Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this book because I follow the food blogs and everyone was raving about it. That love continues here on Amazon, where she's got nothing but 5 star reviews. I like the book, but ...
I don't know who she is trying to reach here. You would expect that most people who follow food blogs and know of her would know some basics about cooking, yet she has some pages devoted to things that quite frankly I find condescending. Recipes for fruit salad, pita chips and egg salad seem a waste of space, not to mention pages devoted to making rice, whipped cream, tea (tea! as in boil water - add tea - steep) and compound butter. The two pages devoted to how to poach an egg are kind of insulting. To me. Not to everyone.
That's my problem with the book. I cook a lot. I follow the food blogs too get inspiration and to get some recipes without having to buy the newest cookbooks. I know basic techniques. I figure other people who follow her blog (the people I imagine she hopes will buy this book) would, too. Or at least they have demonstrated their ability to look things up on the internet - google how to poach an egg if you must.
These basic techniques seem more silly when you consider her fancy-pants ingredients lists. "I shop alongside some of the best chefs in the city ..." If you can't poach an egg or cook rice, are you really using harissa and membrillo?
I bought this book thinking it would be a nice inspiration for summer veggies. But this is a pantry-heavy cookbook. Yes, its vegetarian, but it is what my husband calls "roly-poly vegetarian." Lots of beans and pasta and potatoes. There are at least ten recipes that basically dress up a pound of store-bought pasta or a 15oz can of beans.
There are pretty pictures (though many are of flowers and trees and Heidi - not all the recipes have pictures and no pictures accompany her how-tos). I mean, it's a nice book. But I would recommend Kim Boyce's "Good to the Grain" Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours if you want to bake with whole grains over the breakfast and sweets portions of this book. And like I said, the rest is pasta and beans and tea and egg salad.
My recommendation - if you aren't looking for link love from Heidi for your own blog, skip this and just visit her web site, where you can get similar recipes and pictures and chit chat - for free.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen
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