Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker, by Evelyn Birkby, will become available on Sept. 15, from the Bur Oak Books series of the University of Iowa Press.
In addition to writing a weekly newspaper column since 1949, Birkby has been a writer and broadcaster for KMA Radio and Kitchen-Klatter, the longest-running homemaker program in the history of radio.
Her perceptive, closely observed columns provide a multigenerational biography of rural and small-town life in the Midwest over decades of change. Now she has sifted through thousands of columns to give readers her 80 favorites, guaranteed to delight her many longtime and newfound fans.
Iowa writer Chuck Offenburger commented, “Evelyn Birkby, famous as a radio homemaker, is also the dean of Iowa newspaper columnists, having written lifestyle columns for 63 years without ever missing a week. This book is like Evelyn’s Greatest Hits. It’s also a highly entertaining folk-history of the Midwest from 1949 to the present.”
In 1996 Birkby represented Iowa at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival; in 1998 she was named an Iowa Master Farm Homemaker; and in 2009 Iowa Public Television featured her in a documentary about radio homemakers. She is the author of 10 books, including Neighboring on the Air: Cooking with the KMA Radio Homemakers and Up a Country Lane Cookbook from the UI Press.
Her new book will be available at bookstores or from the UI Press, 800-621-2736 or www.uiowapress.org. Customers in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa may order from Eurospan Group at www.eurospanbookstore.com.
Books in the Bur Oak series—named for the Iowa state tree—represent the UI Press’ dedication to celebrating the literature, history, geography, and culture of the Great Plains with an intense focus on natural history and environmental issues. Covering subjects from archaeology, history, and ornithology to prairie restoration, gardening, and sustainability, Bur Oak Books emphasize the environmental past, present, and future of our region.