Cooking
Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have done it again. They've written yet another book that is sure to be a classic kitchen reference guide for years to come. The Flavor Bible lists thousands of ingredients and what other ingredients complement them. A typical listing? Grits are compatible with cheese--cheddar and parmesan, corn, cream, garlic, mascarpone, nutmeg, black pepper, salt, andouille sausage, shrimp and Southern cuisine. These days I need ideas more than I need recipes so the format is perfect for me. The Flavor Bible helps solve the "what else can I do with brussels sprouts?" question and expands your culinary horizons with entries for unusual ingredients such as quince (which has an astounding 51 ingredients associated with it), or lavender.
The ingredient lists came about by reviewing menus, restaurant reviews and cookbooks from all across the country. Some ingredients also have a season, weight, volume, and technique(s) indicated. But there is more to the book than just that. Top chefs from Jose Andres to Vikram Vij share their philosophy about using specific ingredients and techniques and there are also lists of intriguing dishes and "flavor affinities" such as butternut squash, risotto and sage or mango, almonds and lime. The book is very similar in format to their earlier award-winning book, What to Drink with What you Eat.
My only nitpicks are that the list of chef experts are mostly from the East Coast and tend to be focused on European cuisines. There are no chef experts representing the cuisines of Asia (with the exception of India), South America or Africa, that said, the book does include quite a wide range of ingredients such as fish sauce, yuzu, plantain and achiote. Also, since even a book such as this cannot be comprehensive a little more room in the margins would have been nice so that notes could be added. Still I recommend this book wholeheartedly. I am already finding it an endless source of recipe inspiration and impossible to put back on the shelf.
- Culinary Reference & Resource Books
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from The Flavour Principle but I've decided it's a keeper. Each chapter has a different flavor profile—bitter, herbal, smokey, eatery, sweet, spicy etc. The first page of each chapter has...
- Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express
Mark Bittman is a genius when it comes to combining a few ingredients to create a great dish. In his Minimalist column in the New York Times, he simplifies recipes down to the bare bones and yet they retain all the appeal of more complicated dishes....
- More Cookbooks For Giving Or Keeping
There were a lot of important restaurant cookbooks that came out this year A Day at El Bulli, Alinea and Thomas Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide come to mind. I am not opposed to serious books, but the books I turn to again and again tend...
- Salon Interviews Bunny Crumpacker
Salon has an interview with Bunny Crumpacker (her real name?) about her new book The Sex Life of Food. I'm sure the book isn't supposed to be an exhaustively researched academic tome, but this sentence caught my eye: [The apple is] just loaded...
- Culinary Artistry
Back near Thanksgiving, my friend Tom reminded me of a book I had bought a while before, but hadn't much looked at since (this occasionally happens with food books; I have enough that not all are as well-read as I would like). The book was Culinary...
Cooking
The Flavor Bible: Book review
Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have done it again. They've written yet another book that is sure to be a classic kitchen reference guide for years to come. The Flavor Bible lists thousands of ingredients and what other ingredients complement them. A typical listing? Grits are compatible with cheese--cheddar and parmesan, corn, cream, garlic, mascarpone, nutmeg, black pepper, salt, andouille sausage, shrimp and Southern cuisine. These days I need ideas more than I need recipes so the format is perfect for me. The Flavor Bible helps solve the "what else can I do with brussels sprouts?" question and expands your culinary horizons with entries for unusual ingredients such as quince (which has an astounding 51 ingredients associated with it), or lavender.
The ingredient lists came about by reviewing menus, restaurant reviews and cookbooks from all across the country. Some ingredients also have a season, weight, volume, and technique(s) indicated. But there is more to the book than just that. Top chefs from Jose Andres to Vikram Vij share their philosophy about using specific ingredients and techniques and there are also lists of intriguing dishes and "flavor affinities" such as butternut squash, risotto and sage or mango, almonds and lime. The book is very similar in format to their earlier award-winning book, What to Drink with What you Eat.
My only nitpicks are that the list of chef experts are mostly from the East Coast and tend to be focused on European cuisines. There are no chef experts representing the cuisines of Asia (with the exception of India), South America or Africa, that said, the book does include quite a wide range of ingredients such as fish sauce, yuzu, plantain and achiote. Also, since even a book such as this cannot be comprehensive a little more room in the margins would have been nice so that notes could be added. Still I recommend this book wholeheartedly. I am already finding it an endless source of recipe inspiration and impossible to put back on the shelf.
- Culinary Reference & Resource Books
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from The Flavour Principle but I've decided it's a keeper. Each chapter has a different flavor profile—bitter, herbal, smokey, eatery, sweet, spicy etc. The first page of each chapter has...
- Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express
Mark Bittman is a genius when it comes to combining a few ingredients to create a great dish. In his Minimalist column in the New York Times, he simplifies recipes down to the bare bones and yet they retain all the appeal of more complicated dishes....
- More Cookbooks For Giving Or Keeping
There were a lot of important restaurant cookbooks that came out this year A Day at El Bulli, Alinea and Thomas Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide come to mind. I am not opposed to serious books, but the books I turn to again and again tend...
- Salon Interviews Bunny Crumpacker
Salon has an interview with Bunny Crumpacker (her real name?) about her new book The Sex Life of Food. I'm sure the book isn't supposed to be an exhaustively researched academic tome, but this sentence caught my eye: [The apple is] just loaded...
- Culinary Artistry
Back near Thanksgiving, my friend Tom reminded me of a book I had bought a while before, but hadn't much looked at since (this occasionally happens with food books; I have enough that not all are as well-read as I would like). The book was Culinary...