The complete Cooks Country TV show cookbook: every recipe and every review from all twelve seasons

The farmhouse where Cooks Country is filmed was originally part of the Sheldon farm and later became known as the Carver house. The house required major renovation and was also moved back 12 feet from the main road.

Dear Home Cook,

For years I had driven by the Carver house (the current home of Cooks Country from Americas Test Kitchen) when it was in a state of serious disrepair. Although just 12 feet back from the road, it was hidden in a jungle of bushes and poplar, the clapboards were chipped and stained, and the foundation was sinking down badly on the right side. But having some experience inspecting old houses, I noticed that the roofline was straight and that the lines were good. Little did I realize that some day I would purchase the old farmhouse and strip it back to pretty much the bones. It needed a thorough rehabilitation, except for the straight roofline of course!

Today, we use the Carver house for shooting Cooks Country from Americas Test Kitchen on public television. It is just down from the post office (which is about the size of a 10-yard dumpster), across the street from one of three churches in our town, and a few doors up from the town library, where, in summer months, you can go see a movie on Saturday night. It is also a stones throw from the firehouse where we celebrate Old Home Day in August and where numerous barbecues and chicken dinners are given throughout the year to raise money for the all--volunteer squad.

All of this history is by way of saying that this is a real house with a real past, not some set constructed for a television show. The same can be said for the magazine, Cooks Country, and the TV show. This is real regional American food, from the past as well as the present, and it comes from a real place where it was cooked by your grandmother or my great uncle. As they say in the art business, this food has provenance.

This is one of the three churches in town and it sits right across the street from the Carver house.

Our goal is to assemble and rehabilitate Americas culinary past and present by seeking out lost and regional recipesColorado Green Chili, Natchitoches Meat Pies, Impossible Ham and Cheese Pie, Italian Cream Cakeand bring them up to date and freshen them up for a new audience. This isnt meals in minutes or four-ingredient suppersthis is real cooking for real cooks. Sometimes we make up new favorites such as Skillet Lasagna or find better ways to use appliances such as the slow cooker, but the cooking we do at Cooks Country, just like the old house, starts with a good foundation.

For almost 50 years, I have seen the sun rise over Minister Hill and gone fishing in the Green River. I have seen Charlie Bentley and his father before him drive by in an old Ford pickup. I have watched the yellow farmhouse where I had dinner as a kid go through changes over the decades from working farm, to homestead, to a rental property with clothes hanging on a line on the side porch.