It’s a great book for beginners, with easy recipes and lots of hints on how to stock a kitchen, getting to know ingredients and even how to shop. Rule No. 1: Don’t grocery shop on an empty stomach. Here’s a recipe from the book.

Potato Skins in the Microwave

4 large potatoes

1-2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded or broken into small pieces

3 tablespoons Bacon Bits or 3 diced cooked bacon slices

2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion

Garlic powder (optional)

Sour cream (optional)

Cut potatoes into wedges, lengthwise, 2 or 4 pieces depending on the size of the potato. Place in microwave-safe dish filled with water to cover potatoes. Cook on high for 7 minutes.

Remove and test for doneness by poking with a knife. If you cannot scoop out the inside of the potato, return to microwave on high for 1 minute at a time until finished.

Scoop out the potato so 1/4-inch thickness remains around shell of potato. Sprinkle cheese over the top and return to microwave for 1-2 minutes, until cheese is melted. Remove and sprinkle with Bacon Bits and green onion. Top with a shake of garlic powder and a dollop of sour cream, if desired.

My daughter and I sometimes watch the TV show “Ace of Cakes” about professional bakers who make the most wonderfully elaborate cakes – sometimes using blowtorches and drill saws.

So it was fun to find a book and blogspot that showed the opposite spectrum of cakes. Call it cakes gone bad or, as the book and blog are titled, “Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong” (Andrews McMeal 2009, $12.95) based on the blogspot that inspired it, www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com.

This isn’t about the disasters that happen in home kitchens. Instead, according to creator Jennifer Yates, the book and BlogSpot focus on any professionally made cake that is “unintentionally sad, silly, creepy or inappropriate.”

Her examples abound, including the cake that reads “Best Luck Suzanne, Underneat that, We will miss you,” obviously taken word for word from an order on what to write on the cake.

After reading the book, I thought it might be fun for others to share their own disaster stories. If you have such a story you’d be willing to share, please e-mail or write me.

Jane Ammeson can be contacted via e-mail at janeammeson@comcast.net or by writing to Focus Department, The Herald-Palladium, P.O. Box 128, St. Joseph, MI 49085.