Cookbooks are a wonderful - they are tempting, and colorful and recipe laden and . . tempting. At their best, they make you salivate. They make you itch for the kitchen. They make you want to eat, to cook, and to share food. And, getting them free in the mail is even more fun -- because some fo them are ones I might be inclined to buy and others well, not so much. And these are -- not my cup of tea.
The two under review here are not ones I would buy. In fact, the Robin Miller cookbook Robin Takes Five (500 recipes, 5 ingredients or less, 500 calories or less, 5 nights a week at 5 pm) just didn't do it for me when it arrived. It feels like just the wrong balance of frugality, diet-ishness, unduly feminine --or do I mean twee? -- framing of food or a not-so-pro-woman stance, and well, practical (given the 5 pm and 5 nights a week). It just felt weird. Here's her website. And yes, she's the Robin MIller of Quick Fix Meals on the Food Network. Here is a site with multiple recipes from Robin Miller. I may even try the risotto with bacon and. . . .
The second cookbook is Simply Fresh: Casual Dining at Home from Jeff Morgan. Yes, this is the one I said comes with a Ruby Tuesday coupon. Weird. Am I overdoing it with that word today? Maybe. Here are more details: the cookbook is filled with recipes inspired by . . . you guessed it, Ruby Tuesdays. The restaurants are what are labeled "casual dining" and among the top places Americans go when they dine out. Yep -- it is called a "fast casual" -- here it ranks fairly far down in numbers, but still. . . . that's what it is. It may just be prejudice -- the cookbook itself is attractively packagesd and the recipes are diverse. And yet. . . .
Ok, so not my most enthusiastic reviews. Fun books in some ways, but just not ones that rise up t the level of temptation and salivation
