Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas by Mark Kurlansky

Hardcover, 400 pgs, Pub May 8th 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN13: 9781632863829

Kurlansky is justly famous for his earlier works about Salt and Cod, among other things, so when I saw this 2018 Bloomsbury Publishing nonfiction about Milk, I was interested. I was particularly interested to see what he would say about humans consuming milk after infancy, when approximately sixty percent of the world's human population appear to lose their tolerance for and ability to digest lactose. Europeans, Middle Easterners, North Africans and some of the Indian subcontinent appear to lack a gene which shuts off production of lactase--an intestinally-controlled enzyme which digests lactose present in all milk.

In 2006 Cornell University's T. Colin Campbell published his thirty-year study on the eating habits of Chinese people called The China Study. The findings of Campbell's study blew me away, one of which was that consumption of milk products can cause osteoporosis in adults, a finding exactly opposite to what we have been told here in America. Kurlansky does not mention this startling information, sadly. But that study made me look closely at where the promotion of milk products was coming from—the industry itself, and lobbyists targeting government scientists, commercial attachés, and spokespeople.

Kurlanksy does remark on lactose intolerance briefly at the beginning and again in the section on China. He indicates that while there is a growing tolerance for dairy products gradually in China among the wealthier and more worldly citizens, it fights with the notion that the Chinese are genetically lactose intolerant. It may be that livestock was discouraged in a country which needed all possible land for food production, and that reintroducing dairy stimulates the production of lactase.

Kurlansky mostly elucidates the uses of milk in the part of the world that uses it daily, giving recipes that have survived the ages, showing some changes in those recipes over time. And certainly coincidentally but with a weird synchronicity he discusses breast-feeding throughout the world and throughout history. Breastfeeding has come and gone in popularity, with scientists in the past forty years generally concluding that until clean water and sterile bottles and low pricing for formula could be achieved throughout the world, perhaps breast milk was superior to any industrial formula.

It is now de rigueur to pump breast milk, offering convenience and nutrition. Pumping breast milk induces lactating mothers to produce more than they need, which has led to an oversupply. Some entrepreneurs have endeavored to sell soap made with breast milk; those selling breast milk ice cream in London found they couldn’t keep up with demand. Some sell breast milk on the internet to athletes who believe it makes them stronger. Some people buy it when they are ill, believing it has medicinal qualities. Some testing internet purchases found 10% of the time cow’s milk was mixed in, while 75% was contaminated with bacteria and/or pathogens.

It turns out that yogurt made from yak milk makes that made from cow’s milk seem boring and tasteless due to the high percentage of fat in yak’s milk. Consumption of milk in the United States has declined almost 40% since the 1970s, and now large scale industrial farming is the key to survival of the industry. At the end, Kurlansky takes another quick trip around the world to look at how dairy farms manage and what problems they are encountering now, including some of the profit calculations small producers are making.

Kurlanky is a wonderful writer of nonfiction who manages to take on big subjects and make them intelligible to the non-specialist. If you are looking for specific information, this book may simply be too diffuse, but Kurlansky is a wonderful host for a general reader.



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Mincemeat by Leonardo Lucarelli

Hardcover, 352 pages Published December 6th 2016 by Other Press ISBN 1590517911 (ISBN13: 9781590517918)

Storytelling and cooking may have something in common—imagination—but they also have a similar way of feeding people, and doing it well can be positively inspiring. Leonardo Lucarelli reminds us that good chefs use very, very sharp knives in the mastery of their craft, and good writers learn the same skill. Lucarelli says repeatedly he did it all “for the money,” while we laugh uproariously as he waxes eloquent about that meal he prepared--alone--for 250 capoeira enthusiasts in the hull of a rusty old ship with no kitchen docked beside Rome in the Tiber…

There is some special delight in listening to a man at the top of his career as a chef in a country known for spectacular cuisine and flamboyant male displays tell us how, by bravado, native (naïve?) talent—but no training—he goes from zero to one thousand in a matter of years. And he continued to manage it, learning on the job, telescoping years of trial-and-error into moments of insight literally seared into his memory...and his hands.

He is arrogant, abrasive, acerbic…and that is just the A’s. Lucarelli began cooking as a teen, when meals his mother left at home for his brother and himself needed a little massaging to be exciting. He cooked for friends, and the first gift to his first real girlfriend was bread, wrapped in a napkin, four corners tied together. (It had been his fourth try, and was the only loaf not obviously wrong on the outside.) Taste and presentation: he knew it might have something to do with winning hearts. Though that early attempt failed, his gradual emergence as a rock-star in the kitchen gave him plenty of opportunities to bedazzle the ladies.

Drugs go along with sex & rock & roll, and there are hair-raising moments in this memoir when we are not entirely sure Lucarelli is going to escape with his faculties intact. The momentum he achieves in his writing contrasts with the stumbling advancement of his career as he tangles with the law, makes poor choices in work and in life, wrecks his motorbike…everything revolving about an important friendship with Matteo, the grounded center of who he really was. Matteo was an ‘on again-off again’ roommate in Rome, Lucarelli’s alter-ego. A reprinted email from Matteo late in the book shows us Matteo’s talent seeing, feeling, and speaking truth, and how important he was to Lucarelli’s sense of himself.

It always interests me when “bad boys” discover their inner homebodies. Lucarelli was no exception, and truthfully, the portion of the memoir devoted to his life after rockstar status was some of the most interesting and affecting of what he chose to share. Lucarelli shows us that everything we learn can be used in the next gig, and how teaching cooking skills may have rewards that equal or exceed chef-dom when the pros and cons of each are laid side-by-side.

It is not just food or cooking that is so interesting about this memoir, however. Lucarelli reveals insights into the economics of modern Italy from his earliest mention of anti-globalization demonstrations in Genoa in 2001, reminding us that discussions revolving around these issues are not new and have been viewed as critical for many years in countries other than the United States.

More striking even were his revelations about the fluid nature of restaurant employment: under-the-table payments to all restaurant staff, even chefs, to avoid tax; direct wage payments from the night’s take; lack of contracts or protections for staff; the precarious position of most owners when it comes to loan sharks or bank loans. It seems there is no safety. What a remarkably poor investment, one might conclude, unless owners know something investors do not.

Taxes. It is hard to discover from just one memoir how widespread the practice must be, but one cannot but note how commonplace avoidance appears to be for those making even small incomes in Italy. In the United States, poor and middle-class wage earners generally pay taxes while the wealthy exploit investment loopholes that result in little or no tax payments. Tax avoidance may, in the end, be most responsible for both the exuberant display of, and the eventual destruction of, western ‘values.’

The other discussion, worthy in Italy just as it is in the United States, is the importance of immigrant labor, even illegal immigrant labor, in keeping restaurants afloat. Lucarelli even gives a somewhat impassioned defense of the illegals he has known that is well worth reading and considering. What art would not have been produced but for the 'slave' labor of illegals? These very issues we must consider when addressing our own problem of illegals in America.

Economic issues were not discussed in the Wall Street Journal review of this title by food critic Moira Hodgson, but Hodgson does give you an exciting look at Lucarelli’s anecdotes. Take a look for yourselves.

P.S. One last thing that warmed my heart: When Lucarelli began working in restaurants and clubs in the early 2000's, it seems every menu contained several vegetarian options, and at least one vegan option. Mediterranean food is especially easy to 'veganize,' but more importantly, it wasn't odd, but obvious. Nearly twenty years later, American restaurants are limping half-heartedly (heart-attackedly?) into enlightenment.



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What the Fun?! by Donna Bozzo

We’ve all been there: we have one or more (sometimes many more) kids to look after or entertain for an afternoon and don’t want to be remembered as the “boring” one. But maybe we’ve used up all our ideas, or can’t use a couple, so are sort of desperate for some help. Donna Bozzo is a media personality with three daughters and lots of energy. She has come up with 427 Simple Ways to Have Fantastic Family Fun, and has written them down. That’s one step beyond what most of us do and is ve-e-e-ry helpful when we feel braindead after a busy week. Moreover, Bozzo points out that we can have fun most days of the week with kids, not just on vacations or birthdays, even if we forget sometimes.

Looking through this book I could see many time-tried favorites, like mud pies and singing in the rain, but she came up with a few new good ones that seemed doable and something I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. One I thought had potential was Nighttime Driveway Bowling with glow sticks placed in water-filled plastic bottles and a glow-in-the-dark- painted ball. Not sure your husband would agree to have us paint his basketball, but a ball of that size and weight might work well. Donna suggests an old medicine ball. (WTF?!) That sounds so Californian, but no…she lives in Illinois.

One suggestion that doesn’t require painting anything is making a map on the walk to school. Seems like it could be a useful and fun, and maybe even a multi-day project, depending on the attention span, if the child is youngish.

The book has a few photos which helps to get some idea of what she means when she describes making a robot, for instance, out of soup cans. But one photograph showed a woman in a beekeeper’s suit holding a hive frame covered with bees. The woman is smiling through her mask, and the activity suggests you bring your kids to see the bees work. Bozzo adds “trust me” and I guess we’d have to…though unless you can come up with some hazmat suits in a small size, I might put this one off until the kids are old enough to give consent.

When I read that you can have the kids report the weather like the folks on TV, using a green screen and some downloaded video footage, at first I thought, “oh come on!” But then I started to get kind of excited about the idea…mainly because I have a green cloth already that could be used for the screening. The cool thing is that everybody learns something with this multi-day project. The kids have to realize how they can speak about weather they can’t see—at least not in back of them. We’d have a little exercise in video-making (very absorbing for those who haven't tried it yet), and once the kids realize how it all works, they can use real weather outside the window to report…somehow I can see a three-year-old saying dolefully “It’s raining” in front of footage of heavy rain in the yard, or a twelve-year-old pretty quickly learning to film her friends doing real reporting in front of their own footage. This multi-day project has some real potential for fun and learning for all.

So, when you are too frazzled to think much of anything, you might want to turn to a book like this to quickly pull something together for a party or something quieter for after school. You’ll see things you’ve done before, but you’ll also see how a busy, high-energy mother of three makes it work for her family.

P.S. I note that, in production, this book had 439 Simple Ways to have Fantastic Family Fun. Now the title only claims to 427 Ways...Wonder if some of the projects weren't a little...you know...edgy...like the bee hive visit.


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Blanche Passes Go by Barbara Neely

Neely writes genre fiction that is quite unlike any other out there: crime without the cops, mystery without a clue, and the romance of a strong, opinionated woman. It is beautiful and flawed and very real. Neely has an agenda, yes she does, but it’s revelatory to hear her concerns. She talks it all out on the page, so we get the picture from where she’s standing. She is fun but thoughtful; playful, but looks straight in the eye of some edgy situations. I mean, maybe you’ve thought about what to do when your neighbor is being beaten by her husband inside her house, loud enough for all the world to hear. Day after day. Well, Blanche comes up with a solution that worked pretty well and it didn’t involve a weapon of mass destruction or murder. Blanche constantly surprises us.

This mystery novel, #4 of the Blanche White series, brings Blanche down to North Carolina from Boston. Her sister’s son and daughter who are in her care, Malik and Taifa, are children no longer and are off for summer work in Vermont and Maine. Blanche is going to help her best friend, Ardell, with her catering business during the bicentennial celebrations in Farleigh, her hometown. Blanche had left behind in her hometown both a former lover, now married, and her rapist, so the pleasure of her homecoming was mitigated somewhat by what she might uncover hidden in her psyche. Besides, her Mom was as armored against intimacy as always, and never seemed to listen, even though she was getting older and needed more assistance than ever to keep everything in working order.

Nothing about this novel was ordinary. Almost every page expressed some real truth or revelation. Neely must have decided at some point she might be polite in company but she was going to write what she thought people ought to know. Thank god for it. Thank god for her. You don’t have to adhere to her beliefs, but by golly, she’s going to tell you what she thinks. She might even give some of us the words to articulate our own defense for a course of action we wanted to take but for one reason or another, felt unable. She makes a lot of sense. Blanche is an example to us.

As a mystery, the novel works very well. The denouement is guaranteed to blow you out of the water. As we begin, we imagine this novel might just be another opportunity to spend time with Blanche and hear her wisecracks on everything from real food to what men like. Nothing wrong with that! But Neely is too sophisticated and wise to just give us what we think we want: she’s gonna surprise us with something we can learn from, delighting us at the same time she is instructing us.

Blanche makes mistakes--really big, life-and-death mistakes--in this novel, all the while sounding like she has things pretty much under control. But we all have done that, haven’t we? Just as we think we’ve learned a few lessons and can dish it out, life and people surprise us. Neely makes us think. She teaches us how to think.

As the train from Boston to North Carolina makes it way south, Blanche slips into patios, anticipating her homecoming. It feels perfectly natural, though we know Blanche of Boston looking after teens is less lenient with herself. We want to relax, too, and hear the real Blanche fooling with Ardell, or romancing her new love interest, Thelvin.

The following quote is classic Neely:

”When the children were small and using up every moment when she wasn’t working for money, she’d soothed herself with a one-day-they’ll be grown fantasy. Now that they were practically grown, instead of trying to convince them to be careful of strangers, pick up their toys, and eat their okra. She was urging them to use condoms, to avoid hard drugs, and to become their very best selves. Different topics, more stressful topics. Who started that bullshit about parenting getting easier as the children got older? What parenting lost in intensity it picked up in worriation.

Or this:

”[Blanche] made up her own spiritual practice, including reverence for her Ancestors and the planet, and seeking energy from trees and healing from the sea. Some things she’d learned from African, Afro-Caribbean, Native American, and Asian ways of having a spiritual life, but she always added her personal twist. Until she’d come up with her own rituals she’d been hungry for ways to demonstrate her belief that there was more to life than she could see—ways that didn’t require her being a member of the Christian or the Muslim or any other religion that had played a part in African slavery. She also had no time for any religions that said she needed a priest or priestess to act as a go-between or worshipped a god called He. She was her own priest and goddess.”

The Blanche White series has four books. Each of them is special in its own way. Originally published in the 1990s by Penguin Books, they are now published in eBook format by Brash Books and can be bought wherever books are sold. Neely’s voice is extraordinary and outside the usual genre categorizations. The Blanche books are a little mystery, a little crime, a little romance, a little social commentary, and altogether unique. As a special treat, we are given a recipe for Blanche's Muscat Sauce from Blanche's Gig from Hell at the end.

My earlier review of Blanche Cleans Up has links to video of Neely talking about her work.


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The Third Plate by Dan Barber

The grace and fluency with which James Beard Award-winning Chef Barber relates his experiences in his Blue Hill restaurant in New York City, walking the fields of his Stone Barns organic farm in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and in his travels to Europe and throughout the United States left me wide-eyed with wonder. This extraordinary memoir and travel account is engrossing in a way that few writers achieve. Barber is gentle in his instruction, but he is telling us what he has learned about the inadequacy of the current concept of food sustainability, and it is a lesson we really need to assimilate and organize around.

Happily, his lessons are filled with well-cogitated thought, possibilities, solutions, humor, and beautiful images. I’d heard Corby Kummer interview the New York restaurateur on the New York Times book podcast back in the spring of ‘14, and thought it sounded like something I’d like to look at. I felt no urgency. Only when I obtained a copy for someone else and began to browse through it did I discover the can’t-put-it-down page-turning clarity, and the irresistible humor in Barber’s writing. I am trying now to figure out how many copies of the book I can give away for Christmas without repeating myself.

This book is divided into four sections, called Soil, Land, Sea, and Seeds. You won’t have heard these stories in quite this way before, and if they seem familiar, you will find it enlightening to see what Barber has chosen to highlight. Barber moves gradually through his dawning realization that the way we have been eating, in restaurants and at home, is not actually going to be able to sustain the land, the ocean, nor the planet, no matter that we gradually move from pesticide-grown vegetables to organics. There has to be a greater understanding of the web of interconnections between the soil and our eating habits. We have to be willing to increase the diversity of our diet and think about eating foods that replenish the balance in the soil along with ones we use more commonly.

It may be obvious to those who have paid attention to the concept of sustainability that we haven’t yet come around to actually managing the task ahead of us. Barber suggests it is more than simply changing our diets from meat-centric to vegetable-centric. He concludes that we “cherry-pick” our vegetables and therefore limit the amount a farm can sustainably produce for a given community. A farm has to grow cover crops on at least some of the land, and that is part of the cost of crops we actually eat. He urges us to think about how this works in fact, and what this reality means for pricing, output, and consumption.

But I may be making it sound boring. In Barber’s hands, it is anything but that. His work is filled with enlightening vignettes about the places, the people, the restaurants that led him to learn so much about sustainability and its opportunities. Barber awakened me to certain understandings about plant pairings that I’d sort of heard about, but never really believed possible: like having four different crops growing in the same space at the same time to preserve and replenish soil vitality. Especially, or perhaps only, in small scale operations where crops are harvested by hand might this be possible…but it is possible, in fact desirable!

Vignettes about the fish farmers and restaurants featuring fish were particularly interesting. I hadn’t followed the latest developments in that field and am astonished, pleased, and heartened to know that there are some doing things which enhance wildlife rather than diminish it. He tells of a fish farm in Spain which hosts vastly increased numbers of migrating birds as well as produces exceptional-tasting fish for market. It gives me hope that the work on the west coast of the USA to preserve and restore the tidal salt marshes near San Francisco might be successful for life of all kinds, including our own.

Barber outlines his own learning curve, his oversights and humiliations, and he is very funny in places, showing the reactions of people with different world views meeting (at Barber’s behest) face to face and trying to be civil, or in speaking of finely tuned chefs at their most passionate or most perplexed:

’Dan,’ [Ángel] said, turning to me, ‘have you ever cooked naked in your kitchen?’

Ángel features in another very funny bit:

”[Santiago] goes to different ponds in Veta la Palma [Spain] at different times of the year. Always at the full moon,” Ángel said.

Thinking of Steiner and his lunar planting schedule, I guessed, “Because the fish have better flavor when the moon is full.”

“No,” [Ángel] said, looking puzzled. “So he can see what he’s catching.”

The section on wheat farming was completely new and fascinating to me. In the very beginning of the book Barber reproduces a photograph of the perennial Midwest native prairie wheat (with root system) alongside higher-yielding grain varieties planted to replace it. I was truly shocked by the difference in the profiles of the two plants, and thought it indicative of what modern agriculture has done, in every aspect of our food profile, to the concept of sustainability. The good news is that there are folks around the country thinking about our food future. Barber managed to create an international community of thoughtful practitioners striving to figure out how we can best produce what we will need to live on earth.

This completely fascinating book happens to be very easy to read. Someone in your family, not just the foodies, will love reading of Barber’s researches and spending time with this thoroughly decent guy who is willing to share his successes and failures in the field.


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Isa Does it by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Isa does it again, the title should read. This is simply delicious, filling vegan fare and Isa’s intent was to make the recipes quick enough to make on a weeknight. I have some favorites from this book that will go in my long-term memory.

The ingredients of the Puréed Split Pea Rutabaga Soup are unusual enough that one is glad Isa told us to add star anise. This is memorable, and hearty, and smells so good cooking. Everybody passes up their noses at those big, waxy rutabagas at the grocery, but when they come to my house, they invariably ask what the “secret ingredient” is in my vegetable soups. Sweet potato? Squash? No. That would be the fragrant and sweet rutabaga, slightly orange-fleshed when cooked.

The Briny Caesar Dressing needs to be tasted to be believed. It is laugh-out-loud and talk-loudly-at-a-high-register garlicky goodness. I insisted on salad for days, turning into a minor Caesar myself.

Regarding the Everyday Pad Thai, I’m kind of mad Isa told us about this. She admits she would make it for every meal if she could. That is a little like passing on an addiction, what? It’s is so good, I hid the leftovers and ate them myself after making something fishy or meaty for the others. Even the leftovers are great.

The Sticky Orange Chicky Stir Fry made with her very own Chickpea Cutlets I made with a small can of pineapple juice rather than oranges. It was lovely looking, and the Steamed Chicky Seitan need to be tasted to be believed. This is the creative mind at work, and Isa does it like no one else.

When I first saw this book, I will admit I was underwhelmed. I thought, okay, this looks like homemade family-style vegan creativity. But Isa has something special in her make-up and her food always is surprising, delicious, inventive, assertive, and somehow new. The splendid 2007 Veganomicon by Isa and Terri Hope Romero had been my go-to book for years, until overtaken by Terri Hope Romero's Vegan Eats World (2012). But Isa is an wunderkind in the kitchen and this new offering adds diversity, simplicity, and depth to one's repertoire. I am finding I need this book as well, to keep me healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Not everyday can be a big tangle in the kitchen. This food is simple(r), but fine enough to serve anyone and have everyone go to bed full and happy. My Island Black Bean Burgers with Jamaican Curry looked positively Photoshopped, so beautiful it was. And the Jamaican Jerk Sloppy Joes were divine. This collection is another great success for Isa. I admit to fantasizing about going to an Isa restaurant. Rumor has it she is opening a restaurant in Omaha this spring. A pilgrimage would have been necessary without this book.

P.S. I rarely follow recipes anymore for things like cookies. I note that she riffs, like I do, on the basic formats. When I am in the mood, I add oatmeal and peanuts and chocolate bits…and she has a recipe Kitchen Sink Chocolate Cookies. Try it. I guarantee it will be a favorite. And if you have never added rosemary to chocolate chip cookies, trust her. Her Rosemary Chocolate Chip Cookies have to be tasted. Or substitute raisins. I did that with bread recently and thought I’d died and gone to heaven.


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The Heart of the Plate by Mollie Katzen

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt deserves much credit for making this book as beautiful as it is. They have really made it the standard to reach. Katzen has done her cool line drawings--now in color!--on the endpages so with her tasty, (can I say thoughtful?), modern recipes her unique talents are again on display.

Now that I have had a chance to work with it a bit, I decided Katzen has chosen some real winners here. Her soups and salads are lovely to look at and probably worth the price of the book alone. She guides the beginner through the steps so that success can be yours right from the start.

I will say that she picked already favorites of mine, e.g., I cook greens almost every night and I often use the onion, garlic, red pepper combination that she recommends. I don't know if it is really appropriate to complain that some of the dishes are so simple as to make the cookbook shortly irrelevant. Most people are actively looking for simple and memorable and so great we can eat it again and again without dragging the cookbook out each time. She gets that and delivers.

But Mashed Parsnips? She has a whole section about mashing things up...cauliflower, broccoli, peas. At first I thought: if it is fresh, it seems a sin to mash it up. It was such a mystery, I tried it...three vegetables: carrots, parnips and peas. Let me tell you something: it was terrific! I especially liked it left over, room temperature, as a dip for crackers. It is infinitely more interesting, pretty, and exciting than any of the usual dips featuring cheese or (god forbid!) sour cream. And for lunch or as a snack as you are preparing a real dinner, this may just the thing to make you a happy person.

She has an interesting sauces and dressings section which is useful for folks on the go. You can dip crudités or drizzle over roasted veggies...(what is better tasting and easier to cook than roasted veggies?) I like her use of pomegranate molasses. What else I like: sometimes folks have difficulty figuring out what vegans eat. She very naturally makes meals of vegetables and grains that do not include cheese or dairy and reminds us that, by the way, this is vegan. It is a very unobtrusive way to introduce vegan entrees to the mainstream and show everyone how really very simple it can be to cook for vegans.

I also like the "light" quality of the recipes. There were one or two recipes that gave me pause: Bulgur with Spaghetti, and Banana Cheese Empanadas. I think she is just daring us to try them. She also has one that sounds kind of intriguing: Toasted Barley Dumplings. As a side, it can take care of the carb portion of a vegetable meal.

Truth is, The Moosewood Cookbook: Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant, Ithaca, New York was something like the second cookbook I ever owned. Katzen therefore had an outsized influence on my eating habits. I still admire what she can do. What she has produced here is exciting because it gives new clues to intriguing combinations of things I like already.

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2013 Summer Reads--It's not too late!

It is mid-July and if you haven't yet found your great summer read, or already finished one, you might find this list helpful to finish out the summer.

You have to read the hugely absorbing multi-generational tale of Texas The Son by Philipp Meyer. Meyer's novelistic skill is widely admired, but this is one of those books you will remember always and will come to define your understanding of southwest history in the nineteenth century. Told in the voices of three people, we see the "sides" to the long argument that is our history. Big in scope, this book gives us the time and space to begin to tease out life lessons and philosophies about the arc of human endeavor and development in the United States.

For a quick, easy fiction read filled with joie de vivre, I have to reprise a book I reviewed earlier in the season Cinammon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown. This is summer reading at the giddiest heights of fantasy. A cook, a pirate, a boat, and a conscience...the summer they all sailed together is now recorded for posterity. For the fun of it, buy this one.

A nonfiction must-read is The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. A nine-man rowing crew from Washington State wins the gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympics against all odds. The author interleaves happenings in Berlin with training in Seattle and races in Poughkeepsie in such a way that the action never stops and our interest never flags.

The book the too many tomatoes cookbook by Brian Yarvin comes just at the right time in summer when we anticipate a bumper crop of heirloom tomatoes and yearn for that deep tomato taste. Rather than bore yourself with the same old thing, try some of the fast, easy, and absolutely delicious choices Yarvin has discovered from around the world. You may find a new favorite or two--I did!

Finally, for those folks that simply don't have the opportunity to get away this summer, take a trip with Ian Mortimer in The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. "The past is a foreign country..." [L.P.Hartley] and nobody does it better than Ian Mortimer. He takes you right in to imagine where you might stay overnight (and where you will pee), to how you might clean up without water after walking through muddy streets. The inns, the characters you will meet and what you will talk about, what you will do at night and eat for breakfast are all here and utterly fascinating. Take a walk through Elizabethan England. You won't want to live there, but a visit is bliss.

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the too many tomatoes cookbook by Brian Yarvin

"OK, 'rice and tomatoes'--it couldn't be simpler. But simple dishes are often the hardest, aren't they?"

We are not always so lucky to have a bumper crop of tomatoes (they used to be easier to grow when I was only harvesting :/) but if you love fresh tomatoes, you need this book. Farmstand aficionados, vegans, vegetarians, and meat-lovers will all find something here to favorite. Brian Yarvin gives simple, delicious, and diverse recipes using tomatoes for those days when our heat-addled or work-dead brains come to a halt at spaghetti.

I cook a lot. But even I have days when the juices are not flowing and I have used up the repertoire stored in my hard drive. I just need a little inspiration to make something wonderful and Yarvin’s book is so handy to remind me of things I love. He adds a little something I hadn’t thought to use, tells order of ingredients, and length of sauté (things I am sure I never knew), and I have come up with truly splendid cuisine from this small book. Besides, I love his stories, like the one of looking for canned tomatoes in Italy, or judging a chili cook-off in Texas.

I immediately discovered a new favorite, “Sicilian Vegetable Stew (Caponata)” served atop Parmesan Couscous, which is not the same as “French Vegetable Stew (Ratatouille)”, another classic. His vegetable lasagna won over hardened meat-eaters, and was a dream dish on my table. And he tells us how to make our own frozen pizzas for those days we simply will not spend another dime (more like ten dollars) or another minute eating out.

There are many delicious choices here for quick dinners, as well as dinners as aromatic and fragrant as an Italian don’s Spaghetti Sauce. They smell so good you don’t ever want the simmering to end. Yarvin doesn’t stop at the Mediterranean, however, but shares Central African, Romanian, Albanian, Chinese and Japanese (!) specialties featuring tomatoes as well as American favorites from all parts of the country. His stories interspersed among the recipes give one a chance to savor his particular brand of travel writing.

With heirloom tomatoes making a comeback and farmer’s markets getting up to speed for the season, you may want to pick up a copy of this cookbook which is sure to become one of your favorites. There are enough ways to vary your tomato dishes that you will never again say you have “too many tomatoes.”

Brian Yarvin is a travel writer, photographer, and cook. His recipes are simple to follow, and often might be one-dish meals.


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Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown

Hardcover, 318 pgs, Pub June 4th 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN13: 9780374123666

Eli Brown’s infectious romp of a novel has a thoroughly modern sensibility dressed in the garb of yore. It is the early 1800’s and Owen Wedgwood is chef to Lord Ramsey, one of the chief shareholders of the Pendleton Trading Company in England which trades opium for tea, silk, and spices in Asia. Enter Hannah Mabbot, pirate extraordinaire, defender of the underdog, and avenger of the exploited.

”Then entered a pillar of menace, a woman in an olive long-coat. Her red hair hung loose over her shoulders. She sauntered to the middle of the room, her coat opening to reveal jade-handled pistols. Using a chair as a stepping stool she walked upon the dining table to Lord Ramsey’s plate and stood there, looking down, as is she had just conquered Kilimanjaro. Her boots added inches to her already long frame…There…was the Shark of the Indian Ocean, Mad Hannah Mabbot, Back-from-the-dead Red…”

Hannah kills Lord Ramsey for his greed and sins against humanity, and takes Owen captive on her pirate ship, charging him with concocting a gourmet meal for her once a week on pain of his life.

"Except that we are at sea I would believe that I had been abducted by a traveling circus."

Author Brown’s delicious confection reminds us what we loved about stories of old, and adds that sine qua non of righteous vengeance to sustain our sensibilities. It may be that readers are especially susceptible to feats of culinary desperation because we are too busy reading to shop, so finding Wedgwood creating real cuisine from weevily flour and rancid lard is positively inspiring. Some sea captains for large sailing vessels in my family surprised me with the news that those aboard ship rarely partake in the (obvious to me) fresh seafood surrounding them, as they are not fishermen but sailors, but one of the Japanese sailors aboard the Flying Rose, Mabbot’s pirate ship, always has a line dragging from the aft rail, saving Wedgwood more than once in his search for a main course.

This is escapist fun of the best sort, effortlessly inventive, reminiscent of childhood summers, yet with truths adults will recognize and may take to heart. Once, Mabbot must throw overboard the treasure she has looted from Pendleton ships in order to speed her progress away from danger:

”The men will be bitter for having lost their silver, though it saved their lives. It is a complicated thing. With money in their pockets they become lazy and contrary. Heavy and slow, as does the Rose itself…A small part of me is glad to be rid of it. When my men are hungry, with death upon their heels, they work hard and never complain and enjoy their own company. They sing every night.”

And, on the pain one feels when a close friend or lover dies:

”I’ve had this pain. To tell you it will go away would be a lie. It will never go away. But, if you live long enough, it will cease to torture and will instead flavor you. As we rely on the bitterness of strong tea to wake us, this too will become something you can use.”

And on the sanctity of eating the flesh of animals:

”I thought I would take pleasure in skinning that watchful rabbit, but now that it was still, it engendered in me a tenderness for all fragile flesh. I sharpened a knife until it shone, then skinned and cleaned the rabbit, trying to make each cut a gesture of respect. Loathe to waste any part of the animal, I set brains and hide aside for tanning…As I progressed deeper into the body I felt a mystery revealing itself to me and began to pray, not with words but with simple cooking, a prayer not for the soul of the rabbit exactly but for the generous blending of its life and Mabbot’s. She had fed and loved it and now its flesh would become hers and mine, and in this way I understood that all beings lived only to feed each other as even the lion lays down for the worm. In the striations of the rabbit’s muscle I saw eons of breath and death.”

And finally, we have a love story. It has a prudish man’s restraint, told in the voice of Wedgwood, who denies for ever-so-long his interest in Mabbot and in being at sea with pirates. But lord knows how we all love conquering the inhibitions of prudish men—and how much more satisfying and telling it is for the woman to be the instigator. If men are permanently “on” for sex, their sexual proclivities have less value, as it were. ‘Barky holes of trees’ as John Barth (The Sot-Weed Factor) has written, would do as well. Women, more discriminating perhaps, may tell us more by their choices.

A fine choice for a summer read. This book deserves to be widely enjoyed for the sheer fun it offers. It is something apart from the usual, and one must always take note of derring-do.


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American Vegan Kitchen by Tamasin Noyes

Noyes has enormous talent in making hearty meals reminiscent of American Classics, or Blue Plate Specials. In fact, she chooses to even use those names which give us a hint of the originals, e.g., "Salisbury-style Seitan" and "Southern Fried Seitan." These come close to the flavor and texture of those old-fashioned dishes, and I now constantly underestimate the efficacy of having such dishes in one's repertoire when one is serving non-vegans. People are willing to try/eat vegan, particularly if the food is delicious, and some are more willing if the food is familiar. It is hard to believe some people are still eating "southern fried" anything, but there you go...a little treat for those unreformed but without as many calories or cholesterol. I tried it, and it is delicious.

Noyes' recipe for Tempeh Stroganoff (with no vegan sour cream) is terrific and I will use it again and again. I had it on mashed potatoes, but it would be good in any combination with any grain. It is simple, since it is basically oven-baking tempeh in a marinade--no need to steam the tempeh first.

The Fettuccine Alfredo looked gorgeous, and tasted great. I had trouble keeping it hot enough, but that is always my particular problem with pasta dishes.

I tried the All-American Incrediburgers and they live up their name. When the burgers are hot, they even leak a little, like fatty beef (hope that doesn't put you off). Grilled, these would be pretty spectacular, but they were excellent pan-fried in the dead of winter. Non-vegans were amazed. Best of all, perhaps, was the recipe for Burger Buns, which held together under slatherings of sauce and juicy burger. This was the MOST successful recipe I have (found and) tried for these, and bread is my specialty. I'm sure the Tempeh Burgers will taste exceptionally good as well, for they use the same ingredients as that indomitable team, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Romero in Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook.

Tried the Blueberry-Oat Short Stack one morning for breakfast & unfortunately couldn't eat them hot because the baking powder made them horrible. I wonder still if that 2 Tblsp of Baking Powder is a typo. I would use yeast instead, but if you must, use only 2 tsp Baking Powder if you try these. The overnight soak is the theory behind museli as well (softening the oatmeal). Anyway, I left the oatcakes stacked on the table, and late in the afternoon, when they were cold, I did not taste the baking powder so much, so they weren't as bad then.

The Corn and Bean Chowder was pretty spectacular, and the Mushroom Barley Stew really had a deep mushroom flavor, especially since I used half an ounce of dried Chanterelles with the fresh mushrooms.

In many recipes, Noyes asks for a spice mix she created: All American Spice Mix. It is very good and useful. For a week or more, when I had run out of Chili Powder and kept forgetting to buy some, I used this spice mix interchangeably in recipes calling for Chili Powder. It is flavorful and has the kick of cayenne.

All in all, Tami Noyes is something of a diva, and going to her house for dinner must be something akin to entering those pearly gates.

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Burma: Rivers of Flavor by Naomi Duguid

This astonishing compendium of Burmese country foods is a travel guide as well as a cookbook. Duguid has long experience in South Asia, and has worked hard to translate foodstuffs and measurements into something Western cooks can create in their own homes. She tells stories, too, of where she gets the recipes and how she’s seen ingredients used. She tells of places she’s visited and people she’s met—after a couple hours with this gorgeously photographed book one feels as though one had spent a week away. It is positively transporting.

Any aspiring visitor to Burma should have a look at this to get a sense of what one will encounter. Duguid makes one comfortable with local greens, and discusses how, despite Burma’s long coastline, river fish are most prized. Contrary to the expectations of many, not all dishes contain red-hot chilies—often these are condiments that one can add to one’s dish after cooking, along with a series of herbs or pastes, so that one may moderate one’s intake.

Interestingly, Duguid explains that Burma may be a vegetarian haven, for many dishes are meatless or can be modified for meatless cooking, using a fermented soybean paste dried into a cracker “tua nao” for flavoring instead of fish sauce or shrimp paste. She introduced me to “Shan Tofu,” a chickpea-flour tofu that she calls “one of the great unsung treasures of Southeast Asia.” Besan, or chickpea flour, is whisked into salted water and heated on a stove until shiny and thick, then poured into a shallow dish to cool. It resembles a cooling polenta in texture, but holds together in soups or salads, and it can be sliced or cubed, eaten plain or fried. I made a brilliant vegan Ma-Po Tofu** with it and I’m going to try it “savory baked” as well.

Another intriguing dish I’d like to try immediately is a porridge made of jasmine rice and peanuts which resembles oatmeal but which is spiced with chili oil and blanched greens, fried shallots and crushed roasted peanuts. It is a blank canvas on which to riff one’s highly flavored specialties. Duguid suggests this sauce can be amended to become a sort of white pasta sauce to serve over rice noodles…adding ingredients until one has a meal-sized mixture of food held together with a spiced rice paste. Very intriguing.

Every library should have a copy of this book. It is a beautiful, recent introduction to life in Burma and it is indispensable for a traveler.

** from Vegan Eats World by Terry Hope Romero


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Vegan Eats World by Terry Hope Romero

So, I am not a new vegan, nor is this my first encounter with the extraordinary skills of Ms. Romero. But this is one of the most exciting and completely Braveheart recipe collections I have ever seen. And Romero never left Queens! How is it possible?

Romero reimagines classic dishes from cuisines around the world from a vegan viewpoint, something I had almost thought impossible. But she captures the flavor, color, and sense of the original with flair and originality and for the first time I have been able to wholeheartedly enjoy the world’s diverse bounty.

I was able to enjoy Pumpkin Kibbe even though I did not have a food processor to grind the pumpkin and bulgur together. I used a 100-year-old hand-crank table-top meat grinder and the result was sublime. I especially enjoyed the Yogurt Cashew sauce, and the recommended very hot chile harissa paste that accompanied the recipe. Both added immeasurably to the authentic taste.

One thing I was familiar with in years gone by were Chinese steamed BBQ Char Siu “bao” and I was thrilled to be able to recreate the wondrous experience of eating them again. The recipe is flawless in terms of taste, though I can’t imagine any Chinese person using several pans to prepare the filling. The cornstarch in water can be stirred into the roasted seitan hot from the oven.

I get wild cravings for good Ma-Po Tofu and Romero has included a brilliant recipe that works beautifully. I sprinkle on a few toasted Sichuan peppercorns for garnish because its distinct aroma makes the dish taste and smell authentic. I used a new-to-me tofu made from besan, or chick-pea flour. The recipe can be found in Burma:Rivers of Flavor by Naomi Duguid.

Romero's Thai dishes are superb as well. The famous Tom Yum soup does not miss it's shrimp and the Grilled Seitan Noodle Salad made me feel quite as though I had just spent the day lounging seaside in the sun. A bottle of organic lime juice does wonders in making the dishes taste authentic.

Romero reprised a few of the indipensable Latin dishes she introduced to us in Viva Vegan!: 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers but that book is filled with other wonders you won't want to miss. It is worth it's weight in gold for finding a way to make meat in Latin recipes totally irrelevant and it has recipes North Americans might find closer to home.

Romero has done aspiring vegans a huge service by providing recipes from around the world. She has added diversity and color, flavor and interest to our menu and these dishes can be served with panache and joy to those curious onlookers to a vegan lifestyle.


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Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo

Hardcover, Hardcover, 400 pages Published February 1st 2011 by Free Press (first published 2011), ISBN13: 9781416583936, Lit Awards: American Book Award (2012), James Beard Foundation Book Award Nominee for Writing and Literature (2012), Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for Nonfiction (2012), Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for Non-fiction (2011), Books for a Better Life Award for First Book (2011)

This extraordinary debut by Annia Ciezadlo is memoir of her time covering wars, loving Mohamed (her husband), and trying to make a home in the Middle East since 2001. Reading this memoir is like being with a friend on a crowded New York City subway: she tells the story loudly over the clatter of wheels and we (and everyone else) are riveted to her startlingly vivid tale of love, war, revenge, and mothers-in-law. And Food—it’s as though she “has prepared a feast for us with her own hands.”

Ciezadlo makes no bones about it: she is obsessed with food. Food spells happiness, love, and generosity of spirit. Food matters. She has a distinctive voice: “dark purple figs, wrinkled and soft as a baby’s balls”; “eggplants like giant obsidian teardrops”; “tomatoes puckered into little baboon butts”; “bananas hanging like spider-bait.” Her exuberance in finding the real heart of Middle East in the kitchens there is infectious and joyous. We long for the sun, the taste of olive oil, the smell of bharaat, the clamorous markets, and the riot of colors. We wish we knew her and hope she will tell us more.

A description of her attempts to recreate recipes from basic home cooking is one I will never forget because it happened to me as well. The “simplest” dish of onion, potato and egg can be an utter mystery if one has the proportion, the heat, or the order slightly awry. Ciezadlo’s search for an apartment with a kitchen in Beirut is epic and filled with irony, pathos, and humor. I now have an infinitely better idea of what it means to live in the Middle East. A memoir like this, filled with insight (and recipes!), is a loving and important introduction to the Middle East. Buy a copy for yourselves and buy one to give one away.


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The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Let me say first that Beranbaum is undoubtedly a master. After all, she developed most of the the recipes in this book on her own, using her own knowledge and the direction, ingredients, perhaps even the recipes of others. Let's just admit that writing a cookbook is darn hard work and nearly impossible. Aspiring cooks can't actually see and feel texture and notice those little indescribables that are so important in creating something completely new to them. All this is prelude to my frustration with her recipes. They seem to me to be overly complicated and particular to her. That is to say, they are not terribly sraightforward nor easily adaptable. I am used to adaptations of recipes for commonly used foods from around the world which tend to be simple enough for whole cultures to adapt to their tastes.

One thing that mattered to me this holiday season was making for the first time a Pannetone, my favorite holiday bread. I was determined to delight myself with making a loaf to celebrate my re-connection with the dear Italian friend who first introduced Pannetone to me years ago with a commercially-bought loaf purchased from New York City’s legendary delicatessen, Zabar’s. Presumptuously perhaps, I determined that Pannetone would be my gift for family this year—one sibling, one loaf. Little did I know how many weeks and how much treasure would be spent on trying to achieve a bread that pleasured four of the five senses: eyes, nose, tongue, as well as the “lightness” of touch. I am now proud to say I almost succeeded. However, “almost” was simply not good enough for me at first.

I flatter myself, I know now, that I am something of a bread master. I should have known this when I read in Daniel Leader's Simply Great Breads: Sweet and Savory Yeasted Treats from America's Premier Artisan Baker that one should attempt to master one type of bread and become known for that. Well, really.

Beranbaum has a recipe for Pannetone in her book. I almost never follow recipes exactly, usually because I lack all the called-for ingredients, but I did follow this one pretty closely (except for the suggestion that the ambient rising temperature be 75-90 deg F). At 2 a.m. (silly me, I should have just gone to bed & let it rise overnight), I rushed this into the oven because it needed to be on the road early the next day. It didn't have the rise I was expecting, but it tasted good. It was gifted to someone who had never seen a Pannetone, so they didn't care. But I did. After this, I went in search of other recipes, finding one I didn't end up using in my standard bread book, The Bread Bible: 300 Favorite Recipes by Beth Hensberger. I finally used my own starter and made a richer variation of Peter Reinhart's basic recipe in his classic The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread.

Why all the recipes call for low heat for an hour or more mystifies me. It dried the bread out terribly. I ended up going by internal temperature, which was reached far in advance of everyone's suggested baking times. Go figure.

Anyway, I did read much of Beranbaum's book, which is packed with information for those interested in breadmaking. I learned how to make the onion smear usually found on commercially-produced bialys, and I tried the bagels (not a grand success--prefer Leader's in his book referenced above). I also tried the Raisin Pecan Loaf which is her husband's favorite bread. It was exceptional and worth attention to detail.



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Viva Vegan! 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers by Terry Hope Romero

Paperback, 285 pgs, Pub Apr 27th 2010 by Da Capo Lifelong Books (first published 2010), ISBN13: 9780738212739

Terry Hope Romero is a wonder and a wizard. This really fabulous cookbook makes it possible for everyone to eat really spectacular Latin food with gusto. It is inconceivable that anyone would miss eating animals when served food like this.

I have too many favorites from her offerings, but I came across a freezer full of hominy once and worked my way through the posoles, seitans, sofritos, pot pies...all incredibly flavorful and unusual. This book contains many regional variations on your favorite bean dishes: Venezuela-style Black Beans, Red Beans with Dominican-style Sazón, Brazilian Black Bean Stew with Portobello Mushrooms...it goes on.

Terry has given us Enchiladas, Empanadas, Sopes, Tamales, Pupusas, Tostadas, Flan. There are no burrito recipes in this book! Well, she does tell us what usually goes in a burrito but we kind of knew that. You'll know to be creative when you combine parts of other recipes to create a truly extra special burrito-wrap. But she even is otherworldly when she is creating Tacos. I mean, this is creation on it's forward-most edge. I MUST buy a tortilla maker. Somehow food like this demands attention to details like fresh tortillas.

You will be happy, and full, and wondered how you managed without it, I promise you.




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Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson

Whatever else we can say about James Hamilton-Paterson, he is a very funny man. If you ever found yourself in the Italian countryside gazing at the villa next door and wondering who lives there and who, for gosh sakes, is coptering in and out, after reading this novel, you may very well decide you don’t really want to know. It may be entangling, and may, after all, be the end of all you hold dear.

Gerald Samper, British biographer to the rich and famous, buys an old villa in need of repair in Tuscany’s Apuan Alps region. He is told, as is his nearby neighbor, that the owner of the nearby villa is rarely in residence so his quest for privacy and solitude is guaranteed. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the resident of the villa he can see from his own is none other than a well-to-do refugee from a Soviet republic, with all her entangling connections.

Samper likes cooking, and we are treated to recipes inspired by the abundant local produce, but dreamt up entirely within the convoluted confines of Samper’s own twisted mind: Mussels in Chocolate, say, or Baked Pears in Gorgonzola with Cinnamon Cream, Lampreys in Sherry, Alien Pie, which features smoked cat mixed with baby beets, nasturtium leaves, pureed prunes, and green bacon...or my personal favorite, Tuna Stuffed with Prunes in Marmite Butter. But Samper deprecates (with good reason) the specialties his neighbor offers him, delicacies delivered direct from the former Soviet republic of Voynovia. As described by Samper:

”…brightly colored voynovian objects that were delicate to the same extent that traffic cones are. There were awesome pellets like miniature doughnuts wrapped in candied angelica leaf and injected with chili sauce. Others looked like testicles set in dough. I gathered these were pigeon’s eggs and couldn’t catch her name for them although the phrase that came to me immediately was Christ on a Tricycle. Spearmint eggs?”

But this book is not about cooking, despite the title. It is about living the good life in Tuscany among other artists—writers, musicians, filmmakers, realtors--magicians of all stripes. And what of Fernet Branca? It is a digestif concocted in Italy that, given as a gift to the new arrivals of Le Roccie, is purchased a second time to return the courtesy, and becomes a central feature of the misunderstandings among the residents and visitors there. It is described in Wikipedia as having the flavor of “black-licorice-flavored Listerine."


This book counts towards the 2011 Europa Challenge. The Europa Challenge Blog: Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson


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Vegan Family Meals by Ann Gentry

The photographs in this book are really gorgeous and have a certain indefinable quality (of light?) that makes one think of the West Coast. But it is the ingredient lists that give one the certainty that this book was not written nor conceived on the East Coast. The Asian-inspired (Japanese-style, really) recipes do not hail from New England, where we have far less Japanese influence on our food, to our detriment.

The Mustard Maple Tempeh marinade is a total win. It would be good with anything, but I took the author’s suggestion and put it on a green salad dressed with Orange Tahini Dressing, which was also simple and yummy.

The Veggie Frittata topped with roasted asparagus was less successful. The asparagus was great! I was so excited to try this, and so disappointed by the result. The chickpea flour flavor was strong, and the tofu too unusual a texture. I could never get away with serving this to non-vegans. A very similar recipe appears in Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Vegan Brunch, but without the chickpea flour, and Isa's version is a clear hands-down winner to my taste. However, Isa’s omelet in the same book is made with ½ cup chickpea flour, so it clearly is texture that both authors are attempting to recreate. I didn't try Isa's omelet to see if the taste was the same.

Ann Gentry chose well in her sweets chapter. These are classic sweets that go down well, and they’re NOT ALL CHOCOLATE. My mind tends to equate good sweets with chocolate, so that is my failing. But the Almond-Jam Thumbprints and Date Bars, made with her own flour concoction, are classic. (I do tend to balk at the large amount of maple syrup in the recipes, though. Even here in New England, where we revere our Maple Syrup, it is expensive, and not something one can easily countenance for a batch of cookies.) The Chocolate Silk Pie I can attest is way better than you imagine it will be.

Overall, this is a strong collection with surefire classics in each chapter.


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Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters

I love just about everything about this book. I love the way it looks. I love the descriptions of the vegetables. I love that other people are cooking with and eating things I’ve never encountered before. I love that the vegetables are centered on common ones that grow well in all areas of North America. I love that any one of the recipes could be served to guests. When one has grown or purchased fine expensive local produce (and it is expensive in time if not money if you grow it yourself)it is so nice to have a recipe which doesn’t obscure the color, flavor, texture of the vegetable, but makes it sublime. I love that many of the vegetables and herbs are discussed in detail, including their season of ripening, so you know when to expect the harvest to grace your kitchen. And the original lino-cuts of the vegetables are not to be missed. You simply MUST see this book, even if you have to visit your local bookstore to do so. The lino-cuts are exquisite full-color drawings of each vegetable with its unique characteristics. You may decide to try something new for your family when you’ve seen this lovely tome. One gift deserves another.


The book is so beautiful I hate to bring it into the kitchen. And it saddens me that the vegetables must be pulled from the garden THAT DAY to be used in these simple veggie-centered meals. If you have an abundant garden, or live close by a farmer’s market with innovative vegetable choices, you may survive. But you simply cannot expect to use supermarket groceries for these recipes and expect them to taste like they would in Alice Waters’ restaurant, the Chez Panisse. The simpler a recipe it is, the more difficult it can be: for instance, “a drizzle of olive oil” really requires the best olive oil if that is the only dressing. And one must have infinite experience to make a simple meal: sautéing must have the proper proportion of oil at the correct temperature for the proper amount of time—this is all experience—no recipe can tell you when it is right for your ingredients. And–horrors—I often don’t follow a recipe EXACTLY because of ingredients or amounts on hand. The recipes in this book really work better when you follow the directions within reason. I have much more respect for those chefs that make simple, beautiful, flavorful meals and know why they are so expensive. Less is often more.


But every year I tell people about the first time I tried Alice’s suggestion at a dinner party: tiny baby hakuri with greens attached laid in a tiny amount of boiling water in a large saucepan for a short time until greens are bright green and bulbs slightly softened. That’s it—and it will change the way you view turnips, and vegetables in general. It’s beautiful, soul-satisfying, simple, and fresh. There was also a time I used 1-lb of kale, 2-lbs of spinach, and 1 large head of escarole in one dish feeding six people. It cooked down to perfect portions!


Now that farmer’s market and local produce is popular again, do yourself a favor and see this book. You may want to treat yourself. This is the way rich people eat.





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Simply Great Breads by Daniel Leader with Lauren Chattman

I wrote a review in a post before I tried the Yeasted Pancakes. Now I'm just going to rave about these: I have NEVER have I tasted anything to rival the creamy lightness of these pancakes. In fact, it is laughable that they are even called pancakes. They should have another name--like crepes have a different name because they have a different texture, these are a different class altogether. Maybe something like a pan-fried doughnut, but far more elegant and without the greasy overtones 'doughnut' implies. It has a melt-in-your-mouth not-too-sweet airy perfection that will take any added fruit, fruit sauce, or drizzle of maple syrup and make your family/guests swoon with pleasure. Best of all, you make the batter the night before and have a coffee before you do anything more strenuous than take the batter out of the frig.


At first I thought this a collection for entertaining. It has a marvelous set of breakfast breads, rolls, and specialties that one would probably not make every week for oneself, especially if one had a busy schedule, but may want to do as a special treat for family or if a guest were coming. Or perhaps if one had a tea shop, one could offer specials each day. The yeasted tarts and schiacciata, or flatbreads something like focaccia, make me think of brunches, afternoon teas, cool and sweetly delicious white wines, and casually elegant lunches for delighted and delightful friends. But you know what? I really like this collection so much I would probably use it to fill in all week when I run out of something--and to treat myself.


The array of flatbreads must be tried: Mana’eesh is a Middle Eastern olive oil-rich bread topped with dried thyme, sesame, and sumac. This was screamingly good in taste and texture. (Use some lemon peel if you have no sumac on hand.) But not only are secrets of the bread revealed (e.g., how to make the bread rise--or not--since it is intended to be flat), but the secret of the spice mixture, and the cooking of chicken topping that can adorn it, if one eats meat. In addition there are fry breads and donuts, bagels and bialys. The bialys were so much better than store-bought that I shall probably never buy another. I have yet to try to try the bagels, but look forward to it. (I have tried making bagels several times previously from variously sourced-recipes and all have been vaguely disappointing.)


Perhaps what I like most is that many of these breads can be most successfully made by preparing the biga or proofing dough the day before, which has the effect of lessening the work aspect of bread creation on the day of a big event, strengthening the texture, and enhancing the flavor. I prefer to make my breads this way now, since the flavor is so clearly impacted (I’m terribly spoiled) and I detest wasting an entire day to rising, kneading, shaping, etc. It has to fit in the schedule if it is going to be a part of my life.


I think this is a valuable addition to the library of even an occasional bread-maker because the flatbreads are nearly infallible, and this author uses a standing mixer to knead, which can take some of the mystery out of bread-making, but also gives access to many aspiring bakers. However I note the author, in his preface, suggests this is for the "serious baker with holes in their repertoire." I concede that one may take for granted the necessary oven stones and peels, brioche pans and experience of texture and stages of doneness, but this is too good not to share with everyone. Enjoy!



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