cookbook Archives - Page 3 of 5

cookbook

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

What’s for dinner? Meike Peters has a plan for that

Posted on October 20, 2019October 14, 2019 by Pat and David

We consider ourselves adventurous eaters who enjoy trying out recipes and experimenting with new dishes at home. But, like most people, we have a few old reliable dishes. This summer, we ate lots of Caprese salads with just-picked garden tomatoes and a cold pasta that we concocted with basil pesto, corn, and grilled chicken. We can't help but be impressed with Meike Peters, who chronicles a new dish for every day in 365: A Year of Everyday Cooking & Baking, Prestel, $40). Peters has been sharing recipes on her Eat in My Kitchen blog (meikepeters.com) since 2013, drawing inspiration from the hearty German comfort food of her youth and the lighter Mediterranean diet of Malta, where she spends part of the year. Even so, coming...Read More

More ice cream, just in time

Posted on June 16, 2019 by Pat and David

Chow and Alan Mezger could almost be the Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of ice cream in the U.K. The two brothers have transformed their dad's hand-churned ice cream business into a kingdom-wide taste phenomenon called Jude's Ice Cream (www.judes.co.uk). But being Brits, their taste references are very different from Ben & Jerry. On this side of the pond, their ice creams seem rather exotic. We doubt that Pillsbury is about to issue Roasted Strawberry and Buttermilk or Vegan Malted Banana anytime soon. But you can make your own. A cookbook/wishbook of their recipes has just been published by Kyle Books, and it's available in the U.S. Called Jude's Ice Cream & Desserts: Scoops, Bakes, and Sauces, it retails for $19.99. It's also on Amazon,...Read More

‘Family’ shows the way to fad-free vegetarian cooking

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Pat and David

Cookbooks seem to run in phases. A few years ago, we saw a lot of volumes devoted to various ways of cooking meat, especially barbecue. And there are the perennial single-country cuisine books penned by veteran authors. Lately, vegetarian cookbooks by millennial food bloggers seem to dominate. But when we first looked at Hetty McKinnon's new book, Family, we missed the subtitle. We were simply struck by how delicious the recipes sounded. After flipping through, we looked again and realized the full name was Family: New Vegetarian Comfort Food to Nourish Every Day (Prestel Publishing; $35). McKinnon moved her restaurant, Arthur's Kitchen, from Sydney to Brooklyn a few years ago, and just continued making strikingly imaginative food that happens to be vegetarian. Maybe we should...Read More

‘Orange Blossom & Honey’ conjures memories of Marrakesh

Posted on April 1, 2019March 22, 2019 by Pat and David

We never had a bad meal in Marrakesh. Reading John Gregory-Smith's new cookbook, Orange Blossom & Honey: Magical Moroccan Recipes from the Souks to the Sahara (Kyle Books, $29.99) brings back delicious memories of smoky meat from the outdoor grills on Jemaa el Fna and tagines with the tangy flavor of preserved lemon served in pretty little restaurants with tables arrayed around burbling fountains. In a cooking class in the courtyard of a riad in the heart of the souk, we learned to make couscous “as light as air” and a variety of vegetable salads that have become mainstays of our diet. Here's a link to some of those recipes. As Gregory-Smith demonstrates, there's much more to discover about Moroccan cuisine. He traveled from “the...Read More

John Whaite views world through lens of comfort food

Posted on March 28, 2019March 22, 2019 by Pat and David

Comfort food is such a personal thing. For Pat's Irish-American family, it's a serving of champ, the rich dish of mashed potatoes and spring onions with lots of butter and cream. For David, it's cornbread like his Kentucky grandmother used to make with bacon drippings and unbolted meal. In his new book, Comfort: Food to Soothe the Soul (Kyle Books, $29.99), chef and cooking school proprietor John Whaite explores the taste of comfort around the world. He adds his own twist to traditional Mexican chilaquiles by adding eggplant and feta, uses sweet apricots to balance the heat of Scotch Bonnet peppers in West African Jollof rice, and tops a Scandinavian-style pizza with salmon fillets and pickled cucumber. But Whaite was raised in Lancashire in northwest...Read More

The Renaissance rises again in ‘The Chef’s Secret’

Posted on March 25, 2019March 22, 2019 by Pat and David

We always rely on food to open new places and experiences to us when we travel. But, on a recent cold night here in Boston, we were reminded that food can also be the key to other times and locales. Novelist and culinary enthusiast Crystal King has just published her second book, The Chef's Secret (Atria Paperback, Simon & Schuster, $16.99). To create an imagined life for Bartolomeo Scappi, the famous Renaissance-era chef who created over-the-top feasts for cardinals and popes, King studied his elaborate cookbook L'Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi (in a translation from the University of Toronto Press) and then let her imagination take over. “I thought what was his life like,” she told a small group gathered at Juliet restaurant in Somerville (www.julietsomerville.com)...Read More

‘Feasts of Veg’ gives cause to celebrate

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Pat and David

Some things are the same the world over. Sharing good food with friends and family is “one of the most enjoyable things to do in life,” says Nina Olsson, author of Feasts of Veg (© 2018 Kyle Books, photographs © Nina Olsson). That's as true in Olsson's native Sweden as it is in her current of residence in Amsterdam—or in our home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Olsson has drawn on world flavors to assemble a group of recipes for gatherings and celebrations. It's a book full of heart and the spirit of generosity that comes with cooking and sharing food. Someday we will host a bake-your-own pizza party or host a fancy sit-down dinner with Smoky Shiitake with Pea Farrotto and Chai Tea Sauce. But because...Read More

Blogger’s cookbook highlights tastes of Norway

Posted on October 29, 2018November 7, 2018 by Pat and David

We're fascinated by Nevada Berg's cookbook, North Wild Kitchen (Prestel, $35). Originally from the United States, the author lives with her husband and son on a 17th century farm in a Norwegian mountain valley. She is far from the sophisticated food scene of Oslo. Berg also writes a food blog called North Wild Kitchen (northwildkitchen.com). She has embraced her new home and Norwegian foodways with the passion of a convert. With chapters entitled The Forage, The Waters, The Summer Mountain Farm, The Hunt, and The Campfire, Berg opens the door on a food culture attuned to the seasons. Dish after dish suggests how satisfying a life closely linked to the land can be. Now, we have to admit that we will probably never try making...Read More

Two new cookbooks pique our appetite for travel

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Pat and David

For the last couple of weeks, we've been staring at a pair of cookbooks on our living room coffee table. One is Gunpowder: Explosive Flavors from Modern India, the other Levant: New Middle Eastern Cooking from Tanoreen. But instead of inspiring us to rush to Whole Foods and stock up on ingredients, they're making us consider booking some airline tickets. We tend to read cookbooks the way some people read guidebooks. We realize that this tendency works against our long-term interests, since we actually write guidebooks and don't write recipe books. But we can't help ourselves. Food is the easiest gateway into culture, and as we read the recipes, we imagine ourselves in distant kitchens. It doesn't hurt that both books are written by expatriate...Read More