HOME COOKING: A WRITER IN THE KITCHEN

Laurie Colwin

Perennial/Harper Collins, 1988

My Rating: A+

“One of the delights of life is eating with friends; second to that is TALKING about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating WHILE you are eating with friends. People who like to cook like to talk about food. Plain old cooks (as opposed to the geniuses in fancy restaurants) tend to be friendly. After all, without one cook giving another cook a tip or two, human life might have died out a long time ago.”

Don’t you love the way Laurie Colwin said that? She and I are of the same mind. That quote above came from the first page in this charming book and it goes on from there. It actually gets even better. While reading the book I found myself talking back to her. Here’s an example:

“As everyone knows, there is only one way to fry chicken correctly. Unfortunately, most people think their method is best, but most people are wrong. Mine is the only right way, and on this subject I feel almost evangelical.”

Well, Laurie, you are correct – there is only one right way to fry chicken. Unfortunately, you are wrong about your way of doing it. My method of frying chicken is the one true method. Here’s a hint: use a cast iron skillet and really fresh chicken.

When it comes to making potato salad I will admit (modestly) that mine is superior to her’s. But on this subject Laurie and I agree: a good potato salad allows for lots of experimentation and we agree it’s good to make it all year round.

“When I was young, potato salad was considered summer food. My mother made her mother’s version, which included chopped celery and catsup in the dressing. It was known as pink potato salad and was served at picnics and barbeques as an accompaniment to fried or grilled chicken.”

The book is organized into thirty-three “chats” about a variety of food subjects. In addition to frying chicken and potato salad, she tackles these subjects (this is a sample):

• Bread Baking Without Agony
• How to Disguise Vegetables
• Feeding the Multitudes
• Kitchen Horrors
• How to Give a Party

This is not a cookbook with traditional recipes. Laurie tells you how to make a dish and gives examples of things she has done. The most hilarious are the things she’s done wrong. Her tone is strictly conversational – just as if you are sitting in her kitchen talking about food.

I’d like to thank Belle (Ms. Bookish) for recommending this book to me. It completes my Spice of Life Challenge. As you can tell from my rating above, I really liked this book. I borrowed a copy from the library but I plan to buy a copy for my own food book collection. I liked it that much. Laurie Colwin also wrote More Home Cooking and numerous novels, short stories and featured articles in major magazines before her untimely death. I’ve challenged myself to read more of her works in 2010.

This food-related post is a part of Beth Fish Read’ Weekend Cooking.

]]> http://joyfullyretired.com/2009/11/21/a-food-book-home-cooking/feed/ 16 http://joyfullyretired.com/2009/10/26/book-review-the-blue-heron-ranch-cookbook/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=book-review-the-blue-heron-ranch-cookbook http://joyfullyretired.com/2009/10/26/book-review-the-blue-heron-ranch-cookbook/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:10:26 +0000 Margot http://joyfullyretired.com/?p=4533 by Nadia Natali

Illustrated by Marica Natali Thompson

North Atlantic Books, 2009

My Rating: B

In addition to recipes, The Blue Heron Ranch Cookbook is a story about the creation of the Blue Heron Ranch and Zen Retreat Center. It’s the story of how the Natali family bought forty acres near Ojai, California and built it into a meditation retreat center.

For three years they lived in their fold-out tent-camper and a tepee with no electricity or phone services. Their water came from the river. They still live off the grid but now have solar panels and a back-up generator. The land was dusty chaparral when they first moved there in 1980 but they’ve transformed it into a desert oasis with a large variety of trees and other plants.

Nadia has always been in charge of food preparation. First it was for her family of five and later for large groups of retreat guests. Her book contains menus and tips for handling large numbers of guests. In fact there is a food and supply list.

The book contains a large number of vegetarian recipes and is heavy on healthy eating. Among the recipes, here are some of my favorites:

• A large number of soups, both hot and cold. I want the Potato Leek Soup.
• I bought some dried cranberries so I can try her Pineapple Chicken recipe. It calls for chicken legs, undiluted orange juice, curry powder, mandarin oranges, pineapple, cracked almonds and the cranberries. Doesn’t that mix sound good? Can’t you just imagine how those flavors will all meld together? Mmmmm good.
• The author has included a nice little section on breakfasts which I find is often overlooked in most cookbooks. My favorites includes a recipe for Sunday Pancakes, which has been a tradition at our house, and the author’s own granola.
• There are eight pie recipes including a blueberry peach that looks wonderful.
• A very nice section on sauces with everything from Ginger Honey Sauce to Green Enchilada Sauce to Hot Fudge Sauce.

The stories of the Natali’s life are interspersed throughout the book, usually at the beginnings of each food chapter. The other thing that makes the book a treat are the colorful drawings by the author’s daughter, Marica. The front cover above is a good example of her work.

I recommend this book for anyone who entertains house guests for long weekends. I’m also passing this one on to my son and d-i-l who participate in weekend and sometimes week-long meditation retreats. This is a great resource for those events.

This book was a gift from the author. I read this book as a requirement for the Spice of Life Challenge.

You can purchase The Blue Heron Ranch Cookbook from Amazon.

The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship

by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel

Recipes in collaboration with Melissa Clark

Polhemus Press, 2009

My Rating: B+

I’m calling this book a food novel about two friends Valerie and Lilly. They’ve been friends since childhood. As young girls they created a club-for-two in which they exchanged recipes, hence the name, The Recipe Club.

The novel opens when they are both adults. They have not spoken to each other in decades due to some misunderstanding initially unknown to the reader. But Val’s mother has died and, as she goes through her mother’s papers, Val discovers all the letters and the recipes the girls exchanged. The letters and recipes bring back fond memories and Val sends an email to Lilly hoping to re-establish contact. They begin a guarded, written conversation with each other until one of them breaks off contact again.

At this point the novel flashes back to the childhood years. The reader is treated to the childhood letters outlining each girls experiences with camp and school. It then goes on into the teenage and young adult years. We read of their first loves and other things that happened in their lives. We also learn about the parents of the two girls. The reader, at least this reader, suspects that whatever is wrong between the two friends has something to do with the parents.

The remarkable thing about the novel is that it is told almost completely via emails and letters interspersed with their recipes. I say remarkable because I could understand everything that happened just from their letters and emails. This well-written story shows the spirit and character of their lives and the heart of their friendship.

The recipes added throughout the novel are all original. They fit the different ages at which they are exchanged. Some recipes rang a bell for me. For example, the recipe for Dorm Room Oatmeal reminded me of my own experience cooking oatmeal on a one-burner hot plate. There are lots of desserts in here that look so yummy, but you’ll also find meats, fish, poultry, vegetables, soups and drinks. The recipes are not the focal point of the story but they do help to tie it together.

Here’s a review blurb from someone whose radio show I love to listen to:

“Food and love without the schmaltz and warm fuzzies is what kept me turning the pages of this book. Yes, there are recipes, nostalgic and good ones, but the fascination is in how they mark the years of a childhood friendship struggling to become a life long one. If you’re lucky enough to have that one true best friend, you’ll find all the love, prickliness, laughter, blood curdling honesty, and joy here.”
–Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of “The Splendid Table®,” National Public Radio’s food show from American Public Media

I recommend this book for readers who like to read about the anatomy of a friendship with the fun of good food added to it.

I received this book from the publicist, FSB Associates.

You can purchase The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship at Amazon.

The Cooking School Murders

Virginia Rich

E. P. Dutton, 1982

Rating: A

Are you a cozy-mystery lover? Do you like that cozy-mystery mixed with talk of food? There are plenty of books available now that fill both of those qualifications. One of my favorites is from the early 1980′s. It’s The Cooking School Murders by Virginia Rich. For me, it was the beginning of the culinary mystery books. I don’t know that it was the first ever. Probably not. But it was the first culinary mystery I read.

Synopsis from the book jacket:

The elite of Harrington, Iowa (population 4,785) have gathered for an advanced cooking class. But when one of the students is found with her throat slashed, the other chefs, including our Mrs. Potter, home for her yearly visit,  are the prime suspects. The weapon? The thin, sharp, six-inch French boning knife displayed in class that evening.

As Mrs. Potter muses, “Everything that happens in New York happens here. The only difference is that here you know the people.” Dignified but down-to-earth,  proper but never prissy, it is Mrs. Potter who unwittingly discovers the surprising culprit.

Why I Like It:

The main character, Eugenia Potter, is a first class protagonist. She reminds me of Miss Marple – only Americanized and about forty years later. She is called Mrs. Potter through most of the book, only by her first name when with friends. She relies on her knowledge of people and her intuition. She politely pokes, prods, and listens to gossip to help her solve the crime.

There are plenty of other interesting characters and, of course, I liked all the talk about menus and food. I especially like one discussion about the fads in food tastes. At the time they were bemoaning the fact that mashed potatoes and gravy was no longer “in.” Inside the book, the cover pages are filled with some of the recipes eaten during the coarse of the story.

The plot moves along nicely and the mystery, at least for me, was a good surprise at the end. The author’s dialogue style is very realistic. I felt as if I were right there in the middle of the conversations. I first read this in the 1980′s and it still stands solid as a re-read.

About the author: Virginia Rich was the wife of a rancher in Arizona. They also had a house off the coast of Maine, just like Mrs. Potter. The Cooking School Murders was her first novel. She wrote two more books and had extensive notes for more. Her death interrupted the fourth novel. Nancy Pickard completed the fourth novel and went on to add two more for  a total of six Mrs. Potter novels.

My Favorite Reads is a meme sponsored by Alyce of At Home With Books. Check her blog for more of her favorite reads and those of others.

The Cooking School Murders is available at Amazon

American Food Writing

Edited by Molly O’Neill

Library of America, 2007

Rating: A

I was lucky enough to get this book from my daughter Candice and her husband Mark last Spring. I have been tasting it, a few pages at a time, ever since. It’s the perfect book for readers who love first class food writing. That’s me.

The book is an anthology of the best writing about food over the past 250 years. The editor, Molly O’Neill, gathered essays and bits and pieces from various books and magazine articles that are examples of our American culinary history.

For me the value of the book is in the quality and variety of food writing from some of the writers I love. Here are some of my literary favorites and what they wrote about:

• Willa Cather on the little bag of dried wild mushrooms (from My Antonia)
• Langston Hughes on the pleasures of soul food (from Soul Food)
• Nora Ephron took a comic look at food celebrities (from Wallflower at the Orgy)
• Wendell Berry on the pleasures of eating (from What Are People For?)
• John Steinbeck described a simple but special breakfast (from The Long Valley)
• David Sedaris on eating a 15-word entree in a New York City restaurant (from Me Talk Pretty One Day)
• Frederick Douglass wrote about ash cakes, the food slaves ate for breakfast and dinner. It was not a food to be admired.

As you can see the variety is amazing. Equally valuable are the culinary writers:

• M.F.K. Fisher has two pieces in here but I love the essay on oysters.
• James Beard gave an excerpt from his memoir Delights and Prejudices
• Julia Child wrote about her TV show (from The French Chef Cookbook)
• Alice Waters on the connection between the restaurant and the farm (Journal of Gastronomy)
• Ruth Reichl on finding the perfect sushi (from Garlic and Sapphires)
• Jeffrey Steingarten wrote an essay on how he made sourdough bread (from The Man Who Ate Everything)

In addition to the literary pieces, there are also fifty recipes. The first recipe is my favorite because of it’s age and it’s style of writing: Thomas Jefferson on how to make Ice Cream. The last recipe in the book is one I’d lost: Pedernales Chili by Lady Bird Johnson.It has just the right mix of chili spices. I’m so glad I found it again.

In my opinion this book is a huge teaser for someone who loves food writing. Each time I read one of the 112 essays I want to read more of that author. So it’s a temptress as well as a valuable resource. I recommend this for all my foodie friends who love good writing.

This is the second book for the Spice of Life Challenge.

American Food Writing at Amazon

Rebecca of Rebecca Reads is sponsoring The Spice of Life Challenge. The goal of this Spice of challenge is to read and review books about food and eating our way through a good life. It will run from July 1, 2009 until December 31, 2009

There are four categories of food books:

• Cookbooks
• Nonfiction books
• Memoirs, autobiographies, or essays
• Fiction

Participants can tackle this challenge in one of three levels of participation, depending on how many books you want to read.  I’m going for A Feast. That means that I will fill myself with good food books of all kinds. I will read and review six to eight books from at least three of the above categories.

I’m gathering together my list of food books and I am open to suggestions. Thanks to my daughter Candice I recently found a new book that fits the cookbook category. To see it, scroll down to the post immediately following this one. (Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It) I hope you will consider joining in on this fun challenge. There’s still time.

Thanks so much to Kristen of BookN Around for going out of her way to tell me about this challenge.

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and Other Cooking Projects

by Karen Solomon

Ten Speed Press, 2009

A

Back in the ‘olden days’ when we were back-to-the-landers I did a ton of preserving food. I canned tomatoes, green beans and peaches, froze corn, apples and shredded zucchini, made jams and pickles and sauerkraut. It was a lot of work but fun. It was so satisfying to prepare a whole meal from food we raised and/or grew ourselves. It wasn’t about saving money. It was a whole way of life that had health and self-sufficiency at it’s core.

My resources back then were the Ball Blue Book and the Farm Journal Canning and Preserving book. I still have them both and they are so stained and worn. One is held together with a rubber band. One of these days I’ll tell you about them but not in this post.

Today I want to tell you about a new book I’m excited about. My daughter Candice found Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It at the library. It reminded her of my old preserving books. She thought I would be interested and she was right.

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It is not a replacement for my two favorites. It’s a wonderful addition to them. It is not concerned with preserving large quantities of produce from the garden. It’s actually a reference for preparing high quality staples we now purchase only at the supermarket: salad dressings, crackers, mayonnaise, mustard, pasta, butter, cheeses, olives, smoked trout, bacon, frozen treats, marshmallows, beverages and more – 75 recipes in all. The instructions are easy to follow and there are plenty of pictures. The author has a confident, conversational voice that would be helpful for both beginners and pros.

Most of these food projects are things people have been making for many years/decades. For instance, Candice has been making frozen popsicles for the girls. She tried some of the recipes in this book: Mango and Lime Pops and Chocolate Cream Pops. Now doesn’t that beat the over-sugar things you buy?

My ‘immediate’ recipe was Thai Cucumber Salad (took me less than 15 minutes). It was perfect with fresh cucumber and red onions. I have plans for my next projects: yogurt cheese, queso blanco (white cheese) and sesame onion crackers. I’m going to wait a few months for fresh-from-the-tree oranges and lemons to make orange marmalade and lemon curd. Doesn’t that sound yummy?

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It has great ideas for gifts from your kitchen. The book itself would make a great gift for someone who loves to make things – food or other crafts. A definite plus would be to do some of these projects with children. What kid wouldn’t love to make their own frozen pops or watch the whole milk turn into cheese or shake it into butter?

The author, Karen Solomon, is a well known food and lifestyle writer from the San Francisco area. She does not consider herself a chef but a food junkie who “delights in experimentation, insatiable food lust, and perseverance to think outside the jar.” I have a hunch this book is going to be big. Ms. Solomon (and the book) are being featured quite a few places. The day my copy came from Amazon I saw a picture of her on Shelf Awareness (8/18). Here’s the picture and the little blurb that went with it.

Image of the Day: Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It

Karen Solomon, author of Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It (Ten Speed Press), with Tyler Florence, owner of the Tyler Florence Shop, Mill Valley, Calif., where last Saturday Solomon gave a talk and demo, drawing 60 people who heard it, watched it and loved it.

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It is at Amazon