The Best Cookbooks List

COOKBOOK REVIEW: Homemade With Love

 

Homemade with Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie's Kitchen by Jennifer Perillo

This big beautiful book is also a very handy guide to making simple fast food for your family. Really fast. The recipes are easy to follow. There are markers on each one identifying them as gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, under 30 minutes to make, dairy-free, egg-free, make ahead and freezer friendly. And the recipes have few ingredients. 

What I also like about this cookbook is the ingredients. I love that Jennie uses natural cane sugar, local eggs, natural sea salt and fresh herbs. You could cook from this and feel good about serving what you make to your family and loved ones. I made the Homemade Cheese Crackers first and they came out superb. I also made the Ginger-Lime Slow-Roasted Carrots. I took them to a picnic to eat cold and they got rave reviews.

My favorite so far is the recipe for the doughnuts on the cover. I had to go out and buy a special doughnut baking pan to make them, but it was worth it. Lovely and light. Here's Jennifer's recipe for:

Lemon Buttermilk Doughnuts

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 cup natural cane sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 lemon, juiced and rind grated
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
•   confectioners' sugar

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 6-count doughnut pan, and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon zest.
3. In a measuring cup, use a fork to beat the lemon juice, buttermilk, egg and melted butter until well blended.
4. Pour over the flour mixture and use a wooden spoon to mix together until just combined.
5. Evenly spoon into the prepared doughnut pan and bake for 8 to 9 minutes until the doughnuts are lightly golden and spring back when touched.
6. Let the doughnuts cool in the pan for 2 minutes. Unmold the doughnuts and transfer to a wire wrack to cool completely. Use a small strainer to sift confectioners' sugar over the tops before serving, if desired.

My next recipe to try is Jennie's Vanilla Birthday Cake, pictured above. It looks just like the ones my grandmother made for my birthday as I grew up. Lovely.

Homemade with Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie's Kitchen

COOKBOOK REVIEW: Flavored Butters

Flavored Butters: How to Make Them, Shape Them, and Use Them as Spreads, Toppings, and Sauces (50 Series)

     Goat's milk butter! I make my own butter, because I love the taste and I love to add in crunchy fleur de sel. But I never thought of making goat's milk butter---and I think it is a wonderful idea.

     From the very first few pages of this new cookbook, I was inspired. The photography just reeled me in. On page 11 there was a shot of butter that had been made in a classic French mold, making me want to run to find one. Page 16, there was a picture of how to "roll" butter. Page 45, a photograph so beguiling I could taste the page: caviar butter on a bagel. And the photo on page 63 of green-tea sesame butter was so beautiful I could smell the page. This is the first time I have reviewed the photography in a cookbook, but I am so impressed by the styling and thoughtfulness of the photos done by the author of the book. Not only is she superb at creating intriguing recipes, but she is superb as a food photographer.

     Lucy Vaserfirer created this little cookbook gem. Within the 90 or so pages you will find a wealth of inspiration. Take for instance, the port butter recipe. What a great way to charm someone on Valentine's day. Her picture is of a juicy steak with a heart shaped portion of ruby-colored port butter melting on the top. And because I recently posted a recipe on my blog about making maple flavored homemade butter, I was drawn to Lucy's rendition, which took the idea to a higher level by adding cinnamon and brandied raisins.

     Her salted caramel butter recipe is destined for my popcorn this weekend, and her gorgonzola chive butter on a bulky sandwich. Run out and buy this cookbook. You're going to love using it.

COOKBOOK REVIEW: My Provence by Laurent Gras

     Last night, at the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) Award Ceremony in San Francisco, the Judges’ Award went to Chef Laurent Gras for his ground-breaking new ebook: My Provence. Congratulations to Chef Laurent Gras for winning this prestigous award!

     Why is the ebook/cookbook groundbreaking? It is a cookbook designed for the tablet or iPad, although I bought mine and viewed it on my computer and you can view it on your smart phone. It also introduces a new business model. You pay $4.99 in three installments that are charged to your credit card every four months, and receive recipes in every installment delivered to you digitally in the form of an ebook. It uses multi-media, including words, photographs and video.

   This is how it works. If you want to buy it, you log on to the Alta Editions web site, put in your payment information, and then you are taken to your ebook. If you are on a tablet, flip through the pages. If you are on a computer, click through. 

    When you first open the cover and are brought to the title page, there is a small video embeded for you to watch Chef Gras introduce himself. 

    Is this the future of cookbooks? Undoubtedly, as there will be great convenience and lower price points for the consumer to be able to cook from their iPad propped up on their kitchen counter. For those who prefer a cookbook in hand, especially if it is a joy to read as well as cook from, print books will be preferred. 

     Having lived on the Riviera for over 11 years, and with a cookbook of my own coming out in August (Cuisine Nicoise: Sun-Kissed Cooking from the French Riviera, Gibbs Smith), I was very interested in seeing another cookbook that also embraced cooking on the Riviera---as Chef Gras was brought up there, in Antibes.

     I chose to write my cookbook about the style of cooking found on the Riviera and emanating from Nice. It's called cuisine Nicoise. Chef Gras casts a wider net to include all of Provencal cooking, from his childhood home in Antibes westward to Toulon and deep into Provence, where his family owned property.

     In My Provence, he brings together an interesting mix of family recipes, along with elegant, restaurant level recipes from his professional career. Each recipe has a long headnote explaining the food and its origin and is accompanied with a photograph to show how it should look on the plate.

    At the very end of the ebook there is an index of short instructional videos, which I would have loved to have seen embedded within the recipes they describe rather than having to click to the end of the book to view them. My only other aside is that some recipes seemed out of place for a cookbook about Provencal cuisine: Chicken Milanese with Pickled Cucumber, Riesling-Poached Pears. Having said that, I was delighted with the breadth and types of recipes and with Chef Gras' openess to including recipes that are a culmination of his entire cooking life, including the time he spent cooking in Italy. We are a sum of our cooking environment and experience, and that shines through in this ebook cookbook.  

     The first recipe I am going to try is Chef Gras' Olive Oil Cake. Judging by the photo, it looks divine.

      My Provence by Laurent Gras can be viewed and purchased on: AltaEditions.com

 

 

 

COOKBOOK REVIEW: The French Cook: Sauces

  by Holly Herrick 

The joys of making classic French sauces, with their heady aromas enveloping a dish and taking it to another level, are brought home by Holly Herrick in this the first of her new cookbook series: French Cook: Sauces  

Sauces is about cooking, about quickly learning fundamental combinations that underpin classic French cuisine. Each chapter focuses on introducing bullet-proof recipes to turn out brilliant sauces, including: bechamel, fonds, veloutes, emulsions and tomato. What I love about this cookbook is Holly’s reader-friendly writing style and mouth-watering recipe titles, coupled with the beautiful photography of world-class photographer, Steven Rothfeld. His capture of the essence of preparing sauces, from the gleaming copper pots they are made in to their final destination, draped and swirled,  evoke exactly what Holly conveys with her words and instruction.

This is a resource you will want to keep in the kitchen for inspiration and for all time. It is a book that over time will accumulate stains from spoons and drippings from ladles because of heavy use. And it is the kind of book you will want to pass on and gift.

The French Cook: Sauces, by Holly Herrick (Gibbs Smith, March 2013) is available on Amazon.com.

COOKBOOK REVIEW: Sud de France

   Le Sud de France: The Food & Cooking of the Languedoc by Caroline Conran

I have over 500 cookbooks, both new and vintage. This one is without doubt one of the most thorough, thoughtful, well-researched, and interesting ones I own. It's black and white inside with no pictures, only illustrated with a few of Caroline's drawings. It's soft cover and a soft-sell, with a moody watercolor of hills rather than of food on the front. 

But within this gentle tome is a wealth of experience and food know-how.

Caroline and Terrance Conran made a name for themselves in England, first opening their design oriented Habitat shop in Chelsea, following on with a series of companies from there. Terrance then developed as an international restaurateur, opening at least 8 restaurants in London, with Caroline his partner. Although no longer together, Caroline and Terrance wrote a cookbook together, and Caroline went on to continue as a food writer to work with three-star chefs helping them write their cookbooks. She's written many of her own, including Under the Sun, a book about southern French food. 

This one, however, is unlike other cookbooks, conveying every bit of knowledge she has accumulated about food, whether it's attractive to read or not, in the interest of scholarship and because of her fascination with it.

" Boar meat is actually more easily digested than pork, but it is vital that the testicles and guts are removed immediately after it has been killed. If not, the meat, probably because of the animal's thick fur which keeps the carcase warm over a long period, will taint very quickly."

Then, you'll learn about olives:

"Growing and looking after olive trees is an art, one passed down from one generation to the next. The trees are pruned to be open in the centre, so that a bird can fly through. This allows the air to keep them free of mildew and lets the winds of late May flow through and pollinate the flowers for a good crop." 

 Or this, written as a head note before her recipe for Light Chicken Liver Pate:

"Poultry here are strong, tall birds; my neighbor Madame Galy kept a popular, if ugly, red-feathered breed with bald necks, called cou-nu, that pecked and scratched, along with several ducks, beneath a couple of large fig trees. They taste wonderful."

When I received this book and sat down with it, I found myself unable to put it down, as each of the over 300 pages are filled with interesting imagry, facts, and enthusiasm for the area she lives and the food she encounters there. Reading it makes you want to know her, to go shopping with her at the markets, and to cook with her. I hope some day I will be able to do just that. Her love of the Languedoc, its people, culture and food would be an inspiration to experience. For now, I have her wonderful new book.

 

Related articles

Sud de France, By Caroline Conran

Top 10 Cookbooks of 2012

This is my Top 10 List of cookbooks published in 2012 that I think would make great gifts for the holidays. I chose them from dozens and dozens I receive and read because I fell in love with them. I think you will too!

The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from Our Italian Kitchen

Pull up a chair. This is a great read. More than a cookbook, it is a story about a woman's life in Tuscany that is filled with great food, friends, and her life under the Tuscan sun. Made famous from her original novel, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, which was later made into a movie Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes updates us in this cookbook more about her life there and the food she and her husband prepare every day.

She begins the first chapter, "If you came to visit me in Tuscany...."

You don't need to travel that far. Pull up a chair. And feel as if you are right there with her.  

 

The Art of Cooking Morels impacted me so strongly that I have placed it high up on a shelf of its own, as a treasured text to be pulled down often and paged through for the sheer enjoyment of the exquisite art and the inspired recipes. This is not a normal cookbook. It is an experience. A piece of art. Bravo to The University of Michigan Press for pushing it out into the cookbook world for those of us who so yearn to be drawn back to a connection with the miracle and beauty of food and place.

If there were a museum of cookbooks, you would find this one under glass.

 

Bouchon Bakery

Another Thomas Keller masterpiece of a cookbook, the Bouchon Bakery is a brilliant guide to baking that carries you into the realm of utter deliciousness. Consider Blueberry Muffins with Almond Streusel, making your own croissants at home, perfect macarons, buttery brioche, pain au chocolat, baguettes….well, who knew playing with eggs and flour could be so much fun??!!

 

Jerusalem: A Cookbook

As much a travelogue as a superb cookbook, London chefs Yotam Ottlenghi and Sami Tamimi bring to light a cuisine and style of cooking that will have you drooling over each luscious photograph and description.

For armchair cooks as well as experienced ones, this stunning cookbook will totally please.

 

Salad for Dinner: Complete Meals for All Seasons

This is an organized book, which makes it easy to learn from. Recipes for salads are divided into salads made from vegetables, salads with meat, salads with chicken, and salads with fish. Before you get to the recipes, there are complete instructions on how to clean greens, how to forage for salad, and how to grow greens for salads. And there is a lot to learn. I had never heard of mizuna, tatsoi, puntarelle, or miner's lettuce. And many ingredients in the recipes are ones that I have never come accross, so it was fascinating to read through this cookbook.

She really won me over when she didn't leave us hanging at the end of the cookbook full of salads. She gave us a desset to finish with, a luscious chocolate cream pie. This was her reasoning:

"I wanted to include one fantastic sweet in this book because, when you eat salad for lunch or dinner, shouldn't you be rewarded with dessert?"

Exactly! 

 

Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard

British chef Nigel Slater’s beautifully written new cookbook centers completely around fruit.

Here’s how it begins:

And then there was fruit. I always knew that if ever I found a space in which to grow a few knobbly vegetables of my own, some of it would be set aside for fruit: wild strawberries with flowers like tiny brilliant stars; amber and bronze apples with russet skins; dusky blueberries in old terra-cotta pots: maybe a black currant bush or two for jam. 

With recipes like: Baked Rhubarb with Blueberries, Apricot and Pistachio Crumble, Crisp Pork Belly with Sweet Peach Salsa, and Blackberry Focaccia, he takes fruit loving up a few notches. Exquisite photography and design make this a truly gift-worthy book.

 

Fäviken

Some cookbooks you cook from, others you dream of cooking from. 

This is a dreamer’s kind of book. Written by Magnus Nilsson, the young Swedish chef whose restaurant has been referred to as the “most daring restaurant in the world”, it is filled with 100 of his recipes and in depth information about his approach to cooking---which includes cooking over coals. Even his words are evocative: broth from the forest floor, vinegar matured in the burned-out trunk of a spruce tree…..how can one not be inspired? 

You may not be able to find the ingredients he forages for, but not to worry. Sit back and enjoy simply reading one of the most inspirational new cookbooks out there.

 

Small Plates and Sweet Treats: My Family's Journey to Gluten-Free Cooking, from the Creator of Cannelle et Vanille

I have been reading Aran’s blog, Cannelle et Vanille, for years, reveling in her exquisite photography and light touch with food. Finally, her cookbook!

For anyone with small children and a desire to raise a family gluten-free, following Aran’s lead will make it easy. How could you not love: Fennel & Brown Butter Risotto with Parsley Pesto, Red Plum & Rosemary Tarte Tatin, or Apple, Yogurt & Olive Oil Upside Down Cake? Everything is fun, multi-layered, and enticingly presented. Bravo, Aran!

 

Meringue

Ok, I have to admit it. I am a meringue addict, and this book makes me tingle all over. 

Blood Orange Curd Meringue Tart with Dark Chocolate, vacherins, dacquoises, a Meyer Lemon Hazelnut Torte with Blackberry Sauce, little clouds here and there---I am making my way through each and every recipe. With utter delight.

 

The Preservation Kitchen

The Preservation Kitchen: The Craft of Making and Cooking with Pickles, Preserves, and Aigre-doux

Paul Virant, Kate Leahy

This is probably the only canning and preserving cookbook you will ever need. Everything is completely and thoroughly explained in a straightforward manner. But it gets better. The photographs inspire you to want to try the recipes, if the recipe titles don’t. Think Beer Jam, Maple Black Walnut Butter, Pickled Candy Onions, or Eggplant Preserves.

This one should be on everyone’s shelf. 

Happy holidays, everyone!!! And happy cooking!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COOKBOOK REVIEW: The Tuscan Sun Cookbook

The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from Our Italian Kitchen by Frances Mayes

    Pull up a chair. This is a great read. More than a cookbook, it is a story about a woman's life in Tuscany that is filled with great food, friends, and her life under the Tuscan sun. Made famous from her original novel, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, which was later made into a movie Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes updates us in this cookbook more about her life there and the food she and her husband prepare every day.

    And then you have to add in the exquisite photography by Steven Rothfeld, and you have a book worth keeping somewhere close, just to gather up and flip through when you need inspiration and some beauty in your life. I am thrilled that he was picked to do the photography for my upcoming cookbook, Cuisine Nicoise, as well. How lucky am I??!

     The recipes I have tried so far are a pleasure. Simpe, straightforward, and flavorful.  

     She begins the first chapter, "If you came to visit me in Tuscany...."

     You don't need to travel that far. Pull up a chair. And feel as if you are right there with her.  

COOKBOOK REVIEW: Salad For Dinner

  Salad for Dinner by Jeanne Kelley

    The word salad has been undergoing a transformation in the past year or so. Rather than being presented as a side, or an afterthought, salads are taking the stage as the main dish---and I have to say I like that idea.

     When I lived in England and France, lunch was often a salad. In English pubs they do smashing salad plates where they pile together an assortment of salads. In France, the cruditee plate is a favorite of mine for lunch, again, a piling on of assorted vegetable salads on a plate. Although I don't remember having one for dinner when eating out in those countries, they were quite normal for lunch. Here in America, we already have an appreciation for enjoying a large salad for dinner in a restaurant or at home.

    Jeanne Kelley is extending the salad as a main course idea in her new book, Salad for Dinner. 

     This is an organized book, which makes it easy to learn from. Recipes for salads are divided into salads made from vegetables, salads with meat, salads with chicken, and salads with fish. Before you get to the recipes, there are complete instructions on how to clean greens, how to forage for salad, and how to grow greens for salads. And there is a lot to learn. I had never heard of mizuna, tatsoi, puntarelle, or miner's lettuce. And many ingredients in the recipes are ones that I have never come accross, so it was fascinating to read through this cookbook.

    Once I dug in and tried a few recipes, I was very content. The roasted acorn squash and brussels sprouts salad was superb and beautiful to look at with deep yellows, greens and deep reds---and it was absolutely delicious. 

    It's the flavor combinations Jeanne blends together that are so compelling. Beets and Blood Oranges and Goat Cheese and Almonds. Smoked Turkey and Port Figs and Blue Cheese and Whole Wheat Croutons. Mixed Greens with Farro and Bacon and Dates and Walnuts and Pears and Parmesan. See what I mean? Crunch and silk and salt and sweet all on one plate.

    She really won me over when she didn't leave us hanging at the end of the cookbook full of salads. She gave us a desset to finish with, a luscious chocolate cream pie. This was her reasoning:

    "I wanted to include one fantastic sweet in this book because, when you eat salad for lunch or dinner, shouldn't you be rewarded with dessert?"

    Exactly! 

 Salad for Dinner by Jeanne Kelley (Rizzoli, 2012)

 

COOKBOOK REVIEW: La Tartine Gourmande

 

La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life  by Beatrice Peltre

If it were possible to capture the glint of sun through a dewdrop on a grape, Beatrice could do it. Her new cookbook, which she also styled and did all the photography for, is an artistic tableau of exquisite food presented with all its freshness and appeal intact. La Tartine Gourmande is not only beautiful, but the recipes are healthy and light and interesting.

It is rare that I find cookbooks that I literally want to cook through each and every recipe, and this is one of those rare finds. This morning I tried Oeufs en Cocotte and it was delightful, the baked egg pairing perfectly with leeks, spinach, smoked salmon and cumin. I can't wait to try her tartines, sandwiches and soups. And I plan to make her Lavender Isle Flottantes this weekend. I have followed Beatrice's blog for a long while and now feel as if I have come full circle sitting here with her new cookbook in front of me. Her beautiful eye for detail and her inspired combinations of ingredients always make me want to cook what she has made.

Bravo Beatrice. This is one of the most beautiful cookbooks I have ever seen.You really have achieved what you set out to do: provide us with recipes for an inspired life.

La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life by Beatrice Peltre, Roost Books, 2011

COOKBOOK REVIEW: The Art of Cooking Morels

 by Ruth Mossok Johnston

This is a love story. A story of entwined lovers who share a passion for beauty, art and food. Ruth, who wrote the cookbook, and her love, David, who illustrated it. It is also, most obviously, a story of Ruth's love for morels and the recipes she has created to celebrate them.

The Art of Cooking Morels impacted me so strongly that I have placed it high up on a shelf of its own, as a treasured text to be pulled down often and paged through for the sheer enjoyment of the exquisite art and the inspired recipes. This is not a normal cookbook. It is an experience. A piece of art. A good read. Bravo to The University of Michigan Press for pushing it out into the cookbook world for those of us who so yearn to be drawn back to a connection with the miracle and beauty of food and place.

Morels are of the earth, earthy. They have a smell and texture that defy explanation.

Yes, they are not easily found in every grocery store. Could the treasure hunt to find them be part of their mythic allure? Fresh morels may be hard to find, but take heart. Here is where the everyday home cook can easily order them fresh or dried:

Fresh imported morels by mail.

Dried morels.

Now, go out and buy The Art of Cooking Morels. Order your morels if you can't find them locally. If they are dried, Ruth tells you how to easily reconstitute them. They are so delightful to cook with that you will wonder why you never tried them before.

And treasure this gem of a cookbook. If there were a museum of cookbooks, you would find this one under glass.

The Art of Cooking Morels , by Ruth Mossok Johnston with illustrations by David McCall Johnston.