Do you burn cornflakes?  Live at Wawa?  Have enough empty pizza boxes to build your own clubhouse?

We’ve got a cookbook for you.

Madison McEntee has created a book of recipes for those who may be out on their own, possibly for the first time, and are a little lost in the kitchen.

McEntee draws on the cooking experience she gained from her parents—a father who was a professional chef and a mother who comes from a long line of excellent cooks.

Now this 26-year-old Bryn Mawr resident and 5th grade language and arts teacher at Waldron Mercy Academy in Merion Station is passing on her acquired cooking knowledge and skillset to help the lost find their culinary footing.

The First Cookbook Every Grown Adult Needs, is McEntee’s first published book, handled through Amazon Kindle.  It was released Sept. 27.

Here’s where you can find it.

The cookbook is a collection of recipes with accompanying personal stories, instructions, and anecdotes broken down by categories like “Appetizers and Snacks,” “Sauces,” “Meals,” and “Desserts.”

Food and Family

McEntee grew up in a King of Prussia household that rarely had takeout food or went out to dinner.

“They cooked every single night while I was growing up. Three meals a day were cooked in the house.”

And her parents always had her involved in the kitchen.

McEntee remembers doing homework in the kitchen and learning things just by watching and listening to them prepare food.

When she was in high school, they put together a family cookbook.

“This thing had like 200 recipes in it.”

The Cookbook Inspiration

When Madison McEntee was 20 and in college, she was surprised to find that few of her friends knew how to cook.

That’s when she first thought about writing a cookbook.

McEntee has been writing all her life and wrote several unpublished works in her younger days, including children’s books and essays, “but it was all just to kill time.”

“This is the first one where I was like, ‘I’m doing it. I’m getting this one published.”

The cookbook would be for younger people like her college friends who are maybe living in a dorm or renting an apartment for the first time, who are intimidated by more complex recipes in other cookbooks.

The recipes would be so basic that even those who didn’t know what they were doing couldn’t mess it up.

Then people older than her target audience of 18- to 25-year-olds were reaching out, saying her cookbook would be great for them, too.

So it became the cookbook you had to have when you’re a real adult.

And by finishing the cookbook six years after the concept first came to her, McEntee realized that she, too, had become one of those real adults.

What’s in the Cookbook?

Since it took six years to write, the cookbook includes a range of recipes over time.

There are recipes “beyond basic” McEntee created as a college student when all she had were cooking supplies from the dollar store and a dormitory microwave. Those share space with newer recipes with nice-looking photographs.

“You have the really basic stuff like ‘I don’t even know how to turn my oven on,’ up through things a little more complicated.”

The goal was to offer recipes that can be made even if you don’t have fancy equipment, just a basic pot, pan, and fork.

“This can be done on the fly. It can be done where anybody is in life, or you can jazz It up a bit if you have access to more,” McEntee explained.

Readers will find recipes, each with a story, on four different kinds of snacks and sides, three pasta sauces, basic to more sophisticated meals, and the biggest category—desserts, McEntee’s favorite section.

“The individual meals I’ll eat myself but the sweet treats, that’s what I’ll make for others,” she said.

And there’s a section for bonus recipes, the ones with the funnier stories.

Experimental Kitchen

Some approach cooking as an exact science, following the recipe to the letter.

Madison McEntee believes that cooking skills come from looking at ingredients and knowing how to throw them all together into something that tastes good. 

“The worst thing that can happen is it tastes bad. And there’s been a lot of recipes that I’ve made where I’m like, this is not good,” she said.

But with trial and error, you can discover new flavor combinations that work.

She remembers her parents, at the end of the week, would see what was left in the refrigerator and figure out how to whip that up into a creative meal.

“Most of the time, it was pretty good,” she said.

Book Feedback 

McEntee said she’s getting good feedback on the cookbook, though admits early reviews are probably coming from people who know her.

“Everybody’s been super supportive,” she said.

Her book release was announced at her school, and the entire grade she teaches bought a copy.

“I walk around with a Sharpie now because kids will just walk up to me, ‘I bought your book,’ and I’m signing these things in the hallway.”

The book has made it to multiple states and even to Germany.

“I’ve gotten emails and texts from people who have made the recipes and sent photos of it or asked me questions,” she said.

Looking Ahead

Madison McEntee has rediscovered her love of baking and is thinking possibly of a book with baking recipes or maybe a part 2 to her first cookbook, something beyond the basics.

“We’ll kind of see. It took six years the first time. I hope writing the second one doesn’t take six years, but it’s been super fun the whole time,” she said.