Posted on by Ann@BooksontheTable

Cookbook Season

9780307474414The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving; even the simplest food is a gift.
Laurie Colwin

Last Sunday, a group of sailors from the naval training base just a few miles from our store stopped by to pick up some books for their precious free time. Young and earnest, they asked us for suggestions, wanting to know what our “desert island” books would be.  I mentioned a few of mine that they might like  (Pillars of the Earth, Crossing to Safety, The Prince of Tides) as well as some recent favorites that might appeal to young men (The Boys in the Boat, The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, The Art of Fielding), but I didn’t mention two books that I would want on my desert island:the late Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen and More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen.

Colwin, who wrote five novels and three collections of short stories, was a passionate cook and a columnist for Gourmet magazine. Home Cooking and More Home Cooking contain essays about food (mostly comfort food) and Colwin’s favorite family recipes. Here’s what Colwin has to say about roast chicken: “There is nothing like roast chicken. It is helpful and agreeable, the perfect dish no matter what the circumstances. Elegant or homey, a dish for a dinner party or a family supper, it will not let you down.”

I hope my desert island has a fully equipped kitchen to accompany Colwin’s “musings, anecdotes, and quirkily imprecise, not-altogether-reliable recipes”. It would be nice to have a few other cookbooks, as well as some other castaways to share meals and conversation. Colwin says:

One of the delights of life is eating with friends; second to that is talking about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends. People who like to cook like to talk about food.

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Tarragon shrimp salad

Our bookstore staff likes all of the above, and of course we like reading about food as well. Fall is cookbook season in the publishing world, and it’s exciting to page through all the beautiful new cookbooks that release every week in September, October, and November. Ina Garten’s tenth cookbook, Cooking for Jeffrey, was the most highly anticipated cookbook this season. Our staff had a “Cook Like Ina” party several weeks ago, with everyone bringing a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa. Every one of them was delicious and worth making again; we filled our plates with kale salad with pancetta and pecorino, tomato tart, tarragon shrimp salad, crusty baked shells and cauliflower . . . and then when we thought we couldn’t eat any more, out came the limoncello ricotta cheesecake and vanilla cream cheese pound cake.

9780307464897-2You know a cookbook is more than a cookbook when it merits a full-length review in the Atlantic. An article entitled “The Old-Fashioned, Modern Marriage of Ina and Jeffrey” declares that Cooking for Jeffrey “doubles as an insight into the workings of ‘the most cherished celebrity couple in the world.'” It’s true that sprinkled among the book’s recipes are personal anecdotes about Ina and Jeffrey’s marriage, but what makes the book worth buying are the recipes, entertaining tips, and gorgeous photographs.

skinnytaste-fast-and-slow-cookbook-550x700Of course, you can’t cook like Ina every night. She uses a lot of butter and cream, for one thing. One of my favorite cookbooks of the season is Skinnytaste Fast and Slow: Knockout Quick-Fix and Slow Cooker Recipes, by Gina Homolka. Half of the recipes can be prepared in 30 minutes or less, and half are designed for the slow cooker. Everything I’ve made has been easy, delicious, and healthy — I highly recommend the turkey-zucchini meatballs, which take four hours in the crockpot. Most slow cooker recipes take eight hours or more, but many of the recipes in this book take only a few hours, which is great if you want to throw your Sunday dinner in at 3:00 PM.

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Zaatar roasted carrots

Forest Feast Gatherings: Simple Vegetarian Menus for Hosting Friends and Family, by Erin Gleeson, is a wonderful follow-up to the original Forest Feast, one of my most-used cookbooks. It’s also so pretty you’ll want to leave it on the kitchen counter. You can tell the author is a food photographer and stylist. The recipes are simple and wholesome as well as photo-worthy; our store manager, Max, made the roasted carrots and they look ready for Instagram.

9780399583377Jane Green’s Good Taste: Simple, Delicious Meals for Family and Friends is fun to cook from and just as fun to read. (Do you notice that cookbook subtitles frequently mention cooking for “family and friends”? Who else would you cook for? Strangers and enemies?) Like all my favorite cookbooks, it’s also an entertaining guide and has plenty of appealing photos. Green, who has written eighteen novels, includes amusing stories about cooking, herself, and her family, making Good Taste a great book to keep on your nightstand.

index-pperlIn Home Cooking, Laurie Colwin says, “To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup” and “There is nothing like soup. It is by nature eccentric: no two are ever alike, unless of course you get your soup in a can.” Soup Nights: Satisfying Soups and Sides for Delicious Meals All Year, by longtime cooking teacher Betty Rosbottom, contains more than enough soup recipes to keep you safe and warm all winter. (Rosbottom also includes some cold soups for the warmer months.) The broccoli soup with creme fraiche is the best broccoli soup I’ve ever had, and takes only thirty minutes from start to finish. A friend of mine has a monthly Soup Night with her friends, which replaced their book club when no one could agree on which book to read. Every month, someone makes a big pot of soup and everyone brings a book to exchange. I think everyone in this group needs a copy of Soup Nights!

Actually, I think everyone needs a new cookbook this season. To quote Laurie Colwin once again:

Cookbooks hit you where you live. You want comfort; you want security; you want food; you want to not be hungry and not only do you want those basic things fixed you want it done in a really nice, gentle way that makes you feel loved. That’s a big desire, and cookbooks say to the person reading them, “If you will read me, you will be able to do this for yourself and for others.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Posted on by Ann@BooksontheTable

WWW Wednesday — Staff Picks

9780761178422What did you just finish reading? What are you currently reading? What do you think you’ll read next?

Today, at our monthly meeting, our staff discussed those very questions. Our meetings are supposed to begin at 8:00 a.m., and we rush to get through as many book reviews as possible before the store opens at 9:30.

Sheet Pan Suppers, by Molly Gilbert, has been a hit with our staff and customers, although clearly the title is a bit of a misnomer — this morning we sampled the raspberry white chocolate scones, which were delicious! (The subtitle of this great cookbook is 120 Recipes for Simple, Surprising, Hands-Off Meals Straight From the Oven, Plus Breakfast, Desserts, and Snacks Too!) I noticed that the scones sat untouched for the first half of the meeting, as our health-conscious booksellers delicately nibbled on clementines, but that somehow by the end of the meeting the scones were almost gone.

What else have we read recently?9781402298684

Last week was a great reading week for me — I finished two debut novels that I absolutely adored. The Magician’s Lie, by Greer Macallister, is a historical novel about a young, female magician (the “Amazing Arden”) at the turn of the 20th century, who is accused of murder. She is captured and interrogated by a country sheriff who has problems of his own, and during the course of one long night in a rural police station, we learn about the magician’s past. How did an aspiring dancer, born into a wealthy family, end up running a successful traveling magic show — and running for her life? It’s a terrific period piece, with a murder mystery and just a touch of the supernatural. If you enjoyed Water for Elephants, you’ll love this book.

9780399169526I can’t say enough good things about My Sunshine Away, by M.O. Walsh (due February 10).  During the summer of 1989, the narrator of My Sunshine Away is fourteen years old and in love with his neighbor on Piney Creek Road in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Lindy Simpson. When Lindy becomes the victim of a rape, everything changes. The narrator finds himself, along with other neighbors, interrogated about the crime:

Don’t believe what you see on the crime shows today. No single hairs were tweezed out of Old Man Casemore’s lawn. No length of rope was sent off to a lab. No DNA was salvaged off the pebbles of our concrete. And although the people of Woodland Hills answered earnestly every question that was asked of them, although they tried their best to be helpful, there was no immediate evidence to speak of.

Although My Sunshine Away is suspenseful — sometimes almost unbearably so — it’s really a coming of age story. It’s about an immature, self-centered boy becoming an adult with integrity. As he recounts the pivotal events of his youth, the narrator’s voice is authentic and compelling. At one point, he reflects on the nature of nature of memory:

And it is not until times like these, when there are years between myself and the events, that I feel even close to understanding my memories and how the people I’ve known have affected me. And I am often impressed and overwhelmed by the beautiful ways the heart and mind work without cease to create this feeling of connection.

Although I’ve never been to Baton Rouge, I felt as if I had after reading Walsh’s lyrical descriptions of this singular place. Walsh, who is the director of the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans, clearly heeds every creative writing teacher’s advice: “Show, don’t tell.” He shows us a setting and characters that are as vivid as any I’ve encountered on the page. The novel reminded me in some ways of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones — but without the murder and the accompanying trip to heaven, and with a great deal more wisdom. Read more