Two new cookbooks worth note recently hit the shelves—Dishing Up Maryland by Lucie L. Snodgrass and the latest from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living, Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast.
Because Dishing Up Maryland has an obvious local angle, I was fortunate to attend a reception celebrating the book’s release, rub elbows with the author and local book critics, and try some of the delicious recipes included in its pages. Dishing Up Maryland is a cookbook done my way. Mixing food, with local travel and personalities, the book features great recipes, beautiful photos, and also a little light, interesting reading. With a focus on Maryland-style cooking and locally-sourced food, this book balances author Lucie Snodgrass’ own recipes, farm family recipes, and ones from well-know Maryland chefs committed to supporting local agriculture with short profiles of people, farms, and restaurants dedicated to the idea of seasonal, local, cuisine. This idea is reinforced by the book’s seasonal arrangement, through which the recipes are presented according to when during the year the ingredients are in season and can be purchased from local vendors. Some of my favorite recipes featured in the book include: the Chicken Pot Pie with Spring Peas & Carrots, Shrimp Pate with Crostini, and the Arugula Pesto. And those are just the ones I’ve tasted. Later in the year as the ingredients come into season, I can’t wait to try the Zucchini Fritters with Thyme, the Crab and Gruyere Quiche, and the Rockfish in Tomato Saffron Cream Sauce over Rice.
288 pages/Storey Publishing 2010
A long-time fan of the Martha Stewart cookbooks, the new book Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast is one of my favorites. For me, many of the enticing offerings presented in earlier Martha Stewart cookbooks were the culinary equivalents of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: fun to dream about but not realistic. Sure there were plenty of great recipes, and over the years, I have tried many (successfully I might add), but most were time consuming and required harder to find ingredients. Culling recipes from the pages of the digest-sized Everyday Food magazines you may have seen at your local grocery checkout end-cap, this book hits the mark with economical, flavorful, healthful recipes that can often be prepared in a half hour or less with commonly available ingredients. Even better, many of the recipes suggest ways to “stretch” one meal into the next—a super time saver for busy cooks. For example, a recipe for Thyme-Roasted Chickens with Potatoes suggests roasting two chickens at once—with a left-over second cooked bird at your disposal making the Green Chicken Curry or the Half-Hour Chicken Gumbo is a snap. A big fan of flank steaks for their lean, flavorful meat, I am looking forward to trying the Spinach-Stuffed Rolled Flank Steak. What I also appreciate about this book is the variety—tackling everything from easy, creative soups and salads, to main courses, breakfast, sandwiches, sides, and deserts while tapping into the best culinary contributions from cultures the world over. Shiitake Fried Rice, Vegetable Lasagna, Stuffed Poblanos, Curried Shrimp, Jerk Chicken, and Pastitsio, are just a few of the global offerings collected in the book’s 384 pages.
Clarkson Potter Publishers 2010
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