What’s cooking? Cookbook reviews by residents of the Esplanade
For the food column in this issue of the ECG Newsletter, I decided to ask some residents of the Esplanade to write a paragraph or two about their favorite cookbooks. I quickly realized that there must be dozens upon dozens of residents who spend their most creative moments in the kitchen and would love to write about their experiences. So, the six brief reviews presented here will need to be supplemented with many more in later issues of the Newsletter. – Ken Winston
From Jane Gould:
The Joy of Cooking, 1931 edition by Irma S. Rombauer, is my go-to cookbook, but not for the usual reasons. One day I was trying to recreate hors d’oeuvres from the 1920’s for a retro-themed book-club soiree, and I asked my college-aged son for advice. He happened to be taking an elective class on the history of cookbooks, and the 1931 edition was one of his required texts. Rombauer’s recipes for creamed oyster canapes and sweetbreads-on- skewers were a real turn-off. But then I read further and my outlook changed.
The Joy of Cooking has recipes on how to make a pie crust, bake an apple pie, and compile a pea soup. My dear Mother managed to make a killer apple pie and fantastic soups, but otherwise subscribed to the B&B school of cooking, i.e., Burn or Boil. When I watched her prepare her good recipes, she used a “pinch” here and a “dash” there. She never wrote it down. With the 1931 edition of Joy of Cooking, I have discovered the missing link and can now season soups to perfection and make a killer-girl pie crust. Meanwhile, my son, who took the cooking class to counterbalance his heavy coursework in computer science, has come to appreciate the importance of outlining each step and leaving notes for the next cook.
From Susan Barron:
I thoroughly enjoy cooking, as I find it relaxing as well as creative. I liken cookbooks to useful road maps. Cookbooks provide us with detailed instructions as to how to reach a designated goal. However, when cooking, it’s often both fun and rewarding to veer off the beaten path and explore side roads – roads that enable one to substitute preferred ingredients and/or ingredients one may have on hand for those given in a recipe. This practice augments the creative side of cooking and bears attempting.
I’d like to recommend two different types of cookbooks that are instructive yet invite our “deviations” from the designated road. The Silver Palate cookbooks: Good Times, New Basics, and The Silver Palate are tried and true paperback references from the 1980’s. Each one provides unfailingly delicious recipes that are easy to follow crowdpleasers. They typically call for ingredients that are readily obtainable, while allowing for substitutions as desired.
In marked contrast, I also recommend Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbooks: Jerusalem; Simple, Sweet; and last but not least Plentyand Plenty More (both of which are vegetarian). These books are hard-covered treasures with sumptuous photographs of mouth-watering dishes, most of them featuring Middle East/Mediterranean flavors. The recipes, although somewhat involved, are, for the most part, easy to follow, emphasizing fresh ingredients. The results, to my mind, are well worth the effort and bound to garner kudos from assembled guests.
From Janet and Bernie Aserkoff:
Over the years, our cooking progressed from Julia Child to Craig Claiborne’s 60 Minute Gourmet and now to Radically Simple, Roxanne Gold’s excellent and beautifully illustrated cookbook published in 2010. Her 350 recipes are designed to produce “elegant” results with a minimum of fuss, and that is just what they accomplish. From rigatoni with cauliflower, anchovies and raisins, to scallops on sweet pea puree, or simply roast chicken, her recipes are quick to prepare and filled with zip. We have made and enjoyed many of them. Seared tuna with roasted garlic asparagus on a bed of yogurt caper sauce is an Aserkoff favorite that gets put together and on the table in 15 minutes. Many other recipes do the same. The book is easy to use.
From Vibha Pingle:
Japanese Farm Food, by Nancy Singleton Hachisu, is one of our favorite cookbooks. We love how it transports us to the calm, balanced, nature-filled world of Kamikawa (Hokkaido, Japan). While getting home delivery from Fuji at Kendall is always quick and requires little thought (as we always order the same dishes!), preparing a dish from Japanese Farm Food requires thought and a trip to H-Mart in Central Square. But the results always feel sublime and inspiring.
What we particularly like about the recipes is how accessible they are. The author makes the recipes seem familiar, even though they clearly do not include ingredients from Whole Foods. The instructions are straightforward, though some recipes are more labor-intensive than the instructions might suggest. What’s particularly lovely about the dishes is that they’re not ones we’ve found at Japanese restaurants in the area. It’s of course entirely possible that whatever we prepare using this cookbook barely resembles authentic Japanese farm food. But they’re delicious, and our dinner party guests clearly do an excellent job of pretending they’ve enjoyed them too.
From Nancy Crowley:
Though I have many cookbooks and have a few staples from each that I love and many to still explore, my most stained and tattered is the Silver Palate’s first book from the eighties – The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, with Sarah Leah Chase. Why? It was a decade in which my family was growing, and we hosted many large gatherings with families and friends... and I loved the themes of meals related to the seasons and special gatherings of loved ones. “Summer When It Sizzles,” “America Gives Thanks,” and “Winter Wonderland” were favorites. The accompanying illustrations and tips for enhancing the get together made it all the more fun.
I realize now that many of the recipes tasted so good because of the enormous amounts of fats within! Armed with a new food processor, I made pesto for the first time, and it became a pre-Monday night dance dish for the teeny boppers... and added marinated basil, tomato, and Brie cheese to a series of pasta nights with up to twenty guests at the table on Cape Cod. “Seafood Gazpacho” was a primer for adaptation with all vegetables fresh and shellfish briny from the sea. And “Porch Brunches” led to easy entertaining with weekend guests.
But the most celebrated and cooked EVERY year is “Grand Marnier Apricot Stuffing.” It would be my chosen meal on a desert island along with a perfectly roasted turkey, which I do not always achieve! Local fresh ingredients and more global cuisines have captured my contemporary tastes and recipes lately, but the Silver Palate will always have a special place with a dash of nostalgia and a sprinkling of love.
From Ken Winston:
It was after my first visit to India that I decided it was time to get serious about Asian cooking, and by then I’d had the pleasure of several meals at Stan Frankenthaler’s restaurant, Salamander, which (as it happens) was located in the Athenaeum Building across the street from the Esplanade. (When residents talk about living in the Esplanade in “the good old days,” surely that’s what they have in mind!) Frankenthaler’s cookbook, The Occidental Tourist (2001), was a special challenge because nearly every dish involved two or three sauces. There would be a marinade and a basting sauce. Or a glaze and a vinaigrette. Or both of those plus a relish. The results were fantastic, but needless to say I didn’t use the book as often as I had anticipated.
Fortunately, I discovered Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who shares Frankenthaler’s Asian-inspired sensibility but gets the sauce-making under control – without sacrificing the elegance of the dishes. Of his cookbooks, my favorite is Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges (2007). The recipes are as likely to include elements of Thai or Vietnamese cuisine, as of Chinese or Korean. Jean-George’s wife, Marja, is Korean and has a cookbook of her own worth noting: The Kimchi Chronicles( 2011), which is a companion to the PBS show of that name. But, then, I also discovered Marcus Samuelsson, who takes eclecticism to an entirely new level in his New American Table (2009). Samuelsson was born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, and travelled widely in the US before settling down in New York City and opening such restaurants as Aquavit. Many of the recipes in his book also have a strong Asian accent, but combined with creole or soul or southwestern elements. Truly creative cuisine.