While I'm certainly no "Junior Leaguer", although my wife was once and formerly, and I still greet most JL activities with a wink and my finger upside my nose in Neapolitan fashion, some of the best home cookbooks around, full of creative adaptations and "doable' recipes, are the Junior League cookbooks from Southern US cities.

Sure there's dross, but amongst the dross some real nuggets.

They can often be found at used booksales and on remainder racks, and the pre1980 ones tend to be less pretentious.