*Special thanks to NetGalley and HCI Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review

5/5

I really like this book! As someone who loves southern comfort food, I was happy to see a book that focused on southern recipes that can be beneficial to one's health. I made the carrot ginger soup and it was AMAZING.

I would recommend this book AND it was easy to use in the e-book format, which is a HUGE bonus for me.

Originally I requested this due to my cousin who was diagnosed with gluten allergy about a year ago. I wanted to see if there was anything new we could get on her menu instead of the same ol' recipes. Boy did I get a lot more than I bargained for. This is a very well written cookbook-I enjoyed the recipes the part 1,2,3 honestly did nothing for me and I skimmed that but the recipes are very well written and easy to follow. If you have gluten allergy or are just looking for a better eating habit this is the book

#pinewoodkitchen #netgalley

Not only is this a beautiful, cookbook with tasty recipes, but it is educational as well! Many people have issues with digestion and the foods that cause them or irritate them. This is a great book to start your education on gut health, how to reduce the problems in the gut, reduce inflammation, and reverse chronic autoimmune diseases. Best of all? Mee offers a completely customizable approach to adapt recipes for different dietary needs, whether you’re gluten-free, Paleo, keto, or vegan! While I used a quote in her book, it lives up to intentions and delivers healthy, tasty, recipes for better health!

This cookbook is all Gluten-Free Recipes and is filled with beautiful pictures.

This book has three parts, part one being Mee's journey, part two is about gut health and part three is the Southern recipes you've been waiting for. These recipes are gluten-free. When possible, Mee includes substitutions to make a dish dairy-free, meat-free, or grain-free. I loved how she referred to it as "Mee-ify" 'ing the culinary recipes she learned in culinary school to suit her dietary needs.

Gut health is a great topic that the second part of the book is dedicated to. When I saw that this book included this, I was intrigued. I am currently having stomach issues and this is a hot topic for me. With that in mind, the information included is extensive. This is not your typical recipe book.

The first recipe isn't until Page 73, however, there are 306 pages. I have flagged so many recipes that I want to try. I'm excited to get to cooking! The downside was that there isn't any nutritional information listed on the recipes.

**I received and voluntarily read an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

I can’t wait to try some of these recipes. My oldest has been complaining about digestive issues but hates missing out of her favorite foods. Mee McCormick gives healthy alternatives to all different sorts of issues. Don’t eat meat? Egg Free? She’s got a fix for that. Oh and every single picture is so pretty. You wouldn’t guess any of these recipes were made with dietary restrictions in mind. They just look like good food.

This book was received as an ARC from HCI Books in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I was so fascinated in Mee's story in My Kitchen Cure that I was waiting for her to come out with a cookbook with some of the recipes she talked about in the book. Now, having read The Pinewood Kitchen I saw a lot of recipes that I am willing to try and some definitely are potential cooking demo especially Roasted Red Pepper Soup with polenta fingers, grain-free fried chicken, the ranch style salad, chocolate brownies and of course the chocolate avocado pudding. I could not contain my excitement when I heard about this book and I know I will be first in line to get it for our collection and share it with everyone.

We will consider adding this title to our TX Non-Fiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

My Pinewood Kitchen:
A Southern Culinary Cure
By Mee McCormick
Published by Health Communications, Inc, April 2020


Mee McCormick has had an adventurous life, travelling widely and ending up farming at the tiny community of Pinewood, near Nashville, Tennessee.

Multiple health problems (including Hashimotos's disease, Crohn's disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis) led her to investigate dietary methods of reducing inflammation and managing her health problems more effectively. Learning to improve the gut microbiome and its impact of disease processes made a huge difference to her life, and she passes on this knowledge in the book.

Cooking and creating interesting and tasty meals for herself, her family and friends led to the almost inevitable start of her running a farm-to-table restaurant when her husband purchased the local Pinewood Store, and so the adventures continued.
Determined to provide a restaurant where people with food allergies and specific dietary requirements could eat safely and comfortably, without feeling awkward or being singled out, Mee had to learn to combine the quite different problems of running a cost-effective yet affordable restaurant capable of producing healthy, nutritious food which still appealed to a huge range of customers.

This book is the happy result. Wonderful, tasty and healthy recipes based on popular and traditional Southern dishes and given interesting new twists. Burgers, Kentucky Caramel Chicken, Grilled Peach Salad with Chicken, Black Bean Chicken Chili, Pressure Cooked Short Ribs and variants of Sloppy Joes are just some of the delights of this book, not to mention the desserts.........

Crispy Spiced Chickpea Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette is on my menu for tonight.

Whether you need Gluten-Free recipes, Paleo recipes, Vegetarian & Vegan recipes, Low Histamine recipes or other variants, Mee gives tips for adapting her recipes to suit individual needs. There is much in this book that will be easily suited for those following Keto or Low Carb eating too. This beautifully illustrated book has gone straight on my To Buy List!

Many thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me a digital copy of the book in return for my honest review.

A feast for the eyes with beautiful, vivid photos of many of the dishes featured in this well-crafted Southern cookbook with a bit of international flare here and there.
The Falafel burger had me intrigued. The Farmhouse Ground Beef Stroganoff sounded enticing, especially with all of the gluten free noodles and the use of cashew sour cream.
am definitely going to try to whip up some Kentucky Caramel Chicken - using brown sugar or coconut sugar for the glaze.
Pea, Bacon and Mint soup is made even more flavourful with ground pistachios. I can't wait to try this chef's version of Hot and Sour Soup - one of my all time favourites.
There is something for everyone here. The vegetable dishes looked so appetizing, I had to go into the kitchen and fix myself a quick snack of carrots and dip!
The desserts are sinful and I think I gained weight just reading these simple to follow recipes with plenty of interesting and exotic ingredients to tempt your palate. There are also plenty of recipes that won't have you searching for items that will have to clear customs before they can reach your kitchen pot.
A visual feast of really wonderful, inspiring recipes. I'm off to sharpen my knife and dust off my wooden spoon! This one is a winner!
My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Pinewood Kitchen, A Southern Culinary Cure is an anti-inflammatory gluten-free diet guide with recipes developed by Mee McCormick. Released 14th April 2020 by HCI, it's 304 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

This book is a wonderful resource, especially for family dinners where one (or more) members are trying to adhere to a special diet, in this case inflammatory conditions or IBS or similar digestive issues. The emphasis is gluten free and southern style with -normal- tasting family friendly meal options.

The book has a nice, easy to follow layout. The introductory chapter and how-to's cover the basic hows and whys of ingredient choices, as well as a really accessible and sensible explanation of the biology behind gut health and its relationship to allergies, depression, anxiety, what probiotics are, improving gut bacteria diversity and more. The following chapters cover the southern standards: salads, soups, main dishes, veggies to support gut health, dips & spreads, breakfast, gluten-free baking & desserts.

Each of the recipes includes an introductory description, ingredients listed in a bullet point sidebar (US measurements only), step by step instructions, along with some serving suggestions and alternative presentations. There is no nutritional information included. I would estimate roughly 20% of the recipes are accompanied by photographs. The photos provided are high quality and clear and serving suggestions are attractive and appropriate.

The recipe ingredients themselves are easily sourced and will be available at most well stocked grocery stores. There are a very few ingredients which might be a little more difficult to source or require an international foods grocery (dehydrated hijiki seaweed for example), but definitely nothing that is 'way out there'.

All in all, -very- well written, beautifully presented food, made from (mostly) unprocessed real ingredients which are easily sourced and taste good. Is it, strictly speaking, the fried okra, fried chicken, devilled eggs, sweet potato pie, pulled pork barbecue and other southern staples of my childhood? - well.. the bones are definitely there, and the taste, and the visual appeal, but these are much (much) better for readers than breaded deep fried funnel cakes or breaded deep fried chicken.

Five stars, I'll be revisiting this cookbook often.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

If you are struggling with an autoimmune condition or just seeking to reduce your inflammation, this cookbook is a great place to start. Besides the variety of recipes,I found the author's introduction extremely helpful and supportive. Her candid sharing of her own childhood and her personal health struggles affected me greatly - even brought a few tears to my eyes. As I read, I thought, "This woman "gets it'". I have multiple painful autoimmune conditions ; I find many cookbooks are written by people who do NOT have pain or simply haven't had the health issues I have had. In this book, McCormick shows compassion and understanding because she struggles. The cookbook recipes are varied in style - there's something for everyone. If you are a vegan , this is not a cookbook with only vegan recipes- there are keto recipes here, there are hearty meat recipes. I tried several soup recipes and a brownie recipe - all delicious. My only criticism is if a person is seeking to reduce inflammation, my understanding was they likely shouldn't eat dessert. I was a bit confused about what direction the recipes were taking as the author(s) seemed to be trying to cover all bases. Vegan, keto, low inflammation, also meat, gluten free and then ooey sweet desserts. Myself and my family members need a low meat allergy sensitive gluten free diet so I found a lot of these recipes just won't work for us. If you are a person who can eat a variety of foods, you are probably going to find every recipe will be usable. Overall, it's an excellent book . I very much enjoyed hearing Mee McCormick's voice and am glad she wrote this book!

Love this cookbook a guide to healthy eating easy recipes to follow.I learned so much from the first pages informative scientific knowledge imparted to help all of us.Then the incredibly delicious recipes.I will be be gifting this book to friends who are gluten free or are looking for yummy well balanced recipes,#netgalley#hcibooks

This cookbook was absolutely what I’ve been looking for! I received an ARC copy and immediately placed an order for it because I had to have my own copy. Common ingredients that I don’t have to spend hours going from store to store for. The directions are helpful and don’t slow me down. Beautiful photos. Simple recipes that won’t take up your entire day making them. If you’re on the fence just buy it. You won’t regret it!

**I received and voluntarily read an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Most of the ingredients are fairly easy to find, and all of the dishes are definitely full of flavor. Favorites include "Coconut-Sweet Potato-Lentil Soup", "Pickled Okra", "Balsamic Butternut Squash with Cranberries", and "Raspberry Lemonade Muffins". Granted, I didn't always follow the recipes exactly, but the basic recipes had a strong base that I worked from.

Not a huge fan of the author's style of writing- it felt like she was talking down to the reader at times, but maybe that was just me.

Overall, 4/5 stars, just because it took a little too long to get to the recipes, but there are some great ones in this book.

I enjoyed reviewing his boo. To date i haven’t made any of the recipes but I found the recipes interesting and The book well organized. Thank you for the opportunity to review this book

What a jammed packed cookbook! I'm not effected by gluten issues but this is a great tool nonetheless! I'm so excited to try out the recipes.

What a pleasure it was to read this cookbook! Author takes us on a story about one woman’s plight to eat well with the issues that her health plagued her with. With similar issues of my own fight for gut health I applaud the author’s commitment to help others eat better.

What did I like? This book is wholesome... good food done right should be a pleasure to consume. Author sticks to her commitment to educate, and lead a fight towards healthier foods. Too many restaurants care about the bottom dollar rather than the food we eat. I have ate out many times and always leave feeling worse than I came because better dishes or gluten sensitivity is not wholly recognizable. The author gives you a wealth of information and some beautiful recipes to help you on the road to eating better. Out of all the recipes though I really liked that the book came with dinner rolls, cornbread and a gluten free loaf. Leaving bread behind is the hardest for me but these looked phenomenal!

Would I recommend or buy? I would love a copy of this book... not just for the helpful hints but some gorgeous looking pictures.... but also for obvious health reasons. The author has quite the introduction and this isn’t her first cookbook so it’s a lovely collection. Gut health is becoming a bigger and bigger issue....so many people are trying to get relief. With the popularity of the restaurant, this cookbook seems like a win!

I received a copy to read and offer an opinion. I’m a huge ketchup lover, and I went to the pinewood mercantile page to see if it can be bought versus making your own. Instead I ended up with a strawberry jam purchase. I will just have to make the recipe from the book. I would have loved to get the ketchup from the store to see how close it is to a batch I could make. Five stars! Great book!

What an awesome cookbook!! I have IBS so I love book has gut friendly recipes! The author is so warm and down to earth so the written part is very enjoyable as well! I love hearing her story and not just seeing beautiful pictures of the food, but also of her every day life. Recipes are varied and look great as well!! This is must have!!

I love cookbooks that give stories to go along with the recipes! The recipes in this book are unique yet still easy enough to make!

I'll admit, I looked at the cover and title and expected something very different. It's incongruous to hear about southern and down home and also gut healthy.

McCormick has an interesting history, though.

I thought this was going to be more traditionally comfortable comfort food, whereas she’s basically the anti-Pioneer Woman.

After the clinical start, there were a number of recipes I was eager to save and try thanks to the enticing photos. And a number of fun facts.

She had me sold on the entrees and sides - the savory stuff - but I’ll admit to still being a bit skeptical on the baked goods.

My Pinewood Kitchen - A Southern Culinary Cure - By Mee McCormick
Pam - Who I Met Today
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA0obzwnZLL/ (Review posted May 30, 2020)
HCI Publishing - April 2020

Author, restauranteur, rancher, and community food advocate Mee McCormick is a warm and welcoming new friend as she dishes out the science behind the farm-grown foods we should eat to reduce inflammation, heal our guts, and increase our overall health. The best part? Even if you don’t have food sensitivities or digestive issues, you will love the recipes in this beautiful cookbook—and the stories behind them.

Mee, struggling with several health problems, runs a restaurant on her family farm. She serves up “consideration and empathy” and caters to those who suffer from disrupted systems and food allergies. And that’s a real thing.

As a health fanatic, I devoured the first two portions of the book. Mee focuses on her superfoods list and how they balance each other to keep our bodies running like finely-tuned machines. It was interesting to learn the steps Mee takes to guarantee the food her family grows—and serves—is packed with vitamins and minerals.

I’m working my way through the cookbook’s third section—the delicious “Mee-ified” healthy recipes. Blueberry Almond Salad, Ground Beef Stroganoff, Chicken Piccata. Tasty, cleaned-up comfort food. Who knew chicken thighs, when roasted with rosemary and purple potatoes, create a bioactive feast? And Mee makes it easy to substitute ingredients according to health issues (or none), personal taste, or pantry stock.

As soon as the world reopens, I can’t wait to drive to Pinewood Kitchen and Mercantile, in a tiny town about an hour outside of Nashville. I’ll have a meal, maybe stroll around the farm, hopefully say “hi” to Mee. In the meantime, I’ll continue to experiment with A Southern Culinary Cure.

Thanks to Net Galley and HCI Publishing for sending me this galley to review.

Pamela Lamp
@whoimettoday