On a recent trip to the Owensboro Library with a couple of my daughters, I grabbed an armful of my usual suspects: cookbooks, books about Kentucky, American History books, and even a few books about Bigfoot (please try not to judge me, I’m sensitive). One book in particular, Kentucky: Dining by the Lakes
covered three of my favorite things in the world…

1. Kentucky History
2. The Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley Region
3. Cooking!

Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to get home and jump right in.

From the Back Cover: Kentucky: Dining by the Lakes provides and insider’s look at some of West Kentucky’s preferred dining establishments. Chefs and restaurant owners have generously opened their kitchens to provide easy to follow recipes for a sampling of their most popular creations.  Reflecting the diversity of the local cuisine, Kentucky: Dining by the Lakes contains selections as down home as fried catfish and chess pie or as exotic as Entrecote au Poivre and Parfait au Grand Marnier…. 

The book was published in 1997, so some of the restaurants covered are actually no longer around. This makes the book EVEN more valuable, in my opinion, as we’re literally left with a taste from the past.  A great example is the recipe for “Bill’s Coleslaw” from The Pelican.

Not only does the book give a couple of WONDERFUL recipes for each restaurant covered, the reader is given fascinating mini-histories of each establishment.

I don’t want to give too much away because I want you to have the same fun experience I did when I looked through the book (page by page) and saw each surprise along the way. However I do want to sort of whet your appetite a little, so I’ll name a few restaurants and recipes included in the book:

• Bluegrass Steakhouse and Seafood (Eddyville) – one of the recipes included for this restaurant is a delicious sounding “Greek Salad.”
• Country Cupboard Chess Pie and Fudge Pie!
• Miss Scarlett’s Hot Brown (along with several other equally impressive recipes)
• Willow Pond Vinegar Coleslaw… (this one made me strip my gears with excitement)
• Kentucky Dam Village Golden Fried Catfish AND Hush Puppies
• Kenlake State Resort Park Country Ham
• Whaler’s Catch Crab and Artichoke Spread
• And lots more – including restaurants around the lakes as well as restaurants in Madisonville, Paducah, and Henderson.

Many more surprises are waiting on each page – again, I just don’t want to give too much away. Part of the fun of Kentucky Dining By the Lakes are the surprises.

“Legend has it that Ed McMahon mentioned Knoth’s Bar-B-Que on the Johnny Carson Show back in 1966, proclaiming it to have the best barbecue he had ever eaten. The very next day there were cars in the parking lot waiting for Knoth’s to open, and it has been a popular place ever since.” – Page 92

Kentucky: Dining by the Lakes is available on Amazon for pennies… and I do mean pennies. You can find used copies (which is exactly what you’d find in a library) for less than a dollar.  I’m going to order a copy the minute I take my library book back. Not only do I want to add it to my collection of Kentucky books, I know I’ll use the recipes again and again.

Click through one of the links for more information. You’ll love every single inch of this one.