Essays Books - Page 10

More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen

Laurie Colwin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great food writing by Laurie Colwin (sigh, how we miss her) 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Laurie Colwin was a talented writer and had a real feel for the essential qualities of great food. Though not a chef or professional cook, she used her writing skills to delve into the mysteries of what makes good food great. And she did that with some of the funniest, sharpest, best writing since M.F.K. Fisher.

Alas, Laurie died in 1992, much too young, so you have to savor every scrap of writing she left us, in essays for Gourmet Magazine, and these, in her Home Cooking volumes. Colwin wrote some novels as well, but really, her food writing is what I appreciate the most.as

Colwin's writing is opinionated and passionate: she goes into raptures over things most 7 year olds (and quite a few adults) would gag over; succotash, beets, goat's milk yogurt. Yet her sense of what makes food essentially wonderful will have even the most confirmed vegetable-a-phobe at least thinking about trying her succotash recipe or maybe even looking at a raw beetroot with calm impartiality. In case you are certain you will still shun beets and lima beans, at least read her description of how to roast a duck. It's splendid.

Editorial Review:

More Home Cooking, like its predecessor, Home Cooking, is an expression of Laurie Colwin's lifelong passion for cuisine. In this delightful mix of recipes, advice, and anecdotes, she writes about often overlooked food items such as beets, pears, black beans, and chutney. With down-to-earth charm and wit, Colwin also discusses the many pleasures and problems of cooking at home in essays such as "Desserts That Quiver," "Turkey Angst," and "Catering on One Dollar a Head." As informative as it is entertaining, More Home Cooking is a delicious treat for anyone who loves to spend time in the kitchen.

The Cook and the Gardener : A Year of Recipes and Writings for the French Countryside

Amanda Hesser

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the Best Book on France by a Non-French Writer Award at the Versailles Cookbook Fair; finalist for the Julia Child Award, the Gourmet Magazine Award, and "Best Cookbook of the Year" sponsored by IACP; and nominated in the international category of the KitchenAid Book Awards of the James Beard Foundation Awards. The unique, award-winning cookbook--a collection of seasonal recipes from a traditional French garden. A unique blend of stylish cookbook and earthy garden story, here is a collection of 250 recipes derived from a centuries-old French kitchen garden. The stunning debut of a lively new culinary voice, The Cook and the Gardener chronicles a year in the life of the walled kitchen garden at Chateau du Fey and its taciturn, resourceful, charmingly sly peasant caretaker. Using the fruits and vegetables harvested from Monsieur Milbert's garden, Amanda Hesser creates four seasons of recipes tied ineluctably to the land and the all-but-forgotten practices upheld by Milbert. Hesser's sublimely simple recipes--each with accessible ingredients and clear notes and instructions--also tell a story. They are a month-by-month record of the ingredients available to her, so that this cookbook also serves as an almanac for cooks. Special "Basics" sections at the opening of each season lay the culinary groundwork for the recipes that follow. Tips on how to buy, store, and prepare particular vegetables, fruits, and herbs are presented in margin notes to recipes. By bringing the kitchen closer to the garden, The Cook and the Gardener gives home cooks a new understanding of the produce they have on hand, whether from the supermarket, the farmer's market, or their own gardens. At the same time, it captures the quirky customs and wily wisdom of a vanishing way of life in provincial France.

Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Vietnamese Recipes from the Heart

Pauline Nguyen, Luke Nguyen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"In my family, food is our language. Food enables us to communicate the things we find so hard to say." --Pauline Nguyen

Overflowing with sumptuous but simply prepared dishes that have been passed down through generations of the Nguyen family, Secrets of the Red Lantern is part Vietnamese cookbook and part family memoir.

More than 275 traditional Vietnamese recipes are presented alongside a visual narrative of food and family photographs that follows the family's escape from war-torn Vietnam to the successful founding of the Red Lantern restaurant.

At the heart of each recipe is the power of food to elevate and transform. From a recipe of cari de that sparks a memory to the distinctly bitter melon soup that says, "I'm sorry," Secrets of the Red Lantern shares the rich culinary heritage of the Nguyen family and their personal story of reconciliation and success.

Recipes like Bun Rieu (Crab and Tomato Soup with Vermicelli Noodles), Goi Du Du (Green Papaya Salad with Prawns and Pork), and Che Khoai Mon (Black Sticky Rice with Taro), unlock the family's secrets and see the family persevere through homesickness, heartache, and the upheavals of change to finally experience growth and celebration. The result is a beautiful journey through Vietnamese history, culture, and tradition.

The Seduction Cookbook: Culinary Creations For Lovers

Diane Brown

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Whether you're planning for the slow seduction of a three-course meal or an imaginative way to lead up to the real main course, here are dozens of delicious recipes and creative tips for that perfect night in - and the morning after.

In The Seduction Cookbook, author Diane Brown offers much more than romantic recipe secrets. She teaches how to heighten passion through appetizing anticipation, and shares tempting techniques for preparing and serving her creations. Inside you'll find appetizers that will induce a little "fork-play" such as Chile Lime Shrimp; Rocket Salad with Black Mission Figs; and Ahi Tuna Ceviche with Advocado. Erotic entrees include Scallops with Asparagus and Ginger Beurre Blance and Sausages in Red Wine. And if you make it to dessert, try replacing low-carb with "low-garb" by enjoying the sweet sensation of Strawberries Stuffed with Mascarpone Cheese and Dark Chocolate or Poached Pears in Cardamom Syrup, among many others.

Diane Brown also features menus for special occasions, dishes you can make together and intimate serving suggestions. So relax, slip into something a little more comfortable. With these simple recipes The Seduction Cookbookwill surely satisfy in more ways than one.

This hardcover has been redesigned, repackaged, and includes "seduction tips" for each recipe not available in the paperback.

The Measure of Her Powers: An M.F.K. Fisher Reader

M.F.K. Fisher

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A good introduction to the Joys of M.F.K. Fisher 5 out of 5 stars.
25 of 25 people found this review helpful.

This book of autobiographical essays is the best introduction to the writings of M.F.K. Fisher that I know of. I've read a lot of her books, and this remains a favorite. She gives us glimpses into the archaic and loving rituals of French cuisine, as practiced by the Burgundians, the strangeness of being a teenage girl in a cloister-like California boarding school in the 20's, and being the young, newly-married wife of a poetry scholar in Strasbourg.

The ironic thing about Fisher is that her husband was the literary scholar (Al Fisher wrote a monumental epic poem that vanished upon publication.) Her writing, however, is some of the best American prose; honest, perceptive, introspective and biting. Her work endures and provides more than just a viewpoint on cooking; it is a wonderful glimpse into pre-World War 2 Europe and America.

Editorial Review:

Spanning six decades and more than twenty books by our most famous epicure, The Measure of Her Powers reveals the sharp wit and affectionate humor of Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher.

Gathering journals, letters, translations, and selections from her many books, The Measure of Her Powers showcases Fisher's versatility, providing new readers and loyal fans alike with a sampler from her wide-ranging body of work.

M.F.K. Fisher is a perennial literary favorite. Her evolution from an uncertain young woman to a feisty elder with opinions about everything continues to fascinate readers who understand the complexities of life's hungers.

The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway

Steven Jenkins, Mitchel London

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Bacon in book form 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is a funny fast and irreverent guide. You can learn enough about all sorts of comestibles, though the author wouldn't use a pretentious word like comestibles when a simple clear one like FOOD would do, to impress your friends or just feel a little more secure throwing your next dinner party. Like all the best books about food it teaches you a lot about the local culture. Sounds like there's more culture in the cheese dept than in the aisles of Fairway. It's a book worth buying because you feel smarter when you're done, unlike some of the claptrap that's been written about gracious living and good eating. Unlike shopping at Fairway, which now approaches a blood sport, it doesn't matter if you lose your place the book is just as good when you go back. If you're planning a trip to NYC it's an indispensable volume.

Editorial Review:

From Fairway Market's master buyer and author of the hugely successful Cheese Primer comes a celebration of the store's extravagant food collection and the stories surrounding its culture.

Fairway, a local institution in New York City for more than fifty years, is the busiest food store in the world. There shoppers can find innumerable artisanal food products, which, for three decades, Steven Jenkins has traveled the world to find. With a wonderful narrative and anecdotes from the man who personally brought so many of the world's greatest foods to New York and the United States, readers will become more enthusiastic shoppers and better cooks. Jenkins's longtime associate, Mitchel London, provides recipes that will attract not only Fairway customers but any home cook who has access to great ingredients.

Don't Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Don't Read This While Hungry ... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I don't watch cooking shows on TV nor do I read gourmet cooking magazines or anything like that ~~ the names of the chefs in here don't mean anything to me. It's not personal. I just don't have the time nor the interest to read about them nor do I travel to eat at fine restaurants ... But this book is hilarious. It is one of the few books where I am lost in the giggles over the mishaps in the kitchens. And I love it.

I do cook and am a fairly good cook ~~ though not as good as these professionals are. I have messed up dishes often and have my embarrassing moments ~~ but not on the grand scale as these chefs. And I love the stories ~~ the wedding cake mishaps are my favorite ~~ especially Michel Richard's "Alibi" ~~ that one literally brought tears to my eyes. I can just see it all. Another favorite is "Our Big Brake" by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. One that brought sighs to my heart is Paul Kahan's "(Not) Ready for My Close-up." Another one is Tamara Murphy's "For The Birds" ~~ I just lost myself in the giggles over a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches (Ah. A dream to come true would be having a chef cooking for me!).

To be honest, I don't think there's a story in there that I didn't like. They all are funny and very human ~~ it brings a touch of humanness to the world's greatest cooks. And since I like to cook, I can definitely relate to their stories. And I love all of their stories. I cannot remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book!!

However, don't read this while you're hungry ~~ some of their descriptions of food will make you hungry and if you're like me, that doesn't have a modern up to date kitchen or pantry ~~ you'll find yourself raiding something wishing that you can finally taste what they are famous for making. A Ding Dong just won't do it. But maybe it will spur you to become a better chef in your own kitchen ~~ knowing that the greats are just as human as we all are.

10-18-07

Editorial Review:

Finally in paperback, the hugely popular anthology in which forty of the world’s greatest chefs, including Anthony Bourdain, Daniel Boulud, and Ferrán Adrià, reveal their worst kitchen disasters.
 
From Gabrielle Hamilton on hiring a blind line cook to Michel Richard on rescuing a wrecked cake to Eric Ripert on being the clumsiest waiter in the room, these behind-the-scenes accounts are as wildly entertaining as they are revealing. A delicious reminder that even the chefs we most admire aren’t always perfect, Don't Try This at Home is a hilarious must-have for anyone who’s ever burned dinner.

Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal

Margaret Visser

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winning unanimous praise on its publication and now available in paperback from Grove Press, Much Depends on Dinner is a delightful and intelligent history of the food we eat. Presented as a meal, each chapter represents a different course or garnish. Borrowing from Byron's classic poem "Don Juan" for her title ("Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner"), writer Margaret Visser looks to the most ordinary American dinner for her subject - corn on the cob with butter and salt, roast chicken with rice, salad dressed in lemon juice and olive oil, and ice cream - submerging herself in the story behind each food. In this indulgent and perceptive guide we hear the history of Corn Flakes, why canned California olives are so unsatisfactory (they're picked green, chemically blackened, then sterilized), and the fact that in Africa, citrus fruit is eaten rind and all. For food lovers of all kinds, this unexpectedly funny and serious book is a treasure of information, shedding light on one of our most favorite pastimes.

Wild, Wild East: Recipes and Stories from Vietnam

Bobby Chinn

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The world is discovering Vietnamese food, and it’s a happy discovery indeed! Wild, Wild East is the creation of chef Bobby Chin, Hanoi’s enfant terrible and renowned master of Vietnamese cuisine. He characterizes Vietnamese food as having fresh, clean flavors, and as being light, healthy, and diverse. More than a recipe book, Wild, Wild East is the author’s authentic guide to Vietnamese food as it is prepared and enjoyed today. Combining his lively text with Jason Lowe’s striking color photos of Vietnam’s markets, kitchens, people, and foods, Bobby Chin starts out with instructions for preparing Vietnamese sauces, garnishes, and dips. Next, he provides recipes for a host of exotic and delectable dishes that include—

Minced Prawns on Sugar Cane

Chicken Wings Cooked in Caramel Sauce and Ginger

Braised Banana Blossoms

Meat, Crab, and Grapefruit Salad

Shrimp and Pork Crepe

Stir-fried Noodles and Beef

Pan Roasted Salmon and Wasabi Mashed Potatoes . . . and many, many more

Also included are delightful salads and special Vietnamese desserts that the author calls Sweet Sensations. This entertaining and informative book features approximately 100 recipes for exotically delicious dishes and 200 color photos.
(Sidebar)
From the Book’s Foreword by renowned chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain
“Bobby Chinn, chef, long time resident of Southeast Asia, television personality, hustler, International Man of Mystery, and now author, is the first guy you want to know in Hanoi if you want to find where to get the good stuff to eat, how to make it, and why it’s made that way. . . . what Bobby doesn’t know about Southeast Asian food is not worth knowing.”

Mouth Wide Open: A Cook and His Appetite

John Thorne, Matt Lewis Thorne

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Superb Meditations on Classic Recipes. Buy it NOW! 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

`Mouth Wide Open' is John Thorne's fourth book, each volume being a collection of articles from his self-published journal `Simple Cooking'. I cannot be more delighted in seeing this book, as I was just recently wondering whether we would ever see any more from the good Mr. Thorne and his distaff collaborator and wife, Matt Lewis Thorne.
Even more than in all his previous books, Mr. Thorne validates exactly my approach to reading and reporting on cookbooks. At one point, he states that the most interesting kind of writing a professional chef can do is to describe how they cook at home. This fits exactly my feelings about books such as Jacques Pepin's `Chez Jacque' and `Fast Food My Way', Alice Waters' `The Art of Simple Food', and Eric Rippert's `A Return to Cooking'.
Thorne's own food writing embraces an approach to recipes which matches my own reading and writing, and which probably drives some of my readers to distraction, when I don't get around to actually cooking the recipes. This approach may be compared to Biblical textual criticism, where scholars adjudicate the authenticity of many different versions and fragments of versions for the canonical works in scripture. My favorite Thorne exercise of this sort is his essay on New England clam chowder in an earlier book, `Serious Pig'. If there is any lesson to be learned from his many exercises in this form, it is that one may never find the `genuine' version of any traditional recipe, but it is certainly fun to make the journey. You come out the other end with an enormously improved understanding of a cuisine and the needs of the people who created it. Thorne's essays in this genre in this book start with that rather unfamiliar sauce native to the Piedmont in Italy, bagna cauda. Among his researches are `depositions' from twelve different modern recipes for the sauce, including such notables as Elizabeth David, Faith Willinger, and Jeffrey Steingarten. And, lo and behold, each one is different from one another, and different from Thorne's eyewitness of a preparation in Piedmont.
It is no surprise that Thorne cites David and Steingarten, as his work owes much to David's style of writing, as is also allied to the writings of Patience Gray and Richard Olney. As the title of his newsletter attests, Thorne is a great proponent of `simple cooking', which, however, is different from either fast or easy cooking. Thorne presents an excellent exercise in `simple cooking' when he describes his first exposure to making homemade mayonnaise. Like an omelet, it is utterly simple, involving nothing more than an egg, oil, some lemon juice, and some dexterity.
Another evidence of Thorne's great orthodoxy is that his conception of good cooking is to make the best with what you have. This is virtually identical to Tom Colicchio's elegant description of cooking creativity in his `How to Think Like a Chef'.
In the course of my rambling, I have not taken the time to point out that Thorne's books are definitely meant to be read from cover to cover and enjoyed in their own right, and not from the incidental recipe one may glean from it, as you might do from a celebrity chef cookbook. In doing so, we may discover that Thorne may actually have some opinions with which we may rightfully disagree. Thorne takes issue with the replacing of books (and TV cooking shows) by cooks with books (and TV shows) by `entertainers' such as Rachael Ray. I am sympathetic with his primary point that the TV Network approach to food has tended to drive out the kind of writing done by Thorne and Steingarten and (formerly) by Gray and Grigson and David. I disagree on two counts. First, Thorne and Steingarten and Nigel Slater and Amanda Hesser are still going strong in this kind of writing. Second, people like Rachael Ray address a particular audience who has no time for a contemplative approach to cooking, and Miss Rachael does have some reasonably serious credentials as a food professional. She is NOT just an engaging talker who fronts culinary staff who do the real work.
In spite of those little quibbles, I am enthusiastically in Thorne's camp when he talks about a meditative approach, as profound in its own way as Alton Brown's metaphor of culinary teaching which replaces the directions of the recipe with the explanations comparable to a map of the whole city. While Brown gives us a map, Thorne gives us a history, seen from a very personal point of view.
Thorne includes in this book some reviews of notable books on culinary subjects. Most notable are reviews of Eric Schlosser's `Fast Food Nation', `Amanda Hesser's `The Cook and the Gardener', and Raymond Sokolow's `The Cook's Canon: 100 Classic Recipes Everyone Should Know'. I'm delighted less by Mr. Thorne's opinions of the books, all of which I reviewed, than by the fact that approaches each review in a manner very similar to `The New Yorker' style, which I often consciously emulate.
The book does contain many recipes, and Mr. Thorne does us the great service of listing them all at the beginning of the book. And, unlike recipes in other culinary memoirs, these are integral to the story and need to be read; however, they are `examples', almost footnotes to the main line of narrative. One reads the book for how John Thorne got there, not for a description of the destination.
A really, really great read for foodies.

Editorial Review:

Ever since his first book, Simple Cooking, and its acclaimed successors, Outlaw Cook, Serious Pig, and Pot on the Fire, John Thorne has been hailed as one of the most provocative, passionate, and accessible food writers at work today. In Mouth Wide Open, his fifth collection, he has prepared a feast for the senses and intellect, charting a cook’s journey from ingredient to dish in illuminating essays that delve into the intimate pleasures of pistachios, the Scottish burr of real marmalade, how the Greeks made a Greek salad, the (hidden) allure of salt anchovies, and exploring the uncharted territory of improvised breakfasts and resolutely idiosyncratic midnight snacks. Most of all, his inimitable warmth, humor, and generosity of spirit inspire us to begin our own journey of discovery in the kitchen and in the age-old comfort and delight of preparing food.