shame that something that sounded so good was so bad.

Another caveat is that Trader Joe’s might pull one of your beloved (or needed) items, leaving you (and a recipe) in a lurch. This has happened to me with a variety of TJ’s sauces (Mole, where are you?) and drove people crazy when it happened to the gyoza.

But just about everyone else seems to like it because the thing has a four and a half star rating with 49 reviews. Or maybe people just love Trader Joe’s.

One can trace my fascination with disturbing food (see: this entire website) back to my introduction to the Lileks Gallery of Regrettable Food in the late 1990’s. Now that I think about this more, I realize that there were a lot fewer websites back then. Now I feel old. There’s a link for you right up there. Don’t plan on getting any work done today.

Of course, if you don’t want to spend hours reading snarky commentary on old advertisements disguised as cookbooks (never before have I seen so many ways to add evaporated milk to beef), you can spend a quick ten minutes perusing the 1974 Weight Watchers Cards at Candyboots. You will laugh, you will cry, you will realize what happens when an entire generation uses a lot of drugs.

We’re all adults here, so don’t go blaming HeatEatReview.com when you’re boss walks in while you’re perusing a page that contains Mackerelly or the Jellied Tomato Refresher. Now if someone comes out with a terrific Deal-a-Meal satire, we’ll be set.