Home cooks seeking culinary adventure found it this year in an impressive number of stimulating, well-produced cookbooks from publishers large and small. Although the year did not deliver a blockbuster classic, there were more than enough winners to make it difficult to pare down the holiday gift list to only 10 titles. (Books reviewed in Good Eating earlier in the year were not included in this selection.)
The final list reflects our curiosity about chefs and how they cook as well as our continuing fascination with food from foreign lands. Surprisingly, only one of six chef-written books presents food from a restaurant’s menu, that being “Commander’s Kitchen” from Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. Chicago chef Charlie Trotter invites us to cook at home with him, while his Windy City colleague Rick Bayless presents classic dishes of Mexico in a novel format. Peter Berley, chef and teacher, gracefully broadens our vegetarian repertoire, while chef Douglas Rodriguez translates the zesty Latin American approach to grill cooking.
The exotic lands beyond the Americas that inspired appealing recipe collections are the Greek islands and Thailand. Meanwhile, for those who delight in the romance of food, we have a book on mushrooms with “lover” in the title and another on bread machines. Finally, we applaud a new guide to cheese that contains a selection of easily accessible recipes.
Here are our selections, in alphabetical order. Look for selected recipes from these books elsewhere in this section.
“The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook,” by Beth Hensperger (Harvard Common Press, $18.95)
This 600-page tome is included here for one overriding reason: More and more American homes have one of these machines, and their owners need up-to-date information and stimulating new recipes to inspire them to use it.
Hensperger, author of eight previous books on bread, seems to be the right person to provide this stimulation. She confronts the enemy in the very first paragraph of her introduction titled “America’s New Bread Box”:
“The Bread Machine. Words that strike terror into the hearts of artisan bakers and advocates of hands-on home baking.”
To her, “a bread machine creates fresh, satisfying, full-flavored yeast breads with no compromise of standards.” But why write another book on a well-documented process? Because, she claims, “There is a new generation of machines that are nothing short of remarkable” and “a solid batch of knowledge has accumulated about how to work effectively with the medium.”
What follows is overwhelming: chapters on white breads and egg breads; whole-wheat, whole-grain and specialty flour breads; country and sourdough breads; flavored breads; pizzas and other flatbreads; sweet breads and more. Turn on your machines!
“Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home,” by Charlie Trotter (Ten Speed Press, $32.50)
By now no one questions that Chicago’s own Trotter is, as the publisher claims, a “visionary” and his restaurant “a prime dining destination.”
So what is he doing in a home kitchen? “Elevating everyday cuisine to a higher level of sophistication,” he responds in the text.
This could be a set-up to having Trotter figuratively cater your meal by offering recipes from his restaurant. Quite a few of the recipes have appeared there, in somewhat different form. Nonetheless, he plays fair in a beautifully produced and illustrated book that cuts no corners. (It’s noteworthy that he does not use or promote his own line of condiments and sauces.)
You have to want to cook to enjoy this book. Once committed, know that the 125 recipes average 10 to 12 ingredients per recipe. The highest count I made was 15, the lowest five. More important, those annoying sub-recipes that add so much time to many chef’s creations are limited to only four stocks and six pantry preparations (roasted garlic and simple syrup among them). Suggested menus contain three to five dishes. Cooking times are not excessive. The eight-ingredient duck breast-spinach salad with ginger-soy vinaigrette requires only 15 minutes cooking time. The chef does call for a small blow torch to caramelize an eight-ingredient vanilla creme brulee with chocolate sauce, but he offers an alternative.
Yes, he also uses some esoteric ingredients such as snow pea sprouts, red miso and whole-wheat couscous; he suggests that if they are not available at your local market, you should turn to the Internet.
“The Cheese Lover’s Cookbook & Guide,” by Paula Lambert (Simon & Schuster, $35).
Cheese, you may have noticed, has made a comeback. Current dietary thinking finds more to praise than damn in nutrient-rich if calorie-laden cheese, and the ever-widening selection of specialty and artisanal cheeses tempts those who entertain as well as curious cooks. The timing appears ripe for this guide and its accessible recipes.
Lambert’s involvement with cheese goes back 20 years. Unable to find fresh mozzarella, which she had come to like as a student in Italy, she decided to make it. From little balls of cheese a business and career grew as she founded and nurtured the Mozzarella Cheese Co. in Dallas. It now produces more than 20 types of cheese for restaurants and specialty markets.
In the book, she describes the manufacture of cheese and offers advice on buying, storing and serving it. She presents chart and text descriptions of cheeses classified by texture with sub-classifications by ripening method, veining and other distinguishing characteristics, type of milk and country of origin.
Her recipes come from, or are inspired by, widely divergent cuisines, among them Italy, and the American South and Southwest. What macaroni and cheese, cottage cheese blintzes and roast chicken stuffed with ricotta share is a lack of complexity. They are “homey with a touch of sophistication,” she writes.
“Commander’s Kitchen,” by Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon (Broadway, $35)
Commander’s Palace is well known, as New Orleans’ busiest restaurant is bound to be. All those current and future customers looking for a souvenir of their visit are reason enough to create a cookbook, the second published during the reign of the Brennan family as proprietors.
Is it a typical restaurant cookbook? Yes and no. Typically (in New Orleans at least) it begins with a cocktail and, untypically, it ends with garlic bread. Ti Adelaide Martin, daughter of New Orleans’ doyenne of dining, Ella Brennan, has written a long and graceful introduction to the restaurant. Following that are traditional recipes for dishes that have become part of the city’s culinary fabric and more recent ones devised by chef Jamie Shannon. He provides cooking tips. Martin provides amusing tales as side dishes.
What makes “Commander’s Kitchen” stand apart, though, is the food. This is party food, intended to serve four, six or eight, and nowhere else in the nation do chefs possess the same knack for preparing food that makes people happy.
For example, let’s try some cheese straws or spicy pecans with that cocktail, move on to corn-fried oysters with horseradish cream or a soft-shell crab salad with tomato and sweet onion, and consider for our main course quail stuffed with crawfish or skillet-grilled squab with braised salad and honey mashed turnips. If we can resist that bread pudding, we’ll finish the meal with a slab of peach pie and some chicory-flavored coffee.
Not typical. Not typical at all.
“Cracking the Coconut,” by Su-Mei Yu (Morrow, $30)
The title tells exactly what to expect in this important book about the cooking of Thailand, Su-Mei Yu’s homeland. It is a teaching book, and she presents fundamentals, such as cracking a coconut and extracting the cream, milk and flakes, so American cooks will learn more than just a recipe or two for dinner party use.
“To the Thai people, cooking is not a chore,” Yu announces. She then proceeds to explain why they (and we) are better off cooking from scratch. An example: “Canned pineapple only looks like pineapple,” she writes. “It has been stripped of its natural gifts, taste and aroma.” Readers are taught to roast and grind spices, to slice, mince and pound ingredients to make a paste.
Each chapter is based on a single ingredient. She describes curries and their preparation, of course, but gives equal time to namm prikk (chili water), intensely flavored sauces little known in the United States.
What the book’s title does not prepare the reader for are the charming and informative passages on “the history of Thai cooking and the people and customs that shaped it.”
“Douglas Rodriguez’s Latin Flavors on the Grill” (Ten Speed Press, $35)
A young Cuban-American chef who has launched successful restaurants in Miami and New York City, Rodriguez has the full attention of colleagues and competitors whenever he tackles a new project.
His approach in this book is pan-Latin; he makes no attempt to present the recipes in the context of specific cultures. Instead, his focus is on fresh and flavorful ingredient combinations to stimulate cooks who perform at the grill seasonally or year-round.
A brief introduction provides a list of tools for grillers and advice on grill cooking. At the back of the book is a lengthy section on “grill basics.” These include recipes for flavored oils, rubs, adobos, salsas and other condiments. In between are chapters devoted to drinks and appetizers, fish and seafood, poultry and meat, sides and desserts. (The desserts cook in an oven, not on the grill.)
The chef’s inventiveness shows in such recipes as honey-lime-rum-glazed shrimp, strip steak with horseradish-parsley mojo and Cuban burgers (made with pork, half-a-dozen spices and potato sticks.) The book, done in collaboration with chef Andrew DiCataldo, is printed on a rainbow of different-colored pages and contains enticing close-up photos of dishes.
“The Foods of the Greek Islands,” by Aglaia Kremezi (Houghton Mifflin, $35)
The Greek Islands have been the crossroads of the Mediterranean for much of recorded history, but despite the culinary contributions of passing or conquering nations, island cooking has been largely overlooked by cookbook writers.
Kremezi, whose family roots are in the Cyclades, insists the foods found there are “simple but never plain.” Her mission, in a volume rich with seductive photos of island scenery and food, is to present the “long and complicated history of island food.” She also attempts to gently restore and modernize recipes from the region and largely succeeds, with contributions from the kitchen of Molyvos, a highly regarded Greek restaurant in New York City.
Meze (appetizers) run from the familiar (grape leaves stuffed with rice) to the innovative (terrine of fish with leeks, orange and lemon). Kremezi points out that although water is everywhere, not many fish are left to swim there and they are not islanders’ staple food. But when the fish do bite, she suggests simple presentations such as cod with artichokes or red mullet stuffed with tomatoes. There are tempting lamb, chicken and pasta dishes as well, and fruit desserts to end the meal.
“Mexico One Plate at a Time,” by Rick Bayless with JeanMarie Brownson and Deann Groen Bayless (Scribner, $35)
This is a companion volume to the PBS television series of the same name. Bayless, a Chicago treasure who has engendered a new level of respect for chefs committed to public service, has created a novel format in which to teach Americans the cultural background and techniques of classic Mexican cooking.
His devotion to the subject erases any suspicion that he is being condescending when he writes that Americans are “at the spaghetti and meatballs stage” of enjoying the full spectrum of Mexico’s cuisines and when he rules out teaching fajitas or nachos because they are “Mexican-American” creations.
Instead he presents classics such as guacamole, ceviche, tortilla soup and chiles rellenos, each in a three-part format: an introduction with the history of the dish, a definitive recipe plus some related recipes, and a question-and-answer section based on what the chef learned while testing the recipe.
The format gives a novice cook confidence, and the results will give everyone who tastes the dish a large dollop of pleasure.
“The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen,” by Peter Berley (HarperCollins, $35)
Peter Berley does home cooks a great favor in this heartfelt, personal book. Using the knowledge he has gained as chef at a vegan restaurant and as a cooking teacher, he takes vegetarian cooking away from its cult status and opens a window of opportunity to anyone who wants to make nourishing and tasty food with vegetables.
Calling cooking “an essential domestic ritual that … gives a rhythm to life’s cycles and changes,” he warns that “we are in danger of losing a great source of intimacy and connection to the world and the people around us. This book is designed to help you bring one of the most fundamental, soul-satisfying experiences back into your home.”
He does this through a primer on equipment and pantry essentials, and by teaching basic techniques such as the ways to make soup. How-to drawings guide the way to food that is healthful as well as pleasurable.
Items unfamiliar to mainstream consumers, such as tofu, tempeh and seitan, are introduced, but most ingredients are familiar and available. Salads are presented in four seasonal chapters. Mushrooms and root vegetables have chapters of their own as do spring vegetables and summer vegetables. Berley’s target audience is “people not opposed to eggs and dairy,” but cheese and yogurt are used mainly as garnish, so vegans can construct recipes without them.
“The Mushroom Lover’s Mushroom Cookbook and Primer,” by Amy Farges (Workman, $16.95).
This book is a well-crafted treatment of an increasingly popular treat. Once reserved for a few intrepid gatherers, mushrooms from the wild (or wild mushrooms raised in captivity) now decorate popular restaurant menus and many supermarket produce sections.
Farges, a founder of Aux Delices des Bois, a New York City purveyor of wild mushrooms and truffles, is thorough in her presentation of more than 40 “wild and exotic” woodland wonders. She provides advice on selecting, storing, washing, drying, freezing, pickling and–of course–cooking.
The recipes have international accents. You might snack on sherried mousseron tapas or finger sandwiches made from duxelles, or serve a salad of lamb, new potato and yellow oyster mushrooms, or a soup that combines hedgehog mushrooms and buttermilk. An unusual touch is the inclusion of pantry items and condiments that are especially mushroom-compatible. The list begins with salt and ends with truffle butter.
MORE WORTHY BOOKS
Here are other recommended books published this year, listed within categories in order of preference
Chefs corner
“Think Like a Chef,” by Tom Colicchio (Potter, $37 50)
“Wolfgang Puck’s Pizza, Pasta and More!” (Random House, $35)
“Simple to Spectacular,” by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman (Broadway, $45)
“Gordon Ramsay: A Chef for All Seasons,” (Ten Speed, $35)
“Alfred Portale’s 12 Seasons Cookbook” (Broadway, $45)
Coffee table choices (if you have a strong coffee table)
“Artisan Baking,” by Maggie Glezer (Artisan, $40)
“Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, a Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia,” by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Artisan, $40)
“Harvesting Excellence,” by Alain Ducasse (Assouline, $50)
“Savoring Spain & Portugal,” by Joyce Goldstein (Williams-Sonoma, $39.95)
Between-meals reading:
“Pot on the Fire,” by John Thorne with Matt Lewis Thorne (North Point, $25)
“A Goose in Toulouse and Other Culinary Adventures in France,” by Mort Rosenblum (Hyperion, $25)
“100 Vegetables and Where They Came From,” by William Woys Weaver (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $18.95)
“The Bialy Eaters,” by Mimi Sheraton (Broadway, $19.95)
“Food, A Culinary History” Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanarni, editors (Penguin paperback, $18)
Bakers quartet
“Basic Baking,” by Laura Brody (Morrow, $25)
“The Olives Dessert Table,” by Todd English, Paige Retus and Sally Sampson (Simon & Schuster, $35)
“Nancy Silverton’s Pastries from the La Brea Bakery” (Villard, $35)
“The Dessert Bible,” by Christopher Kimball (Little, Brown, $25.95)
In a league of its own
“The Cambridge World History of Food,” in two volumes, edited by Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas (Cambridge University Press, $150)
