Recently, one of my relatives who should know better gave me a 
cookbook.  I asked her what kind of a gift a cookbook was.  She 
reminded me that our mother had taught us to not judge a book by 
its cover.  *And besides, this is not your mother's cookbook,* 
she retorted.  And boy was she right.  This is Cajun Clark's 
monster cookbook One Inch From The Top--The Only Way To Cook!

Now you have to understand that I am not a cook, period.  One 
inch from the top?  What can that mean?  My macaroni and cheese 
mix never fills up that much of the pot!  That is how much of 
a cook I am.  Well, I decided to check out Caj's cookbook and I 
can tell you that things will never be the same.  Most of these 
recipes sound pretty good and they look pretty easy, even for 
me.  Except for a couple, but more on those later.

One thing that caught my eye right away is that this is not 
your typical cookbook that you probably already have on your 
shelf.  It has numerous comments scattered throughout the 
pages.  There are history lessons about how Cajun Clark came 
to be and even a poem by Longfellow.  Don't worry, there are 
plenty of recipes.  Over 1,160 in fact.  There are about a 
dozen recipes with Spam.  Even one called Macaroni-Cheese-Spam- 
dish.  I am in luck!  

Now one thing I can guarantee you is that this city boy is not 
going to be cooking Barbequed Squirrel or Roasted Possum.  I 
am not even sure where to find those things.  Even so, that 
still leaves me with another 1,158 recipes to try out.

The book is full of helpful insights and words of wisdom by 
Caj as he reminds us that cooking shouldn't be a daily, time 
consuming task.  Instead he gives us instruction on how to have 
fun cooking and how to properly store the leftovers in the 
freezer for future use.  He even shares with us a secret to 
cooking that his mom shared with him over 45 years ago.  (You 
will have to buy the book to get this one.  I am not going to 
give everything away.)

Ol' mon Caj has even included a section called *60 Uses of 
Baking Soda.*  Did you know that you can use baking soda to 
repel rain from your car windshield?

Cajun Clark's Cookbook: One Inch From The Top--Only Way To Cook! 
comes in a couple of different formats.  You can order it and 
start cooking today if you get the PDF version, or you can get 
the printed version that weighs in at 603 pages and comes in a 
1 1/2 inch, 3-ring binder.  Which is my favorite, because you 
can sit back in your easy chair and read all the great recipes 
that will soon be on your menu; and enjoy Caj's oft times 
humorous irreverent and irrelevant comments.

My sister was right.  This is not my mother's cookbook 
although I am going to be ordering one from Caj's Web site 
http://www.cajunclarks.com right away for her birthday next 
week.