The Cookbook Addict

Leaving the Enchanted Broccoli Forest: Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live without by Mollie Katzen

I feel like I may be the only person in the world who actually learned how to cook from the Moosewood cookbooks. Strange but true. When I was eighteen, I went to live in Jerusalem for a year, armed only with a previously unopened copy of Joy of Cooking. At that point, my entire culinary repertoire consisted of boiling water and using a microwave. One day, I came home to my overcrowded Jerusalem apartment to the most amazing smell. A roommate was making pesto with spaghetti from the Moosewood cookbook. I was utterly shocked, and totally enchanted, by the concept that fresh herbs could be used in food (who knew?). I ditched Rombauer and started borrowing my roommate's copies of the Moosewood Cookbook and the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, both by Mollie Katzen.

Mollie Katzen was the leader of an iconic vegetarian cooperative known as the Moosewood collective, known for the Moosewood restaurant in Ithaca and for the Moosewood series of cookbooks. Although she and the Moosewood collective have long since parted ways, each has continued to publish numerous vegetarian cookbooks. The early Moosewood series, charming though it may be, is known to many for unreliable recipes that often require doctoring. But, for me, they were also the place where I learned to cook from fresh ingredients and to appreciate the excitement that produce brings to food. I started shopping in the souk and learning about local produce, and became completely obsessed with cooking. Bizarrely enough, Mollie Katzen was kinda like my Alice Waters.

So I really wanted to like Vegetables Dishes I Can’t Live Without. Unlike her earlier cookbooks, however, this book seems primarily focused on streamlined, unfussy vegetable side dishes. Although Mollie has returned to the hand-written format that made early Moosewood so adorable, these recipes are neither as homey and filling, nor as charming, as her earlier books. Some – like the spaghetti squash pancakes and the ruby chard recipes – fell flat until I doctored them with cheese or condiments. The carrots in North African spices were a bit raw and unfinished-tasting. Unlike most recipes which I have tried, in which the carrots are boiled or steamed until soft and then covered with a cumin-spiked marinade greedily absorbed by the carrots, this one was steamed briefly and then roasted briefly with the spices.

A couple of the recipes were wonderful ideas that I would make again. The fennel with lemon – sauteed fennel matchsticks topped with paper thin slices of lemon that were dusted with flour and then fried until brown and crisp – was tart, caramelized and unreal. The spaghetti squash roasted in the oven for almost an hour with fried onions and topped with fried sage leaves was similarly caramelized and good. But while I thought these were great ideas, I will not need to confer with the cookbook to make them, simple as they are.

It is a little hard for me to understand the demographic at which this book is aimed. It seems to be designed for use by people with some, but not extensive, experience cooking vegetables, who are looking for a reference for quick vegetable side dishes with a little flair or a unique twist. While I will always be grateful to Mollie, I think there are other books that more expertly fit that niche – including books by Jack Bishop and Deborah Madison. Because those books are more reliable, sophisticated and informative, I would turn to them before this one. I will always love Mollie, but I think it’s time for my Moosewood cookbooks to go into storage.

Marine Sorcerers and the $24 Mushroom: Young Man and the Sea by David Pasternack and Ed Levine

Although I love a good fish dinner as much as the next gal, I have always had a couple of issues with cooking seafood at home:

Number one, I have an irrational fear that I will poison my guests by serving them raw fish.  The rational part of my brain understands that restaurants do not have some magical method for rendering raw fish safe to eat, either. But the emotional part of my brain is convinced that it is going to be the piece of fish that I bring home and serve to my friends that will end up being bad. 

Number two, I have been continuously frustrated in my attempts to sear scallops at home.  No matter which method I tried, what pan I used, what I did to the scallops, I never could capture that perfect crusty sear that makes restaurant scallops so delicious.

Well, with the help of Young Man, I have been somewhat rehabilitated with respect to my seafood handicaps.  I served raw fish (fluke crudo with radishes) and I seared scallops with a little brown crust.  In my book, these are no small accomplishments. 

And some of the recipes were wonderful.  The oilve oil poached halibut with golden roasted beets and blood oranges was silky, juicy and sweet - a lovely light winter fish dish.  The linguine with clams and pancetta was so good that it caused me to wonder whether marine pixies were not sneaking into my stove and replacing my dishes with those of some wicked talented seafood sorcerer.

Many food writers have noted that fish is difficult to gussy up in a lavish, fantastical, sauce-laden complex way.  Here, with the benefit of David's fishy genius, those same qualities in fish will inure to your benefit. David Pasternack's smarts lay in being able to choose the perfect method for cooking fish or seafood simply, with a few ingredients.  The recipes are very clean and intensely flavored; most are simply adorned with some vegetables and drizzle of olive oil.  Simple and perfect, for the most part.

But, some recipes were grossly out of whack. The Taglietelle with Nantucket Bay Scallops, for example, was slick with oil – it called for 6 tablespoons of butter and ½ cup of oil for a mere ¾ pound of pasta. I used half as much oil, and it was still so oily that no one could finish what was on their plates. The risotto with lobster and black trumpet mushrooms called for an inordinately large amount of mushrooms.  I used about half of them, and the risotto was still about 50% mushroom.  Pretty annoying considering that the mushrooms cost $24 a pound. I also noticed other problems with recipes – the description of scallops with spinach and parsnips, for example, references oranges in the description but does not include oranges in the ingredients or instructions.

Although I will be the first to admit that I am no pro in the kitchen, I really don’t see how these shortcomings could be attributable to my inexperience. I think that many of the recipes missed something in the translation from restaurant kitchen to home kitchen. For me, this is a book that I will use for ideas, but I will probably doctor and adjust the recipes as I go along.  After all, marine pixies are notoriously unreliable kitchen guests.

Confessions of a Dessert Reactionary

I have a confession to make:  I did not like the desserts at Per Se. 

There, I said it. Please don't hate me, everyone!

Maybe I am an ungrateful idiot, or a total ignoramus about food, but a girl doesn't like what she doesn't like.  (Just to be clear, the rest of the meal was spectacular).

Also, the whole "one dessert for the women at the table, one for the men" that they do at Per Se irks me. It reminds me of how French restaurants in the city used to give the men at the table a menu with prices on it and women a menu without any prices listed. (Totally awkward if you are taking your boyfriend out for his birthday, by the way.) So not cute.  

So, I was a touch biased against Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts, by Claire Clark, renowned pastry chef from French Laundry, the Thomas Keller food mecca and sister restaurant to Per Se. 

To be frank, I think the root of the problem is that I am a little bit of dessert reactionary.  Basically, it seems I pretty much have a one innovation per dessert quota.  After that, I get a little cranky.  For example, I despise any dessert that must be listed in quotations marks (e.g., "napoleon" of withered banana and ginger mousse, "cake" of burnt caramel shards and tapioca) or a dessert that seems like it would have gone better between the soup and salad courses (most vegetable or bacon flavored desserts, for example, would fall into this category). I imagine myself to be the type of person who would love interesting and challenging desserts but, sadly, the truth is that most of the time I am not.  When it comes to dessert, I usually just want what's on my plate to be a sweet, toothsome, proper version of itself.  No cognitive dissonance with my dessert, please.

At the same time, I get crabby about desserts that are too boring, or not properly prepared.  Basically, I am cantankerous when it comes to desserts.

Oh, and by the way, the title didn't help matters either.  There's nothing a neurotic, anxiety-prone lawyer-for-her-day-job home cook like me needs less than a title that announces that under most circumstances, for most cooks following the directions properly, these desserts will be "perfect."  Without even trying a single dessert, I can predict with 100% accuracy that none of my efforts to replicate the desserts in the book will come out "perfect."

The recipes in Indulge are actually split between recipes that are somewhat old-fashioned, slightly crusty in a not-quite-retro way (e.g., sacher torte, opera pastry) and some slighly more interesting ones (e.g., red wine chocolate cake, salty pistachio ice cream, strawberry balsamic white chocolate truffles).  Nothing weird enough to make me cranky, though.  Although about half of the recipes are hyper-complicated, the directions seemed fairly clear and detailed in that slightly science-labby pastry chef way.  The only slightly confusing elements are the Britishisms in ingredient lists and instructions, which are sorta cute.  Like many good baking books, it lists ingredients by weight.

And the desserts did come out, well, almost perfect.  The honey madelines were sweet and buttery, with a tender crumb.  They did dry out very quickly, though.  The Bakewell Tarts, adorable little tartlets filled with a layer of raspberry jam and a filling of ground almonds, butter and lemon zest, were lip-smackingly delicious.  The Red Wine Chocolate Cake was a little bit too much of a "grown-up" cake (it reminded me a little of haroset), but was moist, light, chocolatey, and redolent of red wine, cloves and cinnamon.

If there's one thing I learned from this book, it's to follow Clark's instructions exactly -- it really does make a difference to sift the dry ingredients twice and to pipe the madeline batter into the molds (yes, I did do a side-by-side test, I am that much of a dork).  If you read the recipes carefully and follow them exactly, this book will make you happy, even if you are a cranky little biddy like me.

My Embarassing Crush on Kaluystans

It always starts out innocently enough. I grab a cart, throw in some nuts, dried fruits, maybe a few spicy Indian snack mixes.

But then I make my way into the long aisles of assorted culinary wares. Five different brands of pomegranate molasses? Three different colors of cardamom pods? Twelve different types of lentils? I get flustered, my cart becomes weighty. Before long, I am spending large amounts of time staring at spice mixes and walking in circles. After a while, even the sales people are looking at me funny, no doubt wondering why I am taking so long to select and purchase my items, and why I have about forty different items crammed into my cart and am clutching another twelve in my other arm.

Whenever I go into Kaluystan’s, surely the most amazing ethnic and spice grocer in the universe, I come out dazed, embarrassed, and with a bag of culinary treasures. My hair may be a mess, I may have accidentally lost three hours of my day, but I have chappati flour and omani lemons! For days after each trip, I babble to everyone who will listen about how fabulous it is. I may no longer be a schoolgirl, but Kaluystans is still my schoolgirl crush.

If you are similarly enamored with an ethnic food/spice purveyor, then you will have no problem finding most of the Asian ingredients called for in the recipes from Cradle of Flavor, by James Oseland, and will no doubt be just as floored by the resulting dishes as I was. From the first satay, this beautiful book instantly catapulted itself into my cookbook hall of fame.

James Oseland is the editor of Saveur magazine. Somehow, in his spare time, Oseland has managed to make no fewer than twenty trips to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, and to put together a set of amazing recipes interspersed with charming, evocative essays about his trips. James Oseland, wherever you are, I bow to you. It is with great humility, therefore, that I review a book by an individual who is a far better food writer than I am.

In a nutshell: every recipe in this book is well-written, highly seasoned, and spectacularly delicious. There are no plain jane filler recipes here, no Kafkaesque instructions, and no tedious prose. I loved it as a book, as a cookbook, and also as a pretext for going to visit my beloved Kaluystans…

The beef and chicken satays were tasty, carmelized bits of succulence that needed no peanut sauce adornment in order to shine; they are marinated in pastes of spices, shallots, lemongrass (for the chicken) and palm sugar. (If you are vegetarian, btw, these spice pastes also make outrageous marinades for big hunks of cauliflower or pretty much anything else).

The Yellow Celebration Rice – rice cooked in coconut milk, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and turmeric - was a rich, pillowy luscious accompaniment to the other dishes in the book.  The Cabbage with Ginger and Crispy Indian Lentil was rich, gingery, and had just the right amount of nuttiness and spice from the black mustard seed and fried indian lentil (tuvar dal).

But it was the braised dishes – Nyonya Braised Beef, Beef Rendang and Potato Rendang – where the book really shines.  They are each based on a "reverse braise" technique used in Indonesian cooking, in which food is slowly simmered until all of the liquid evaporates, and then browned in the remaining rendered fat.  The result is an intensely carmelized, concentrated flavor.  The Potato Rendang, potatoes simmered in reduced coconut milk and a miraculous paste of shallots, lemongrass, chilies, turmeric, ginger, garlic and galangal, was spicy, crispy and the most perfect use of starchy fingerlings that I could possibly imagine.

Although technically I have no basis on which to judge this, the recipes in this book feel very authentic to me; maybe it's because almost every recipe is animated by a story or a character from James' traveling adventures, or maybe it's because I had to purchase over 15 items from Kaluystans in order to finish the review.  Either way, this is a cookbook that gives you a strong sense of place, time, culture and character.  James Oseland and Kaluystans, my hat's off to you.  You two make a kick ass team.