Save Me the Plums

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
by Ruth Reichl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this memoir which was mostly bright and breezy tales about the fabulousness of working at Gourmet. The ending, when the magazine folds, was sad but felt like a brave front. It was like the version of the you would tell an acquaintance about your life falling apart. This probably wouldn't have bothered me (after all I'm not even an acquaintance of Reichl's) except that her earlier book My Kitchen Year was so much deeper and more affecting. Reichl is a great story-teller though and both books are worth reading.
Linking up with Weekend Cooking. This is one of my #10booksofsummer titles.

The Body in the Vestibule

The Body in the Vestibule
by Katherine Hall Page
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Food infuses every part of this cozy mystery set in France. New England caterer and minister's wife Faith Fairchild is spending time with her family in Lyon France where she indulges in lots of eating and a bit of sleuthing in amongst her daily chores.
"She struggled up the stairs with her clean was and was glad they were going out for dinner. She'd made reservations at Cafe des Federations--a bouchon, that Lyonnais institution not exactly a bistro and not a restaurant either. A bouchon--literally a cork--where Tom would drink deeply of Monsier Fulchiron's Morgon and they would eat quennelles in Nantua sauce--those delicate, lighter-than-air fish dumplings floating in lobster sauce--or maybe andouillette, the Rolls-Royce of chitterlings." (p. 167)
The food descriptions were delightful and the cast of characters Faith interacts with in France was also interesting. The actual mystery was a bit far-fetched though which is were this book lost points with me. Definitely a series I would read another book in though.
I am counting this toward the Cruisin' Through the Cozies Challenge as a "culinary cozy" and linking up with Weekend Cooking.

Zin

Zin: The History And Mystery Of Zinfandel
by David Darlington
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is interesting more as an historical oddity than anything else. It was written in 1991 (and was originally published under the title Angels' Visits) and published by Da Capo Press in 2001 when a new afterword was added.
David Darlington travels around California, mostly in the late 1980s, talking to various men who are making Zinfandel in commercial wineries (as opposed to home winemakers). They drink wine, they analyze what they are drinking, and they philosophize (sometimes at a length well beyond sober judgement) about why Zinfandel is the great American varietal. We do hear quite a bit about the home-wine making activities of the author and his friends. The histories of these people (some of whom run wineries that are now huge and successful, like Ravenswood) and how they came to be making wine is interesting. Because of the time it was written none of them know that Zinfandel is going to be successful, it is a fringe thing these few people are playing around with.
I am counting this book toward the What's in a Name Challenge as a title that begins with Z and am linking up with Weekend Cooking. It also counts toward my nonfiction reading challenge and I'm linking up with Nonfiction Friday.

Review: The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat

The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance 
by Thomas McNamee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Growing up in NYC I certainly knew the name Craig Claiborne, but really knew nothing about the man. 

This book paints a picture of a selfish, mean, alcoholic, delusional jerk. It does however make it clear that there were many people who adored him and that he was indeed responsible for changing the way Americans think about, make, and eat food. The actual facts of Claiborne's life are probably not enough to fill a book, but McNamee does an excellent job of describing the larger context, including some long sections where he wanders into things that have no direct connection to Claiborne but which must have influenced him. These sections are among the most interesting in the book. What the French Nouvelle Cuisine was actually all about, for example, and the structure of early culinary education.  

I don't think I would have liked Craig Claiborne, but I enjoyed reading about his 20th-century foodie world.

Linking up with Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.

Review: Vermont Beer

Vermont Beer: History of a Brewing Revolution
by Kurt Staudter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Vermont had a long period of a very strong temperance movement, which I didn't know about. The beginning parts of this book about the early (ie. pre-prohibition) brewing history of the state were most interesting to me. The last 2/3 were basically a catalog of who started what brewery where. I do have a clear handle on who has bought what in the VT brewing world now.

Linking up with Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.

Review: My Kitchen Year

My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was more like a diary than a cookbook, but it was beautiful and inspirational and filled with a ton of recipes that I want to make. When Gourmet Magazine was suddenly shut down then editor Ruth Reichl was set adrift. This book tells the story of how she cooked her way back to herself. Each entry begins with a tweet (if you don't follow @ruthreichl on twitter you should, her tweets are like little poems often about food) and then talks about what was happening in her world and how it lead to the food she made. Reichl is a New Yorker and the food in this book is as diverse and jumbled as the city itself. Thai noodles, matzo brei, and corn muffins (toasted on the griddle in a NYC coffee shop -- the only thing better is a blueberry muffin done this way).

Cook-it-up: Screen Doors and Sweet Tea

Back in July chose Martha Hall Foose's Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook as my cook-it-up book for the summer. I reviewed this book in 2012, so this time I focused on things I hadn't tried before.

I didn't make as much as I had hoped to, but the ridiculously hot summer was to blame for that rather than the excellent options included here.

• Pimento Cheese (p. 47) which I made with the suggested addition of diced pickled jalapeno was DELICIOUS! I made it for a gathering of quilting friends and everyone liked it. This will be made again and Foose was right that it is really good on toasted wheat bread. It was excellent on bagels as well.
• Three Bean Salad (p. 62) was good but had too much dressing for my taste. I solved this by adding a can of chick peas (so really it was 4-bean salad).
• Three-Day Slaw (p. 65) I liked a lot, my husband thought it was too sweet. 
• Silent Shade Cobbler (p. 206) was a bit weird looking, but yummy.

I still haven't made the Blue Cheese Pecan Bread, which I really want to. I never had both blue cheese on hand and a day I could stand to turn on the oven this past summer so it didn't get made. One of these days everything will align and I will get this made.

Up next is Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics: Fabulous Flavor from Simple Ingredients by Ina Garten.

Cook-it-up started out as a monthly project (with link-ups from Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity) but it is working OK for me at this point with a looser schedule. I will cook from the current book for a while and when I am ready to move on to another book I will post a report on this one and my next pick. 

I'm linking this post with Weekend Cooking.

Review: Confessions of a Serial Entertainer

Confessions of A Serial Entertainer by Steven Stolman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a cookbook, and the recipes mostly sounded delicious, but I read it straight through and loved the quirky, irreverent tone of the author. I can't really relate to someone with 3 houses (no matter how small each one is), but Stolman is an entertaining storyteller and I totally agree with him about bringing flowers to a party (don't -- it is a logistical nightmare for the host).

I was inspired to make pimento cheese and have all my ingredients ready to go for today, though I will be using the recipe from Screen Doors & Sweet Tea since it is my current challenge cookbook.

Cook-it-up: Monday to Friday Pasta

Back in April I said I was going to keep going with the cook-it-up project. I have continued to make stuff from the cookbook I chose for that month, but the posting the first Saturday of each month and changing books monthly didn't happen.
I am going to try to get back on track with this (because I did find it a good way to use more recipes).
Since April I have been making things from Monday to Friday Pasta by Michele Urvater. I love this book! Since the beginning of April I have made about a dozen different recipes and I have made a couple of them more than once. Among the highlights:

• Garlicky Mushroom Sauce (p. 46) was great over cheese ravioli
• Dijon butter sauce (p. 38) was so good (over tortellini with chopped asparagus added) that we also made the horsradish variation
•  Sweet and spicy beef with egg noodles (p. 132) was delicious and spicy--I made the sour cream variation, next time I will try the feta

The only dud was the Pecan Noodle pudding with ricotta cheese. It was too dry and not pudding-y enough for my tastes. I have marked lots of additional recipes in this book to try (including a couscous that is on tonight's menu). 

Up next is Martha Hall Foose's Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook. I may stick with this book for the summer as it has a lot of excellent-sounding warm weather dishes in it that I want to try. When I am ready to move on to another book I will post a report on this one and my next pick. 

I'm linking this post with Weekend Cooking.

Cook it Up! A Transitional Post

March 2015 was the last month of the Cook it Up! Challenge link ups at Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity (check out her new Inspiration on Monday project) but I was really liking the project of choosing a cookbook from my collection to focus on during the month and cooking from it as much as I could so I am going to continue. I will post about it on the first Saturday of the month (I've almost gotten the habit set so I don't want to mess with it). 

During March I focused on Good Eats: The Early Years by Alton Brown. I got this book as a gift several years ago and read it cover to cover at the time. There is a ton of useful information and entertaining trivia mixed in with the recipes. How could I not love a book with sidebars like "Great Moments in Potato History" and "Fun Bean Facts to Know and Tell*"?  During the past month I re-read much of the book.

I didn't cook a lot from it, but what I did cook was delicious. Many of these recipes are for fairly involved, time-consuming things which makes it tough to fit into a regular meal plan. However, it is totally worth taking the time to follow one of these recipes and learn from the experience when you can commit the time.

I made Vlad's Garlicky Greens (p. 239) which were delicious and included different ways to prep the garlic to get different flavor elements from it. Meatloaf Again (p. 110) had you grind up the meat yourself which I only did for part of it and I didn't think was worth the trouble. I did love the technique of putting everything else into the food processor because it gave the meatloaf a great texture. My only complaint with the recipe was that it took longer than expected to bake to the indicated temperature so we were waiting for our dinner. The last recipe I tried was Curry Chicken Pot Pie (p. 380) which was really yummy and had you microwave the liquid for the sauce (a basic white sauce). I am definitely using this white sauce technique going forward as it came together beautifully and fast. All three of these are keepers and I have a few more marked (I'm looking at you Broccoli Casserole) to try on occasions when I have the time to spend on them. 

In April I will be focusing on Monday to Friday Pasta by Michele Urvater. This book was published by Workman and the edition I have came out in 1995. We have already made a couple of things from this book this week and they have been excellent. 
 
I'm linking this up with Weekend Cooking.

* Beans appear in more slang expressions than any other food. 

Cook it Up! Fix it and Forget it Recipes for Entertaining

For my Febuary Cook it Up! Challenge book I picked Fix-it and Forget-it Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round by Phyllis Pellman Good and Dawn J. Ranck. I only ended up making one recipe from this book, my month turned out to be less at home than I expected.  I made Brats and Spuds (p. 79) which was a delicious combo of sausage, potatoes, and kraut. It was a perfect supper for a cold snowy Sunday night. I have several other recipes marked in the book so next time I want a slow cooker dinner I will know just what to make. The  Green Chile Corn Chowder (p. 159) may be next up.

This is the last month of the Cook it Up! Challenge link ups, but I plan to keep choosing a cookbook and writing about it on the first Saturday of the month anyway. During March I plan to cook from Good Eats: The Early Years by Alton Brown. 
 
I'm linking this up with Weekend Cooking.

Cook it Up! 365 Great 20 Minute Recipes

For my January Cook it Up! Challenge book I selected 365 Great 20-Minute Recipes by Beverly Cox. I chose it because I was anticipating a busy January and I turned out to be right. We did end up making four new recipes from the book. There were a lot more that I marked as possibilities and didn't get to. I will try to remember to go back to this book as I liked the results and the speed of preparation was great.

• #26: Tortellini en Brodo Florentine -- I loved this and would make it all the time except that my husband won't eat spinach (he was out of town for a week so I could eat all the spinach I wanted)
• #84: Spaghettini with Quick Bolognese Sauce -- my husband made this and it was tasty. He used mini penne instead of the spaghettini. 
• #278: Barcelona Chicken with Rice and Spanish Olives -- this was good, and I would make it again, but it needed some spices added to it. It used quick-cooking rice which was a new ingredient for me. My Cooking Light page-a-day calendar had a similar recipe later in the month that used the same technique with shrimp and quick-cooking rice but added spices. I liked the calendar recipe more, but will continue to play with this base recipe as I think it has a lot of potential and was super fast to put together.
• #301: Hamburger Stroganoff -- this dish is a standard in our house, but our usual recipe comes from 365 Ways to Cook Hamburger (recipe #192). This version was a little different (more creamy) than the usual one. It was good and I would use either recipe next time, depending on which book I came across first. 

February's book, chosen based on how my upcoming schedule looks, is Fix-it and Forget-it Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round by Phyllis Pellman Good and Dawn J. Ranck.  I have used the original Fix-it and Forget-it book for years and have several go-to recipes from it. Several years ago my husband got me the "for Entertaining" version and I haven't cooked from it yet, though I dog-eared a ton of pages that had yummy sounding stuff on them. This month I hope to give this book the attention it deserves. 

I'm linking this up with Cook it Up! and Weekend Cooking 

Cook it Up! Bread and Bread Making

For the Cook it Up! Challenge I am selecting a cookbook randomly from my collection each month and trying to use it as much as possible during the month. December's cookbook was The World Encyclopdia of Bread and Bread Matking. As anyone with any sense could have predicted I did not make a single one of these delightful-sounding recipes that take all day during the month of December. I did read all the intro material about making bread and some of the many entries about specific kinds of breads (Britain has a million variations on white bread as best I can tell). I also looked through all the recipes and found 5 or 6 that didn't sound like something I would like. (There is a reason why my husband calls me the Queen of Carbs). 

January's book was not chosen randomly, but with an eye to the fact that there are a ton of things on my calendar this month. I will be making stuff from 365 Great 20-Minute Recipes by Beverly Cox. My sister had this book and made the most amazing sorbet from it. I have made the sorbet several times, but not really tried as many of the other recipes in the book as I would like.  By the end of the month hopefully that will have changed.

I'm linking this up with Cook it Up! and Weekend Cooking 

Cook it Up! Ultimate Soup Cookbook

For the Cook it Up! Challenge I am selecting a cookbook randomly from my collection each month and trying to use it as much as possible during the month. November's cookbook was Reader's Digest The Ultimate Soup Cookbook. It was a cold drizzle-filled month and we ended up eating quite a few soups. They were all good.

• Mexican Pork Stew  -- this called for a dried ancho chile pepper which I couldn't find so I substituted some ancho chili powder instead. It used crushed tomatoes which I really liked the texture of in the stew. 
• Spicy Carrot Soup -- this was quite spicy (a smaller jalepeno would have been better) but really delicious. I will definitely make this again.
• Classic onion soup -- not as rich as I wanted it to be, I should have cooked the onions longer than the recipe called for until they got more caramelized,
• Tortellini-bean soup -- very quick and easy, smaller dice tomatoes would be better than the regular dice ones called for.

December's book is The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making by Christine Ingram and Jennie Shapter. It may be overly ambitious to think I will make bread during a month as crazy as this one is going to be, but I am going to give it a shot anyway as it is the one that my random number pointed me to.  Also, it is a perfect book for the Cook it Up! Challenge as I have owned it for years and have never read it or made anything from it. 

This post is my December link for Cook it Up! and is also linked up with Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads. 

Cook it Up! Anytime Appetizers

For the Cook it Up! Challenge I am selecting a cookbook randomly from my collection each month and trying to use it as much as possible during the month. October's cookbook was Better Homes & Gardens Anytime Appetizers. We almost never eat appetizers, so this was a bit of a challenge, but I ended up making 3 things from the book this month. 
I made a blue cheese and brandy cheese ball, except I made it in a log shape. It was delicious despite the fact that I only had about half the brandy it called for. It was especially good spread on toasted bagels. I also made a salsa with some of the tomatoes from the garden which was much better after I added some cumin and a dash of cayenne pepper. My third recipe was snack mix. I made the curry version which was good. This is your basic Chex Mix concept, with different flavoring options. This recipe makes a smaller batch than my go-to recipe and takes about half the time. There is an herb-pecan variation I plan to try with the rest of the cereal and pretzels I bought for this recipe.
November's book is The Ultimate Soup Cookbook. It is the book that the soup I plan to make for dinner tomorrow is in and my husband thought it would be a good book for cold, wet November weather. I have had this book for a couple of years and have made a handful of recipes from it. Mexican Pork Stew (a new recipe) and Cheddar Scones (which I made before) is the plan for tomorrow night.  
This post is my November link for Cook it Up! and is also linked up with Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads. 

Cook it up! The Best of American Beer & Food

For the Cook it Up! Challenge I am selecting a cookbook randomly from my collection each month and trying to use it as much as possible during the month.
 September's cookbook was The Best of American Beer & Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer by Lucy Saunders. The first half of the book is mostly text on what was going on in the world of craft beer and food at the time the book was written (2007). This section was a good overview of the various regions of the U.S. and it was cool to read about so many places I have been and brewing people I have met. This section also includes detailed info on pairing cheese and beer and pairing chocolate and beer. The cheese section has a lot of very specific guidance that would make putting together your own beer and cheese tasting quite managable. These sections also include a few recipes. 
The recipe section of the book has recipes created (mostly) by various brewpubs and a beer pairing suggestion (by style, not specific beer) for each. Saunders mentions it in the Introduction that these are recipes that were designed by people who have a staff to do all the prep work and the huge number of ingredients and the many steps in most of them support this.  I marked a dozen recipes that sounded delicious at the beginning of the month, but I only ended up making one because each time I considered one it seemed too complicated for the amount of time I had available to cook. 
The one recipe I did make was delicious. It was Harpoon Winter Warmer-Spiced Pumpkin and Cranberry Bread. The method for this is very cake-like (you cream the butter and eggs in the mixer then alternate liquid and dry ingredient additions). The resulting texture was delightful and the bread was spicy and delicious. I used a  2008 Anchor Christmas Ale for the beer. 

October's book is Anytime Appetizers from Better Homes and Gardens (1985)  This book is marked as a discard from a library in Virginia, so I must have bought it when I lived in D.C. (15+ years ago).I don't typically make a lot of appetizers, but there are a couple of things in here that sound good, including several variations on Chex mix which I do make a good amount ot. 

This post is my October link for Cook it Up! and is also linked up with Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads. I didn't cook much from it, but I did read the whole book so I am also counting this toward the Foodies Read 2014 Challenge.

Review: An Omelette and a Glass of Wine

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine
by Elizabeth David
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection of articles covers 30+ years of the writing of British food writer Elizabeth David. The pieces cover a wide range of food and drink and are informative, opinionated, and here and there a bit dated. There is still a lot to appreciate here, however. The historical pieces, on syllabubs for example, are fascinating and the travel journal elements of the pieces are quite entertaining. David's concern for weird foods from tins replacing fresh ingredients comes up a lot and that, along with the huge number of courses she is served, puts the pieces clearly into their culinary time.

Several of the pieces are book reviews and there is nothing as scathing as a negative review from Elizabeth David. Here is an example from her review (written in 1957) of Pot Luck Cookery by Beverly Pepper:

"And if a reputable firm of publishers can confidently put out a book purporting to be one of technical instruction (which is, after all, what a cookery book is supposed to be) so totally unrelated to life as it is lived in these islands that it might as well be written in Swahili, hideously produced into the bargain, and at the fancy price of eighteen shillings, then the publishing business can hardly be as pushed as it's always making out. Myself, I'd prefer to spend my eighteen shillings on food. I wouldn't care to face a roomful of hungry guests with nothing in the house but Pantry shelf fishbits. They might cut up rough. And I don't know whether, in such an event, one would be entitled to send the bill for damages to the publishers." (p. 158)

Overall this is a charming taste of the work of one of history's great food writers. This book counts toward the Foodies Read 2014 Challenge and is one of the books on my 2014 TBR Pile Challenge list.

Cookbook Notes

Since the beginning of the year I read and enjoyed both of these cookbooks.

  The Secret Lives of Baked Goods: Sweet Stories and Recipes for America's Favorite Desserts by Jessie Oleson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The stories were interesting and the pictures looked yummy. The real test of a book like this is to make the recipes. I made the Blondies which turned out very well and also want to try the Hepburn brownies and ANZAC biscuits. I'm not sure if I will be able to find the golden syrup the biscuits (they are what we in America call cookies) call for, but will keep an eye out for it.

The French Market Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes from My Parisian Kitchen by Clotilde Dusoulier
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dusoulier writes ChocolateandZucchini.com and in this book takes the reader through the seasons with a variety of vegetarian recipes. For each season she begins with a list of "produce to play with" which I thought was delightful. I haven't cooked anything from this book yet, but lots of the spring and summer recipes appealed to me so I will plan to shop for them when (if?) the snow melts. The winter section includes an apple sugar tart which uses beer in the crust. If that isn't a recipe with my name on it I don't know what is so that one is definitely on the horizon. The photo in this book are just beautiful.

These are my first 2 books read for the Foodies Read 2014 challenge.

Cooking the Books

The Book of Fondues by Lorna Rhodes (HP Books, 1988).

I love fondue, and I think it is the perfect Valentine's Day dinner. This is one of the cookbooks I go to for recipes. There are 18 different cheese fondues in the book (I have made about half of them; some several times).and quite a few yummy dessert (chocolate, for example) fondues. It gives good instructions and delicious results for these. 

The book also includes recipes for meat fondues. I think this book is a good inspiration for ideas in this area, but if you need instructions on how to actually cook a meat fondue (typically you heat oil in a metal fondue pot and cook the meat in the pot at the table then dip the cooked food into a sauce of some sort) this book doesn't explain it. The book is quite attractive, each page has one recipe and several photographs and it seems like the format of the book took priority over the need for more details in how to actually prepare a meat fondue. 
Besides the fondues there are also additional dips (guacamole, tapenade) and some side salads included and 6 suggested menus that group the recipes together.
If you are looking for cheese fondues, or some new ideas for fondue this is a good book for that.


This post is linked to Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

Review: Soul Food

Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time by Adrian Miller

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a scholarly, yet accessible, look at the evolution of specific foods that make up what the author defines as "the soul food plate." He makes it clear though that other dishes could have been chosen as well (a second helpings sequel perhaps?)
A lot of research clearly went into this book (there is a huge bibliography) and numerous viewpoints are presented on various questions. What makes the book really enjoyable though is the strong voice of the author. He is opinionated and clearly LOVES the food he is talking about. This is a fascinating look at a plate-full of American food culture.

As I read this book I was surprised by some of the things that were identified as "black." Macaroni and cheese (homemade, not that box stuff) is a part of the food culture I grew up with, as is KoolAid. This led me to think about the lens of history writing (not just here, but in general). Who you are, and where you come from, can really change the way you view the world. This adds richness to historical writing, but it also means that as a reader you need to understand the point of view the author is taking and what other perspectives are being omitted from a given narrative. I was conscious of this issue in reading Civil War history, but hadn't considered the implication for food history before.

This book counts toward the Foodies Read Challenge and is part of Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.