Cooking With Ideas

Specialist Cookbooks

Yes, it is the mail box report again. Two books came along focused on particular dietary needs. One is irrelevant to my life but may be relevant to yours. And the other is useful for this household.

So: the first one is focused on diabetic cooking (or is that cooking for diabetics?). Title? The Kitchen Diva's Diabetic Cookbook by Angela Shelf Medearis. Here's her website. And yes, there is a "book boosters" issue here of trying to educate a wider (And wider) audience about "healthy living."  In this case, the issue is diabetes. As the book puts it -- the recipes are "designed" to keep insulin levels balanced. Want to see a few of her recipes cooked? Try here.

Diabetes is, of course, a big problem. If you are as clueless as I am, click here for information on Type 1, Type 2, and gestational diabetes. In all cases, the disease is linked to eating -- so yep, food matters. And hence this book.

Yes, it is true. I am not saying much. Not sure what to say. . . . Alas. Click here, too, for more intelligent commentary on diabetes and food.

The second book, though, is entitled Allergy-Friendly Foor for Families from the editors of Kiwi. What is Kiwi? Accordiing to the book it is " the premier, bimonthly magazine about raising families the natural and organic way." Yep, self promotion at its best. Having said that, the recipes here are all gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and/or soy-free. (No, not free. Free. You know what I mean?) Again, not sure what I think. Yes, I live with someone eating gluten free and know several people who face chalenges in this area. Yes, I am convinced it is because of some sort of recent changes to the wheat we consume. And yes, I try to be sensitive. But I am clueless on this cookbook. It is kind of ordinary.

Here's my problem: is it because I have too many cookbooks or because I am some sort of hedonist or that I do not have these conditions or that I am too busy? There are likely great books for somebody. But not really my cup of tea.

The Canal House

 

Time flies. Time really flies. And, the mails continue to bring books to bibliochef -- even when she is distracted by other things of greater import. So, a few miscellansoues cookbooks -- all free in teh mail.

Canal House Cooking Number 7 : This is a delightful little tome from a place called Lambertville, co-edited by Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer. And what is Canal House exactly? It is described as a "kitchen studio" where the chef (Melissa) and photographer (Christopher) meet. As the press release puts it:

    Fans know well the story behind Canal House: Christopher and Melissa, former magazine editors, gave     up life in New York for a simpler existence, living on opposite sides of the Delaware River and cooking     together each weekday in their New Jersey studio. Canal House Cooking became known as home     cooking by home cooks for home cooks. . . .

This volume -- the first I have encountered -- is subtitled La Dolce Vita and, having recently poached potatoes in olive oil, I am especially looking forward to the oil poached sword fish. And, I will happily read and re-read the recipe for braised rabbit, since I love rabbit and never cook it at home.

One of the best side effects of this mailed-to-me free cookbook is their website, located here. I find it delightfully good for procrastinating. Usually, that is the role of this blog, but I am not even getting to creative procrastination these days.

For a Pen and Fork review, click here.

 

Kitchen Alchemy

So, I am havong a day of re-ordering an increasingly disorderly life -- piles of paper, piles of books, piles of things I ought to be doing rather than procrastinating. And, among the things I have discovered in doing so are some books that are about. . . . food. So, there will be reviews coming up of books that are not new -- but surfaced and are worth a few comments.

The first one? Kitchen Alchemy, by Ann Bowen-Jones and Phillipa Lee. They have a website which is focused on similar matters. I suppose there is a vague possibility I have already written about this lovely book -- but who cares? Repetition is not always bad. This is a book that weaves personal and edible together in ways that move beyond the creepy parts of the new age -- to be honest, it is a really kind feeling book. The recipes are light and lovely, and the commentary focuses on transformation -- of people, of foods, and of lives more completely. I think the emphasis on slowness -- slowing down for breakfast and for moments that allow you to see what you are doing and eat what you are eating. There is a certain mindfulness here that is neither heavy-handed nor trite.

And, by the way, this comes from Spirituality and Health books, and here's their website.

This is most definitely not a book about kitchen chemistry (see here for a related interview) but alchemy -- transformative powers of hope, for example. Made my day. Made me smile. GIngered sweet potato mash. Really.

More Free Mail or, Put Another Way -- Some Cookbooks

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

Cucina Povera

So, a while back I mentioned a wonderful book that arrived via mail, and . . . I somehow misplaced it. The book: Cucina Povera by Pamela Sheldon Jones. The wonder of it all -- they saw right here at Cooking with Ideas that I misplaced it -- and a new copy arrived! Thanks!

Tuscan peasant cooking in a book with the following opening sentence (to its preface): "My mother grew up on a farm in the Midwest durign teh Great depression" (p. 1). And hten some paragraphs later: "This attitude was reinforced when I moved to Tuscany" (p. 1). And hte relevant attitude: frugality with food and other things. Here's what else Pamela Sheldon JOnes about the attitude: it is "the mentality of no waste" (p. 1). Sustainable, green, connecting poverty to. . . . environmentalism. . .to wonderful food with an emphasis on local and seasonal. This book connects memories to food, something perhaps we all do, both in this preface and in opening essays as well as throughout the book. Tales of pickign wild greens, communal overns, breakfast described as "a ladle of milk and a prayer" (p. 6) and hard times -- and recipes that feel like nothing but richness of life. Economia rurale (a rural economy) and hte simple life meet in the tales and pictures of the first pages of the book.

On page 43 the book gets to recipes, form farro soup and fried zucchini blossoms, from meatloaf to stewed chickpeas, peas and eggs to wild greens and stuffed figs (rendered less familiar by their italian names), the recipes are simple, ructic and enticing. One of the major temptations are uses for chestnut flour. Yep, expensive. But not necessarily in its origins. Including chesnut cake. And I do intend to make a cornmeal, kale and bean soup. Hmmmmmmm.

Also, the book has dandy photographs from Andrea Wyner. This is part of what makes for a lovely book -- good recipes and views of food, landscape, and the people who make both real.

All in all thanks for the second copy, and you all should check this one out. Dandy, beautiful Andrews McMeel book.  

 

Sweetness and Light

I like sweet things. I like candy bars. I like ice cream. I like . . . sweets. So, here are a few cookbooks, which again came in the mail. which focus on sweet things. Not savory. Sweet. (Ok, I like savory too and am trying to undo my addiction to sweets. At least reduce it?) and today, I am substituting reading about sweets for eating them. The books are: Cutie Pies by Dani Cone; So Sweet! from Sur la Table; and Sugar Sugar: Every Recipe Has a Story from Kimberly "Momma" Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero. All are Andrews McMeel books (among my faves in the free to bibliochef pile of books -- and this despite my love for the murder mysteries form elsewhere).The first two are of the smallish, cutsesey pie variant, which I have to admit do not do much for me. I think they are meant to be presents we buy others. And the second is a genre (ok, not a genre; just a physical object type I prefer) I like better -- a hefty weighty tome -- and I love the cover -- which seems to feature a (maybe chcolate?) buffalo on top of a cookie. Hmmm.

More substantively?

Dani Cone seems to be a Seattle person, who has opened both coffee joints and, more importantly, places that emphasize . . . pies. Her coffee places have the perfect name: Fuel. And her pie places (she has multiple locations) are called High 5 Pie. Each features a sort of retro feel (at least on line!) . . . The cookbook Cutie Pies does as well. Subtitled "40 sweet, savory, and adorable recipes," the book does verge a tad on adorable for me. Having said that, the recipes appear under the guises of multiple pie shapes that High 5 Pues features, including cuite pies (cooked in muffin tins), petie-5s (cooked in mini-muffin tins), piejars (you guessed it -- cooked in a mason jar), flip sides (aka turnovers), pie pops (you guessed it again. . . pie lollipops), and . . . odly enough, full sized pies. (All described on p. xiii of the book.) The two most interesting options, from this reader's point of view are pear, gruyere, prosciutto petit-5s (yep, they look a little like those tiny quiches one sees on buffets. Still, I'd eat a load of these if you made them for me) and pear-cranberry-ginger cutie pies. Is it pear time? Apparently so.

Perhaps most crucially for me, there is a section on making pie crust, it claims to teach you how to be inventive, and . . . it teaches you how to make pie crust. And not just graham cracker crusts, which are the only kinds I have ever successfully made. So: are you a pie maker? Want this book? Ask me.

So Sweet from Sur la Table is similarly tiny and cute but not authored by an entreprenurial individual but part of an industry. What does it have in common with Cutie Pies besides Andrews McMeel and its size? Both are connected to Seattle, which is where Sur la Table also originated.This is one of their many cookbooks, and its subtitle says "cookies, cupcakes, whoopie pies, and more." My question: when did whoopie pies return? Did I miss that? I purchased one recently (which went uneaten) from (gasp) Starbucks. Who knew? Cupcakes I knew were fashionable. And even those french macaroon cookies. But whoopie pies?

Finally, my preferred text for today: Sugar, Sugar by Kimberly "Momma" Reiner (of Momma Reiner's Fudge fame) and Jenna Sanz-Agero. Together they are apparently the "sugar mommas" -- and this quite literally as both are proud mothers. And they feel free to tell you and seem to think we care. Anyway, I may like this best among this pile of free books because I remember the Archies and a song of this title. (Click here for the lyrics and/or to send the tune to your cellphone as a ring tone.) The book has nothing to do with that, but I am still trying for the title of queen of the non sequitur. And besides, they manage to steer at least a little sround the cutesy version of sweet because of the buffalo on their cover. I like it. Turns out this is all about a recipe "submitted by Irene Mangum from Dorothy Cassidy Gayden's recipe from East Felciana Parish, Louisiana -- page 136 of the book -- called "buffalo chip cookies. They come complete with a story of their origins.

One thing I like about this book is that there are lined segments of hte book for notes. On the one hand, this makes the book longer and heftier. On the other hand, not sure why I owuld pay for notepaper attached into the book (which is sort of what this really is). Usually I just write right on to the page. Also, there are, alongside many of the margins (usually the right side of the right page. Hmmm. Anyone said right handeed cooks here?), sugar mommas tips. I never heard of "carpool crunch" -- which seems to mean your time has run away from you into carpooling everyone's lkids around including yours (hey -- others are busy too, even those sans children) -- and are thus time saving options. All too often the labor saving suggestions involve getting kids to do things. Hmmm. Ok, lots of the recipes are fun, the stories are fun, but really, how much of a push for more and more babies can there be? I love it that their are floating islands in this book -- one of my favorite dessert I get when I am being spoiled (or we have company). Not so sure that anything called "chocolate hydrogen bombs" is really politically correct. (despite the fact they might taste great.)

This one I will hold on to for a while. You never know. Besides, I bet they never even heard of the Archies. Have you?  If not, click here for wikipedia's take or here for a pretty awful youtube version of Sugar and Spice. (Careful -- is your audio on?) or, go traditional and try here for their hit, Sugar Sugar. Yep, non sequitur queen.

 

For an interview with Dani Cone, click here. For additional reviews of Sugar, Sugar, click here (especially if you want to see a truly silly dog picture)  or here (if you're secretly into what publisher's weekly thinks) or here for a sort of random blogosphere view. Wanna know their book tour schedule? Click here.

I am not a Vegan

As you will see from upcoming reviews, I am not a vegan. I like eggs. I like dairy products. And, perhaps most crucially, I like meat. I know, I know -- there are all sorts of good reasons to be a vegan. There are environmental reasons. There are reasons assoictaed with health. There is the fact that forcing animals into factory conditions is horrifying, the ways they are butchered and/or milked and/or forced to produce eggs is, well, something disgusting at best and . . . . And it is likely true that moving a little bit to the left -- trying for grass fed and pasture raised, getting my eggs from nice people at the farmers market, ensuring my honey comes from happy bees, and etcetera -- well, is not enough. Even so, I am not a vegan. And, despite the occasional wash of guilt and certainty that vegans are right, I am unlikely to become one. The reasons, though, are not easy to explain; frankly, there is a lot of good vegan food out there and loads of good things one can make without even thinking about dairy and meat and. . . . etcetera. (I am clearly o an etcetera kick today.)

Today's cookbook, Quick-Fix Vegan is subtitled healthy, homestyle meals in 30 minutes or less. The cookbook is written by Robin Robertson who is also author of Quick-Fix Vegetarian. (Side note: this is not the Robin Robertson whose website lists him as psychologist, magician, writer, professor and who seems really really into chaos theory.) So, it is also not about speed of preparation. It is just one of those things.

But what about the cookbook? ell, as the bookitself says, "you don;t have to be a full-time vegan to love this book." Well, I am definitely not-- and while I do not love it, I did find some recipes in here that seem dandy and worth trying. I frankly am never ever ever going to be into seitan or tempeh and remain a reluctant fan of tofu. (I am convinced the latter is really a comspiracy of the soybean growers to disguise the evils of . . . well, you know.)  But there are salads and pasta and even sunburgers here that seem not only edible but attractive. And a recipe on page 148 for tuscan vegetable tart. While I may break the mold and buy puff pastry that involves butter (gasp) the recipe makes very evident that vegan can taste very good. I am not sure about the dollop of notrituional yeast (and in fact am not sure I am convinced that yeast qualifies as vegan?) but. . . I am likely to just leave that our and see what happens. Roasted asparagus soup? Chipotle corn and quinoa with pintos and chipotle-chocolate chili and. . . well, clearly taste is importsant to Robertson. Coconut corn chopwder? You never know.

So, I am not a vegan. But I might be cooking from a vegan cookbook. Are you a vegan?

Tuscan Peasant Food?

No. I did not win the lottery and go on a trip to Tuscany, imagination to the contrary notwithstanding. Instead, I opened my mail and there it was: a cookbook about Tuscan peasant food. I promised you a review of it, and then, alas, I lost the book. I cannot find it anywhere and so I cannot review it. I can, though, point you in the right direction. It is, as is often is the case with books that appear magically in my mail, from Andrews McMeel. In this case, it is entitled Cucina Povera and subtitled Tuscan Peasant Cooking. Cucina povera is, perhaps obviously to those of you who have Italian, a very poetic way of pointing to. . . poverty. And yet, the recipes are ones that are fabulous (from the brief glimpse I too before I misplaced the darn thing). Anyway, the author is Pamela Sheldon Johns whose bio is available here. And,  here's a link to a review from another blogger.

Have you been to Tuscany? Did you do what Abbie Hoffman used to suggest -- Steal This Book?

So -- sorry for the unfulfilled promise. And, I will get to other reviews right away, as I once again have a heap of books waiting!

50 Simple Soups for the Slow Cooker

This is one of those books that comes along unsolicited in the mail. And, I have to admit it has been a blast to read. There are loads of great ideas for soups here but, the problem is, I do not own a slow cooker and do not intend to run out and get one. So, Lynn Alley's 50 Simple Soups for the Slow Cooker is not for me. The author seems to write for Wine Spectator, and to have lots of things going for her. And I do like slow food. . . But, I do not have a slow cooker. Did I say that before? Yes, I imagine I would like eggplant soup and I definitely like garnet yams. But, there is a but here. So: Is this book for you?

I am "releasing it" using Book Crossing, so go to this link and look up Geneva and find out how you might find it. For free. Somewhere on the campus of Hobart and William Smith. . . . 

Food Network Star -- The Insider's Guide

As regular readers know, I get books in the mail. I love that. And, yet, not all of them are as exciting as I want and I am no longer as thrilled every single time I open a mailing addressed to bibliochef. I know, I know -- I should be. Free stuff and all that. But. . . . not everything free is wonderful.This one? Not so much.

And, I have to admit that I am neither a fan of the show The Next Food Network Star nor of the book Food Network Star: The Officlal Insider's Guide, even though I love Bobby Flay. The book is busy, and the recipes I glanced at did not intrigue me, and so, this particular book (like some others) will go into a box in the basement and into a yard sale eventually.

Here's hoping the next time I open a mailer addressed to bibliochef, that I will indeed find a treasure.