Award-winning cookbook author Liana Kris off presents an evocatively written ode to home cooking with all the guidance you need to perfect your own easy-to-master family recipes. Previously, trusted cookbook author Liana Kris off showed you fresh, clever canning recipes, modern slow-cooker recipes, and easy vegetarian crowd-pleasers. Now, she brings you In Praise of Home Cooking fit for anyone looking to perfect the staples, parents who want to whip up something tasty, curious kids who want to learn grandma's secret recipes, and everyone who has gotten tired of those absurdly labor-intensive recipes. To Kris off, developing resourceful habits and perfecting uncomplicated dishes a pot of fluffy rice and one of creamy beans, a seared steak and a colorful salad are integral to living with great pleasure, and so she shows us the way. Exploring these simple but vital subjects such as how to start a fire in a clearing in the woods, making a simple but celebration-worthy layer cake, and remembering to make a mug of hot cocoa just because it's the first cold, gray day of fall she reminds us that appreciating these moments is key to a life well-lived. In this cookbook infused with memoir, there are charming step-by-step illustrations that demystify key kitchen skills, vibrant food photographs, and short essays that reveal keen insights gleaned from a life as a recipe tester.