What People are Saying....

The Virtues of Cooking is part inspirational how-to, part culinary memoir, part cookbook. It's an unconventional recipe for a good life!

"THE JULIA CHILD OF CHAPPAQUA!"

—DANNY MEYER, Restaurateur & CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group 

"I loved this book! I came to The Virtues of Cooking for the food but stayed for the stories. How Elinor, and her parents before her, used food as a family-connecting force is the real nourishment in this warm, wise and beautifully written book. I found myself wanting to be one of her siblings when she was growing up. I learned a lot about the parent I might have been. But, most of all, I now know there is still time to be a much better grandfather. I just have to go work on those pecan sticky buns for when the kids come this summer and by all means, practice patience!"

––THOMAS O. RYDER, amazon.com board and former Chairman & CEO Reader’s Digest

"EVERY BUSY MOM NEEDS THIS COOKBOOK IN HER KITCHEN!"

––VANESSA WILLIAMS, actress, singer and performer

a Virtue PAIRED with a Recipe

TRY THESE RECIPES NOW

28 VIRTUES + RECIPES

TRY PLAYFUL PANCAKES TO BRING OUT THE VIRTUE OF SPONTANEITY, GRANOLA-TIVITY FOR CREATIVITY AND STICKY BUNS FOR RESOURCEFULNESS. OR SALMON WITH SAUCE DIABLE FOR SIMPLICITY. CRANBERRY COUSCOUS SALAD FOR WISDOM....

Chapter 1: No Loafing Around

 Bread + Friendliness. The confluence of food and virtue started most unexpectedly over the dough hook of my parents’ KitchenAid mixer. What occurred next in the kitchen of our home in Chapel Hill, N.C., and how other transformative food experiences shaped me and my three siblings, is rather unusual. Twenty-eight stories chronicle what happened, beginning with a few extra loaves of what came to be known as “Friendship Bread.” 

Dad was often in the kitchen when I got home from school. Not threatened by wearing an apron, he had taken over our family’s weekly bread-making after Momma’s return to work. “How are things?” he’d ask simply, then scurry around assembling the ingredients: two packets of yeast, bags of bread flour and brown sugar, a bottle of molasses, leftover oatmeal from the fridge, a prized stick of Land O’Lakes butter.... 

Hovering behind him in our galley kitchen—fridge and stove on one side, sink and dishwasher on the other, shelves all around—I would pour out my worries. It was pre-teen stuff like no phone calls from Skip, the heart-throb who’d transferred to our junior high. Or not understanding my French teacher with her heavy Southern accent and lisp. Or a stern ultimatum from Momma to get rid of the mice caged on a shelf above her clothes closet. 

On that afternoon I’d told Dad sheepishly, “I know they had babies suddenly. Occasionally litter flutters down, but the mice were for my science project. Remember? I got an A. Besides, I thought I had two females.” 

“Those mice babies could soon surprise us with their own babies,” said Dad, now grabbing the salt. “I read someplace that mice reproduce in twenty days and if nothing is done there can be nearly one million of them scampering about in a year. A million, all above your mother’s clothes.”

Yikes, I thought, Momma must have warned him the mice had to go. I could almost hear her words still hanging in the air, “Today, John! It’s your turn to convince her... today!” My usually laid-back father had clearly done some fact-finding on mice reproduction to make a stronger case. 

“I know what we can do,” he said. “I bet the students in my life-drawing class at the art department would like to sketch them. Mice models, you know, like Mickey and Minnie. Surely some student will want to take home such an adorable mouse family.

“Okay,” I agreed, “as long as I don’t have to let them go outside. I didn’t know what to do.” 

Like butter melting on a slice of the soon-to-be-made bread, my worries disappeared, whatever they were that day. I began to help Dad regularly with his baking. A little scientist, I loved to see yeast bubble up after warm water and a teaspoon of sugar fueled its dormant cells. I gave weather reports for atmospheric changes over the KitchenAid mixer as we shoveled in ingredients: “Clouds are forming. Floury clouds.” I used a stopwatch to time how long it took the mixture to inch up the dough hook, curl over the top and cling on tenaciously, the motor straining from such a heavy load. And on the dough hook chugged as we added more flour.... 

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28 ENTERTAINING STORIES + PHOTOS AND SKETCHES... LIKE HISTORIC FRANKLIN STREET IN CHAPEL HILL, N.C.

Elinor Allcott Griffith has stirred up these bona fides in home cookery:

A Southern culinary pedigree. She grew up in Chapel Hill, N.C., considered the “Southern Part of Heaven,” and can make a wicked-good Shrimp and Grits.

A Julia Child-schooled food enthusiast. Once a magazine editor at Reader’s Digest, she re-invented herself and leads cooking groups to places such as The French Chef’s former home in the South of France, and elsewhere. World-renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer even called her “the Julia Child of Chappaqua!” 

A skilled cookie-baking “grand” mother. Just no grandchildren yet. Instead, decades of tasty meals served up to her husband and two children; and grand-i-ose outpourings for friends of Friendship Bread, Lemon Bars and Morning Glory Muffins. 

Elinor Griffith is also the co-author of First Thing Every Morning (the book and boxed calendar are available from SimpleTruths.com and in bookstores) and The Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow: Legends and Lore of the Oldest Church in New York.