cookbook Archives - Page 2 of 5

cookbook

As the mercury rises, time for appetites to chill

Posted on May 19, 2021May 19, 2021 by Pat and David

We confess that when we saw advance copy on Eat Cool: Good Food for Hot Days (Rizzoli $39.95) back in February, we were more inclined to stews, braises, roasts, and similar rib-sticking fare for a frigid Boston. Then the mercury began to climb into the 80s and the humidity started to rise from comfortable to steamy to downright tropical. Suddenly Eat Cool sounded downright enthralling. The sub-subtitle of the book said exactly what we wanted to hear: ‶100 easy, satisfying and refreshing recipes that won't heat up your kitchen.″ Author Vanessa Seder is a chef and cooking teacher with a bent toward simple family-friendly recipes that look more labor-intensive than they are. She gives a lot of straight-from-the-shoulder advice about technique, too. Best of all,...Read More

Finally, vegan cookbook whose recipes hit the spot

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Pat and David

In the foreword to her new cookbook, Karoline Jönsson writes, ‶Happy Vegan Comfort Food is the book I needed when I decided to quit eating animals. It would have saved me years of finding my way in the green jungle.″ To that, we'd add that Happy Vegan Comfort Food (Pavilion/Rizzoli, $19.95) is the vegan cookbook we've been waiting for. We're omnivores, but we eat less and less meat and other animal products. This book broadens our culinary horizons with some really tasty dishes. Instead of being all about what the author doesn't or won't eat, the cookbook is a wholehearted embrace of really good food that—oh, by the way—is entirely plant-based. Rarely does Jönsson fall back on meat analogs. She does use tofu and seitan,...Read More

Timely ‘Soupology’ arrives as the weather cools

Posted on October 20, 2020October 17, 2020 by Pat and David

As soon as we catch the first whiff of frost, we mentally switch cooking modes from salads, stir fries, and grilled vegetables to ragouts, daubes, and rich stocks. In perfect synchrony with the falling thermometer, the North American edition of Soupology: The Art of Soup from Six Simple Broths by Drew Smith (Rizzoli, 2020, $29.99) launched last month. Earlier in his career, Smith was a deft restaurant reviewer for The Guardian and for many years edited The Good Food Guide, an annual review of Britain's best restaurants. This volume is more about home cooking and the tone is friendly and intimate. It's easy to imagine looking over his shoulder as he shows how to make a delicious range of soups. Don't be put off by...Read More

Pastry can whisk you back to Paris

Posted on October 13, 2020October 12, 2020 by Pat and David

We love to visit Paris for the sales, for the museums, and for the sheer ambiance. But as long as we're being honest, we love to visit Paris for the patisseries. Small French pastries are always a highlight of any trip to the City of Light. Combine our love of French pastry with our longing for far-too-distant Paris, and Petite Patisserie couldn't have crossed our desk at a better time. It gives a shot at baking our way back into the Bois de Boulogne—or at least one of our favorite pastry shops in the Marais. Petite Patisserie: 180 Easy Recipes for Elegant French Treats by Christophe Felder and Camille Lesecq (Rizzoli, 2020, $45) is a 350-page guide to financiers, madeleines, Napoleons, petit fours, tartlets, and...Read More

Simple roasted asparagus, a Diana Henry gem

Posted on June 16, 2020June 15, 2020 by Pat and David

Every year about this time we work our palates into a state of frenzy trying to enjoy the fleeting season of local asparagus. The farm at the head of the post is one of those legendary growers along the banks of the Connecticut River in Hadley, Massachusetts. Until verticillium blight struck after World War II, Hadley grew much of the country's best asparagus. Good tillage practices and more resistant varieties have helped revive the asparagus industry in the Pioneer Valley, though it's never going to be what it was. It does mean that even 90 miles east in greater Boston, we enjoy a surfeit of the noble spears for a short time each year. And granting that one cannot live on asparagus risotto alone (hungrytravelers.com/remembering-italy-3-asparagus-prosciutto-risotto/),...Read More

Learn Japanese home cooking from Rika Yukimasa

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Pat and David

Since 2011, Rika Yukimasa has hosted ‶Dining with the Chef,″ which is a big hit on Japan's own NHK and appears on some PBS stations in the U.S. Many of her more than 50 cookbooks have been translated into Chinese and Korean. But as far as we can tell, Rika's Modern Japanese Home Cooking (Rizzoli, New York, 2020; $40) is her debut in English. (By the way, she went to college at the University of California/Berkeley before returning to Japan to work for advertising giant Dentsu.) The book came out at the end of March, but we've been distracted and just got around to it. Our loss! Here's the link to buy it on Amazon. Yukimasa's subtitle for the book is ‶Simplifying Authentic Recipes.″ She's...Read More

Homey cooking for a homebound St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 16, 2020March 16, 2020 by Pat and David

We've never been fans of corned beef and cabbage or, for that matter of green beer—the two principal food and drink ways Americans mark St. Patrick's Day. Nor will we be in Ireland for the holiday, given the travel restrictions. Even Boston's Drop Kick Murphys will play their annual St. Patrick's Day concert online instead of in person. Here's the link for the live concert on March 17 at 7pm Boston, 4pm Pacific Coast, 11pm London, 12am Berlin, or 10am in Sydney: www.dropkickmurphys.com/2020/03/14/streaming-up-from-boston-free-st-patricks-day-live-stream/ That's all a prelude to telling you about the newest cookbook from Ireland's culinary queen, the redoubtable Darina Allen. She runs the Ballymaloe Cookery school and is Ireland's leading proponent of the Slow Food movement. She might have single-handedly brought Irish cooking...Read More

LEON makes us happy again, this time with curries

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Pat and David

Between the ubiquitous Gordon Ramsey and ‶The Great British Baking Show″ on PBS, the long-battered reputation of British food is enjoying something of a rehabilitation. Moreover, the LEON restaurants, which launched in London in 2004, inoculated British cuisine with the idea that healthy eating and fast food were not necessarily mutually exclusive. The chain spread its gospel of ‶Naturally Fast Food″ to Washington, D.C., in 2018 and has started building more in the capital region. By our count, LEON Happy Curries (Octopus Publishing, London, $19.99) is the eighth cookbook in the LEON series showing how to replicate the restaurant's dishes and philosophy at home. But this book is a little different than the earlier ones. It represents the magnificent fusion of a homely European cuisine...Read More

Happy as a pig in … well, you know

Posted on January 13, 2020 by Pat and David

The Pig: Tales and Recipes from the Kitchen Garden and Beyond is not, strictly speaking, a cookbook, although it does contain a lot of great recipes. It's more a lifestyle book (complete with decorating advice) touting a contemporary update of English country house living. It does, of course, obsess about food and the marvels that can be extracted from the kitchen garden. And the kitchen pigpen. And the kitchen barn. The book is distributed in Canada ($44) and the U.S. ($40) by Hachette Book Group. Here's a link to Amazon. Robin Hutson, wife Judy Hutson, and David Elton opened The Pig in New Forest, Hampshire, in 2011. That was the first of the country house hotels. Now a whole litter of them are sprinkled around...Read More

Cook on the dark side with ‘Ferrandi Chocolate’

Posted on November 22, 2019November 21, 2019 by Pat and David

As the gift-giving season approaches, we've found the perfect pick for aspirational cooks who love chocolate. (And who doesn't?) Ferrandi Paris (www.ferrandi-paris.com/) is coming up on its centennial in 2020. That's 100 years as one of top culinary schools in France. Two years ago, the school issued its pâtisserie cook book for cooks who want to know everything possible about making French pastry. This year's English translation of Ferrandi Chocolate (Flammarion, Paris, $35 US, $47 Canadian) does the same for chocolate, chocolate confections, and chocolate desserts. (The French version appeared simultaneously in France.) This book is more than a compendium of chocolate recipes and techniques. It's one of the most straightforward, easily understood guides to building skills and techniques to work with chocolate. While the...Read More