A tale of two cookbooks

It was a cookbook containing few recipes; it was a cookbook containing many recipes.

Are you tired of trying to remember a chef’s ransom of recipes? Don’t you hate coming home after a long day of work only to reach for a cookbook, find a recipe, and then realize you are lacking some exotic ingredient? Despair not! Pam Anderson, former executive editor of Cook’s Illustrated, has written How to Cook without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart (BR 15544) just for you. Anderson demonstrates that most recipes are merely “variations on a theme,” and she teaches technique eliminating the need for recipes at all. For example, once you master searing a steak, you can sear scallops, tuna, hamburger, salmon, or pork tenderloin. You never need look at a recipe again. You can vary the look and feel of these dishes with interchangeable pan sauces, salsas, relishes, butters, and anything your imagination can contrive.

Last-minute guests? Bring ‘em on. Serve simple tomato sauce dressed up with capers and olives or shrimp and red pepper flakes. Drizzle sautéed chicken breasts with balsamic vinegar pan sauce. Serve pear and blue cheese salad. Whip up quick sides including Orzo with Lemon or a rice pilaf or even an exotic cous cous or an interesting Italian polenta.

Each chapter begins with a rhyme. For example, the frittata chapter (page 65) has the following couplet:

Cook eggs without stirring until set around the edges.
Bake until puffy, and cut into wedges.

I especially liked the at-a-glance chart in each chapter that highlights the key points of every technique, and a master recipe with enough variations to keep you busy for quite some time.

If you have a literary bent, you might enjoy The Book Club Cookbook: Recipes and Food for Thought from Your Book Club’s Favorite Books and Authors. (RC 58177) Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp who authored this interesting book surveyed book clubs around the nation and have compiled a buffet of 100 books that these clubs enjoyed. The books run the gammet from bestsellers to classics and even science fictionand nonfiction. Even if you don’t want to cook, it’s fun reading this book just to see what books you might enjoy reading and to see which books you have already read confirming your good taste. This is the kind of book you can pick up, nibble on, dip in at any point, and come up with tidbits and nuggets to snack on for a while. Great conversation starter. After reading it, you want to go out and either find a bookclub or start your own.

A friend sent me this item and I want a stove like this now! Wonder if the company would send me one so that I could present it on my audio blog.

Read about the soon-to-be-released Sanyo induction heat-type cooking stove with voice navigation and voice and musical alerts.

Speaking of books, if you want to visit a restaurant that serves edible books and balloons, read on. (Note, this item appeared in the February 2006 issue of Discover Magazine.) Moto, 945 W. Fulton Market, Chicago

Ink-jet printing is not an obvious culinary tool, but at the Chicago restaurant, Moto, the ink is made of soy and the paper, of edible starch. A customized printer puts the finishing touch on a delectable dish called Cartoon Sushi, an emulsion of snapper and mako wrapped in starch paper emblazoned with 20 photographs of machi rolls. The chef, a whimsical practitioner of molecular gastronomy (see "Cooking for Eggheads" on Page 38 o fthis issue), is keen to embrace technology not often found in American cuisine.

Dessert is the most impressive course of all. Cantu fills a sphere with the juice of uzu, a Japanese citrus, and spins it while it is chilled with a dose of liquid nitrogen. What emerges is a thin spherical shell, almost an edible balloon. All that is missing is helium to make the balloon float and the chef hopes to ad that soon. Yum!

-Text by David Faucheux