I am so excited to share this review with you all today!! I received Alison Walsh’s book, A Literary Tea Party, for my birthday last year, and I was so charmed by all of the incredible, themed recipes therein. You can imagine my very pleasant surprise, then, at finding a book review request from Alison in my inbox!
About the author
Alison Walsh firmly believes that food and books are best enjoyed together. In the almost 10 years she’s been blogging at Alison’s Wonderland Recipes, that belief has gotten stronger every day.
In addition to blogging, she has traditionally published two cookbooks: A Literary Tea Party and A Literary Holiday Cookbook. Her first cookbook was a finalist in the cooking category of the 2018 Goodreads Choice Awards. Her recipes have also appeared on Mugglenet and the Good Morning America website. A Literary Picnic is her first foray into independent publishing, and she looks forward to sharing more such cookbooks in the future.
She lives in northern Illinois with her husband and two fae creatures who masquerade as children.
About the book
Alison’s new e-book is called A Literary Picnic: 5 Menus of Outdoor-Friendly Recipes Inspired by Classic Literature. It includes menus inspired by Peter Rabbit, The Secret Garden, Winnie-the-Pooh, and so much more! You can see how this, just like A Literary Tea Party, is the perfect blend of things I love—the classics and all things scrumptious!!
From Alison’s “Letter to the Reader”
A Literary Picnic is for readers of all culinary skill levels… Within these pages, you’ll find five menus with five recipes each: appetizer, entrée side dish, dessert, and beverage. Each one is designed with outdoor dining in mind—easy to prep ahead, transport, and enjoy on the go.
On with the review!
It goes without saying that I will only ever write up my honest thoughts on books I read, and books that are gifted to me are no exception. Luckily, there is only room to absolutely adore Alison’s latest book! A Literary Picnic is utterly replete with all the charm and whimsy we know from beloved stories and worlds we have traversed as readers.
Functionality
First, let me say how much I appreciate that all of these recipes can be prepped ahead and can be transported for a day out!! My friends and I absolutely adore holding seasonal picnics as it is, and I am confident that employing Alison’s recipes are going to make up a huge part of that in the future. We have a lot of experience with having to lug drinkies, snacks, and fine china to our picnic spots (not to mention all of the decor that has to be dragged along in order to staging photos haha), so having one less thing to worry about—where it matters, the food—is a delight!
Recipes
I have tried a recipe in this delightful curation of recipes, so I can personally attest to how delicious they were! I made the chamomile muffins within the Peter Rabbit collection, and they were lovely! Not too sweet, which was perfect as I’ve not really been a dessert person for a few years. I will confess that I had to swap banana for pumpkin—somehow we were out, probably because I had just made banana bread a few days before haha—but this didn’t overpower the muffins by any means, and they were very good!
Aesthetics & tips
I am obsessed with just how gorgeous this e-book was! A Literary Picnic was chock-full of gorgeous images that preceded each section and each recipe. I know this is fairly standard for most cook books, but still: I loved the pretty visuals that not only had photos of the food but were beautifully staged. You can even glean decor ideas for hosting a tea party with these dishes!
Alison also handily includes the PRETTIEST menus that can be printed out and used for each of these themed tea parties. How incredible is that?! She also has a printable for recipe testing with rating bars as well as a recipe card one. Love love love.
Finally, I love the pages of cooking tips, a conversion chart, special tools, and so much more. There is a wealth of information for novices in the kitchen, and although I love to spend a lot of time cooking and baking myself, I absolutely have so much to learn and really appreciate before I can call myself close to advanced.
Fin
Thank you so much to Alison for sending me a copy of her wonderful, charming new e-book, A Literary Picnic, in exchange for this honest review!! And thank you for reading! Which of these themed menus would you be most interested in trying? I’m definitely prone to the Winnie-the-Pooh recipes hehe <3