Email
PrintCookbooks to have and to hold
Every fall the cookbook market is deluged with the best and the worst examples of the category. In today’s food-obsessed world, the number released seems to grow every year, despite economic woes. It seems that people, even if they can’t afford to dine in the best restaurants, at least wish to gaze at images of food they wish they had the time/talent/money to enjoy. In my eyes cookbooks fall into two main categories. There is the handful of cookbooks you love and rely on, feeding you and your family from their pages for a lifetime. Then there are all the others. If you are a hardcore foodie the others likely consist of stunningly photographed and highly complicated tomes that are more at home on your coffee table than your kitchen table. If you are a serious cook these books are likely to be dedicated to a full degustation of specific ethnic cuisines. Other smaller sub-categories include dietary restriction and celeb-chef fan.
This season is no exception. There are hundreds of new cookbooks on the market, vying for press, awards, and your hard-earned dollars. We’ve surveyed the offerings and these are a few of our favorites.
Eleven Madison Park by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara
This large and handsome cookbook tells the story of Eleven Madison Park, a restaurant that began as one of famed restaurateur Danny Meyer’s projects and is now owned by the chef, Daniel Humm, and general manager, Will Guidara. But there are no hard feelings; Meyer pens the book’s foreword, a good beginning to the gorgeous project. Arranged by season with a full page disclaimer entitled “how to cook with this book,” Eleven Madison Park is a cookbook for chefs and seriously equipped homecooks, which means that for most of us it’s best for gazing and fawning. Which isn’t a bad thing. Poached Cod Cheeks with Bell Peppers and Piment D’espelette is arguably as lovely as any work of art, and it is just one randomly selected example (from hundreds) of how enticing it can be when we eat first with our eyes. A full catalog of recipes for housemade ingredients such as gels, pickles, stocks, jus, and dressings may come most in handy, since any of them would certainly amp up any homecook’s culinary dexterity. Finally, for those who are as curious about a restaurant’s operations as its cuisine, Eleven Madison Park follows on the heels of other great restaurant cookbooks before it by providing us with a full diagram of its kitchen and job descriptions for the nearly fifty jobs required by the front and back of house to keep this fine restaurant afloat. (Little, Brown and Company, 2011.)
Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi
Yotam Ottolenghi has made quite a name for himself. Since 2002, the Israeli-born chef has been delighting Brits with his namesake, Ottolenghi, a prepared foods chain. Still others know him best from his weekly column in the Guardian. What makes Ottolenghi so popular, and his latest cookbook, Plenty, so remarkable, is the approach he takes to vegetarian cuisine. Referred to as “new vegetarian”—which isn’t very telling—Ottolenghi’s approach to vegetables is nearly radical, tremendously colorful, and endlessly enticing. The recipes shared in the easy-to-use book are simple, straightforward, and unfettered by hard-to-source ingredients, painful pronunciations, and food that reeks of good health. Creative offerings include Cardamom Rice with Poached Eggs and Yogurt, Crusted Pumpkin Wedges with Sour Cream, and Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce (which graces the book’s cover). Plenty is a refreshing celebration of vegetables and a book that makes me want to run to the kitchen. It’s also the best way to enjoy the bounty of any season and to change the way you and your family think about vegetables. (Chronicle Books, 2011.)
The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Bread Baking
Every two years the French Culinary Institute gives us a new book in its series of “Fundamental Techniques” themed cookbooks. We’ve read Classic Cuisine and thumbed through Classic Pastry Arts. This year the school addresses bread baking, a dying art in WNY that was once practiced by every grandmother in town. If you’ve wished you could attend the NYC-based school’s twelve-week master class but find it hard to fit into your schedule or your budget, this is your ticket to mastering the program at home. The first half of the book covers terminology, basic techniques, and “The Fourteen Steps of Bread Making” in an encyclopedic fashion. What follows are beautifully photographed step-by-step instructions for crafting breads hailing from many backgrounds, including French, Italian, German, and more. If you know a serious baker, this book must, just must, be under their tree this year. (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2011.)
They Draw & Cook
It seems that good food blogs are destined to become books these days, which is somewhat redundant in many instances, but in the case of They Draw & Cook, it may be an improvement. In the eighteen months or so that Nate Padavick and Salli Swindell have been operating their blog, it has received hundreds of submissions and has found fans among the art set as well as the more obvious online food fanatics. Artists render recipes—some difficult, and some easy—into single-image pieces of functional art. The variation in styles, themes, and cuisines keeps the reader engaged, as page after page, reveals the work of a new artist and a new recipe. Take for example the recipe for Moules Frites, a textured and densely colored watercolor work submitted by Hannah Clark. The recipe calls for just five ingredients and the directions are typed neatly into the bottom right hand corner. (“Dip each mussel into the beaten egg and then into the breadcrumbs …”) Just a page away is a Ren & Stimpy-esque recipe for Maryland Steam Crabs by Cailin Nealon which lists only the ingredients, assuming that the reader will be able to discern that they should put the liquid ingredients in the bottom of the pot, add a rack and the crabs, and then sprinkle the dry ingredients over the crabs themselves. But cooking is all about interpretation and experimentation, and this book imbues that. A fun read, a trendy neat gift for a teen or college student with an interest in cooking, or something cool to add to your own collection of art books, They Draw & Cook fills a niche few cookbooks do. (Weldon Owen, 2011.)
