The Complete Tassajara Cookbook: Recipes, Techniques, and Reflections from the Famed Zen Kitchen Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is not a traditional cookbook. No pictures, lots of essays, some poetry, and basic recipes. What distinguishes it are Espe Brown's pontifications about cooking, zen, life. Like the movie, How To Cook Your Life, this book is an expression of Espe Brown's personality rather that his cooking expertise. The recipes are very basic - but I guess that's the point. He wants readers to cook by feel, by what they already know, rather than by measure and specific instructions. As I read many of the recipes, like the one for kidney bean chili, I thought, Wow, I already know how to do that.
I was also surprised that this wasn't a vegan or a health cookbook. Lots of the recipes call for eggs, milk, cheese, and oil. Not very au courant (the Engine 2 folks would have a fit), but I kind of like that about EB - he's got an acerbic (but loving) sense of humor - he can throw jabs at macrobiotics, and I'm sure at veganism. He's community-conscious and compassionate, but no food purist. Lots of vegan cookbooks seem rather self-righteous and humorless. EB's cookbook is imperfect, but meandering and fun.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Complete Tassajara Cookbook: Recipes, Techniques, and Reflections from the Famed Zen Kitchen

California's Tassajara Zen Mountain Center has long been renowned for its gourmet vegetarian cuisine. In this comprehensive guide to the Tassajara way of cooking, the retreat center–spa's most celebrated chef, Edward Espe Brown, presents hundreds of recipes using fresh, whole foods; detailed notes on preparing seasonal ingredients; and, perhaps most important, inspiration for cooking with joyful intention and attention. Presented with humor and warmth, this book is full of insights for living a life that celebrates simple food.

Click here for more information about The Complete Tassajara Cookbook: Recipes, Techniques, and Reflections from the Famed Zen Kitchen

Read More...

In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This book is a testimony to the towering reaches of the human spirit. In the midst of the horrors of Terezin, surrounded by suffering, deprivation, and death, hungry women recorded recipes of warmth, comfort, and abundance. They remembered cooking delicious meals, serving delicacies and caviar, making aspic, cooking many varieties of dumplings. The hand-written cookbook they put together demonstrates that although the Nazis held their bodies captive, their spirits remained free, drawing strength and nourishment from their memories of happy days and fully-laden tables. Despite the wretched conditions of the camp, these women dared to hope for a time when they could return to their kitchens and once again rejoice in feeding their families.
This haunting book will bless your life.

Click Here to see more reviews about: In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin

Click here for more information about In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin

Read More...

The Stocked Kitchen: One Grocery List . . . Endless Recipes Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a different kind of cookbook that not only has lots of recipes for appetizers, breakfast and brunch, salads and side dishes, main dishes, and desserts, but also includes a master grocery list of every ingredient needed. In other words, if you buy everything on the list, you now have what you need to make any recipe in the entire book. No second guessing. No standing in front of the pantry wondering what to make for dinner and whether you have what you need. No unnecessary trips to the grocery store for the one thing you don't have to complete a recipe. And no more bottles of unusual spices or special sauces that got used once for one recipe and now sit past their "use by" date in the back of the pantry or fridge.
It's one thing to have a lot of food ingredients on hand and another to actually have a plan to use them without waste. The Stocked Kitchen solves that by streamlining ingredients so that a food item or seasoning is used in several different recipes. Something like balsamic vinegar, instead of being used once for a salad dressing, shows up in 12 recipes; garlic powder is used in 37 recipes, calamata olives in nine, pine nuts in 13, puff pastry is used in 11 recipes, etc., while still offering plenty of variety. This is a great plan for busy moms because the list is already made out and once the items are in the pantry, fridge, and freezer, anything from the cookbook can be prepared.
I've made several recipes with good results, including Baked Penne, Nutty Chicken, and Feta Chicken With Spinach. There are several other recipes I'm looking forward to trying. Some color photographs are included to showcase several of the dishes.
I would say that more experienced cooks probably already have their own version of this plan as they keep the pantry stocked for favorite recipes, but it's nice to have it already done in one book like this. It would be a good wedding shower gift or for a young mom who may feel overwhelmed with menu planning and grocery shopping as she navigates through a busy schedule and what to have for dinner.


Click Here to see more reviews about: The Stocked Kitchen: One Grocery List . . . Endless Recipes

We've all had that moment during the day when we ask with a pit in our stomach, "What am I going to make for dinner?" We stand in our kitchens having a conversation with ourselves (hopefully silently), "I don't have anything to make....What Iplanned doesn'tsound good.... I don't have any time to cook let alone get to the store."Families across the country arecontinually searching for a way to make the process easier. Many get discouraged into pre-packaged complacency, which doesn't satisfy any real cravings. Bookstores contain myriad cookbooks toting catch phrases like "Quick and Simple" or "Cheap and Easy." The recipes may be quick, but they often requirereaders to purchase random ingredients they'll never use again.As a result, home cooksfind themselves burdened withcluttered pantries, refrigerators, and cupboards filled with hundreds of dollars of cookbooks and specialty items like "red pepper paste" and are still left without an easy to use, versatile, and effective system for getting dinner on the table. That's where Sarah Kallio, Stacey Krastins, and The Stocked Kitchen comes in!The Stocked Kitchen™ is the first complete meal creation system with only one standard list of groceries. If your kitchen is "Stocked" with these ingredients you will always have what you need to create any of the 300 delicious recipes found in this book. These recipes have been used for allof the authors'own dining needs, including meals for drop-in guests, special occasions, and every-night family dinners. The Stocked Kitchen encompasses all parts of the meal creation process from shopping, to storing, to cooking, to serving. The results are delicious, "guest worthy" meals made from real, basic ingredients.Sarah and Staceyhave proven The Stocked Kitchen™ system works. It has reducedtheir grocery bills, stress levels, trips to the market, and food waste.Create more delicious meals while removing the handcuffs of pre-planning. One grocery list, endless recipes!

Click here for more information about The Stocked Kitchen: One Grocery List . . . Endless Recipes

Read More...