Surely what you’re thinking is that this is a beach read, a summer read, something light and romancy, or just plain “light.” Nope. Altogether different. If you read the Mediterranean Summer cover’s fine print, it indicates a story about the Med’s coastal destinations. Travel book, maybe? Nope. It’s a memoir and a fascinating one. About David Shalleck, an accomplished chef already, after doing a bunch of stages in Europe (where chefs work for short stints in well known restaurants, to gain experience), decides to accept a job working as the chef on a mega-yacht, cruising around the Med for a summer.

Not wanting to give away the story, I’m just going to say that IF you’re interested in food, cooking (sometimes very difficult under sail), a bit of coastal travel thrown in, and enjoy reading about the interior running of a mega-yacht, you might be interested to read this book. Once on board, the owners (wealthy couple from Italy, but the wife did all the talking) gave him direction. Always the best quality. Always fresh food. Almost everything fish and shellfish, maybe a bit of poultry. No red meat. Use inspiration from whatever seaport we’re in. Make the meals different – i.e., never serve the same thing twice. That last one would have slayed me! And to be prepared to serve a large crowd at a moment’s notice. At one of their ports he had to prepare lavish food for 100 people. That took some creativity and planning including storing some of the food in the anchor well. I laughed a bit over that!

This isn’t a cookbook, although there are a few recipes at the end – including one chocolate cake that the owner (the wife) said yes, he could make that again – but I’ll just say I didn’t copy out the recipe because it looks to be an enormous amount of work! There are recipes for some varieties of fish not available in the U.S., although I suppose you could substitute.

It’s a charming story. Zero romance. But a very interesting read. As many of you readers know, my DH (dear husband, who passed away 11 years ago) was a sailor at heart and he hoped when we got together in 1961, that we’d sail around the world together someday. I get very seasick, so that never happened. But having spent many an hour trying to cook in the tiny galley aboard our 37-foot sailboat, always on inland waters and bays, I can certainly identify with the author about the issues regarding cooking on board a boat. After Shalleck’s stint on the yacht, he returned to the U.S. and worked with Jacque Pepin for years, and with Joanne Weir, for both, though, in the background. And I was pleased to read that he’s married, with two children, and lives in the Bay Area.

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You are going to love these. I mean it.

In my last post I told you about Vivian Howard’s latest cookbook, This Will Make It Taste Good, and about the various “flavor heroes,” she calls them, that she relies upon in her restaurant and home cooking. To make this recipe above, however, you have to make one of her flavor heroes, the one she calls the “Little Green Dress.” Hereon referred to as LGD! I suppose that’s a take on every woman’s need for a “little black dress,” except that here, the color is decidedly green, not black.

The flavor hero recipe has a preponderance of Castelvetrano olives in it, plus shallots, garlic, vinegar, capers, some anchovies (which you don’t taste at all – but you know – anchovies are one of the umami flavors), fresh parsley, fresh mint, EVOO, hot sauce and salt. You pour this into a clean glass jar, and if you haven’t used it within a few days, pour a little layer of EVOO on top so it doesn’t spoil. It will keep for several weeks that way.

If you’re not familiar with Castelvetrano olives . . . well, they’re a more ripe olive than the traditional green olives – not in color, just in how they pickle them, I guess. They have a milder flavor and they’re not as piquant (sour).

Once you make this flavor hero, then you add some of it to – – in this case it’s canned tuna, a little bit of mayo, and some minced celery and you’ve got a fantastic lunch. Vivian slices avocado and puts that on the cracker first, then piles it with the tuna salad. I forgot the avocado that day, but I made it again the following day, and used some avocado on one, and a sliced egg on the other.

You may THINK this is not worth the trouble, but I’m tellin’ you, it is. I don’t think I’ve ever had canned tuna taste this great. I’m serious. When my friend Cherrie and I got together to make three of the flavor heroes, we made this tuna salad cracker for our lunch. Cherrie and I were both blown away by how flavorful it is. FYI: I buy the line-caught Wild Planet albacore tuna from Costco (blue can, in a stack of about 5).

But, I do need to tell you about Wasa crispbread crackers. I remember them vaguely from my youth – my mother used to buy them. I have no recollection what we ate them with. They come in various grain flavors – I bought the whole grain. They’re not a good cracker to eat by themselves – even Vivian Howard says they taste kind of like cardboard. But they have a very unique characteristic (not mentioned in the book) that once you pick up that little slate of cracker, piled with goodies, you can bite into it without risking cracking the whole cracker and making a big mess. It stays intact as you munch on down. I suppose you could make the tuna salad and use other crackers, but I’m certainly a fan now, of Wasa crackers. I don’t know whether all grocery stores have them – I finally found them at my small, independent market near me.

It’s been two days since I had this for my lunch, and as I write, I’m craving another serving of those tuna crackers.

What’s GOOD: (the flavor hero, the LGD): so unique, and I hope to find more ways to use it. The cookbook includes many recipes using small amounts of it. (The tuna cracker): it’s sensational. I’m craving it. So delicious. Once you have the LGD made, it’s so very easy to make the tuna salad and you’ve got a simple but flavor-packed lunch.

What’s NOT: well, if you’re not willing to put in the effort to make the LGD, then you won’t be able to enjoy the flavor of the tuna snack crackers. I’m telling you, you don’t want to miss this flavor puch. FOMO!

LGD printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tuna printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

– – – – – – –

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It isn’t often that I devote a blog post to a cookbook, but this one is so unusual that I needed to. Everything about this cookbook, This Will Make It Taste Good, is unusual, IMHO.

So, let’s back up a bit . . . I really admire Vivian Howard. I have her first book, Deep Run Roots, which is more an homage to her unique little town, Kinston, North Carolina, than it is anything else. There are recipes, lots of beautiful photographs and plenty of down-south kind of stories about the bountiful produce and meat that come from the South. But more specifically to her locale. Kinston is a tiny, tiny town. When she and her husband (Ben, now her ex-husband) moved back to her home town they decided to open a restaurant. They did – she was the chef, and that’s the series A Chef’s Life she created for a year or two. That’s when lots of people fell in love with her witty, down-home, no-nonsense style. I had a reservation at her restaurant in 2020, and then Covid hit. No travel, no restaurant eating, nada. My trip to see one of my granddaughters graduate from Clemson got canceled. Well, we all remember – everything got canceled.

That year of mostly lock-down was so difficult. As a widow I struggled some with the loneliness. I waved to my neighbor occasionally. I saw people outside my car when I picked up online groceries and they delivered them to my car. A few times in those first months I took a drive in my car – just to get out of the house. There were hardly any cars on the road. It was eerie, like we’d just survived some gigantic earth shift or a global catastrophe. But other than that, was it a whole year we stayed at home? It was ugly. Just sayin’.

For Vivian, their Kinston restaurant closed (and has stayed closed since – I think she said somewhere that it was very difficult to get help because of the very rural outpost of a town it’s in). During Covid, she stayed home helping to raise their twins (and she was still married then) and she decided to write another cookbook, this one. She’s since opened a restaurant in Charleston.

THIS BOOK: Over the years of being a chef, she adapted recipes from lots of places and created lots of her own, obviously. She went about creating 8 or 9 “flavor heroes,” she calls them. These are recipes/concoctions she makes regularly that she uses to enhance all kinds of other things (finished dishes – other recipes, meaning they’re added TO something) from appetizers, main dishes, to salads and veggies, to desserts. She created them for the restaurant, and I think I remember correctly, she eventually had an employee make these up in gigantic batches. It was probably her full time job! She sells them online too (for a steep price) at Handy & Hot (in Charleston).

So far I’ve made three of them (the ones pictured). It’s a bit difficult to categorize this book – to explain the flavor heroes. All of them have very unusual names – not necessarily explanatory about what they are. Like the first one, the very first one she created, she titled “Little Green Dress.” In texture it looks kind of like pesto, but trust me, it’s NOT pesto.

Another one she called “Red Weapons.” It’s a tomato based concoction that separates into 3 layers once finished and the various layers are used in different ways, separately, or in various quantities in another dish. It’s very labor intensive to prepare, but you end up with double the amount you see at right (which is four cups – so it makes eight cups). My friend Cherrie and I got together for an entire day and made the three pictured here). Since Cherrie and I shared it, four cups is about right for me!

Another one is called “Herbdacious,” and that’ll be the one I’ll post first.  We made a wonderful tuna salad crunchy cracker thing for lunch for ourselves using herbdacious, and we prepared meatloaf using one of them. Might have been the first flavor hero one, LGD. Both are green, one more chunky than the other and totally different flavor profiles. I haven’t yet baked the meatloaf, but I’ll post all about it eventually.

There’s an unusual sauerkraut flavor hero, another with preserved lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit (like preserved lemons that we know, but with the added other citrus fruits). Another one she calls “Community Organizer,” which has a very interesting provenance (you’ll have to read the book). Mostly that one is added to savory dishes, also tomato based. Another one is called “Quirky Furki Umami” which is seaweed driven. Another is called “R-rated onions” (mostly they’re caramelized onions).

So far I’ve only tasted the herbdacious used in the tuna salad on a cracker, and all I can say is that it was fabulous. I cannot WAIT to make it again – I think I have enough to do that from the leftovers. The herbdacious provided flavors that just burst in your mouth.

Vivian is a GREAT writer – she’s so funny. I can imagine she’d have been a handful as a child. She writes for the magazine Garden & Gun – (it’s one of my favorite magazines) and with every issue I can’t wait to see what her new column has to say. If you’re anxious to try something, you’ll find the recipe for LGD if you click through to the magazine. Her columns are not always about food – one was about the dating life of a well-known chef (herself) when you’re in your 40s and haven’t dated for mostly two decades. It was LOL funny.

SO, this book . . . if you have someone in your life who is a good cook, and likes taking on some relatively heavy-duty cooking projects, he/she might find this book well worth it. You wouldn’t have to tackle three of these in a day like Cherrie and I did – you could do just one. I’m looking forward to trying the Red Weapons in a baked dish with feta cheese and shrimp (or swordfish). Even if you’re not a cook, but you enjoy good food, you might enjoy reading the book just for Vivian’s witty writing all by itself. This cookbook might not be for everyone because each recipe for a flavor hero is a bit of a challenge (maybe except for the R-rated onions). I can’t wait to start using some of the flavor heroes in my everyday cooking. But first, I’m digging out the leftover tuna mixture and will make myself another lunch of crackers with it.

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Recently, I was contacted by one of the authors of this book, Clint Marsh (co-written by Karima Cammell). The book, The Troll Cookbook: A Taste of Something Different: Simple Foods Any Troll Can Make IS definitely different as it says right in the sub-title. Let me just say that from the get-go. When the author contacted me (to see if I’d accept a copy and write about it) he explained a bit about the book. I wasn’t sure that I was the right “market” for the book. I don’t can or preserve foods. I don’t forage for nettles. And I don’t identify in any way with trolls. But he persevered and insisted that I just might be the ideal candidate for reading the book.

Now, I realize, calling this a Troll cookbook is a little bit tongue in cheek – well, that is if you don’t believe in trolls. I do not. But if you’re of the bent that there are trolls out and about, that little wild beasties lurk everywhere, especially at night, then this book might be exactly down your alley! Note, if you can see it, in the bottom right of the cover’s art, there’s a sweet little hedgehog. I think it’s wise they didn’t put any art renderings of trolls on the cover. There are, however, many colorplates in the book, of all types of trolls, mostly sitting around fires or in kitchens, or foraging for things. Which is how the authors bridge the gap between trolls and humans. In the book, they say:

“ . . . Fire – and more specifically the cookfire of the kitchen – is the link which connects trolls and humans. Unlike humans, the trolls have not been led astray by the lure of expedience, nor have they been dazzled by the bright lights of modern technology. . . . they continue to live as they always have, in touch with the realities of the natural world and the rhythms of the year. They practice their magic every day through gathering, combining, and preparing ingredients in intuitive proportions and serving them with appreciation.”

The book contains a myriad of “recipes,”  divided up by seasons, and includes such things as making a composting mixture (I suppose that could be called a recipe?), that are perhaps on the fringes of the cookbook world. But interspersed between such things as stone soup, how to make vinegar and to can capers, prepare dandelion rootbeer, there are other more standard things like coffee can cake, scrapple (my DH loved scrapple, a staple in and around Philadelphia – not me, no thanks), rhubarb bread, garden raid stew, stuffed dates, quince paste, rose hip jam, and dozens and dozens of others. Even bathtub gin. Oh my.

If my DH were still here, he would repeat for me a legendary story about his father, who owned a ship chandlery in Bivalve, New Jersey, during the depression (and during prohibition). This was a man who had his required 2 Manhattans per evening, and that was it but not during those years when no one could actually BUY alcohol. But there were sources, I guess. . .  I don’t want to know about that part.

There were any number of derelicts that frequented the streets (near the store) during that time. Many were sort of acquaintances who were down on their luck. Life was difficult, money was nearly non-existent. The details elude me, but I recall that my DHs father made a “deal” with the derelicts, that if they’d do a whole lot of work around the store (sweeping, cleaning, scrubbing, washing sidewalks and scrubbing the old bathtub at the back of the store until it shone) he’d cook up a batch of bathtub gin for them. Meanwhile, he went home to procure some of the perfume from his wife’s dresser, and it was used to “perfume” the bathtub gin. As my DH told the story, they worked like crazy, he made the gin with the little tiny squirt of perfume; they drank. Since this was during prohibition, bathtub gin was a real novelty and quite a treasure. As the story goes, one of the derelicts had a car, and the next morning he left the store when they’d drunk themselves into somewhat oblivion, and he barfed out the driver’s window. When next he appeared at the old stomping ground on main street, where the barf had dripped down the door, it had completely taken off the paint. No wonder it did something to everyone’s stomach!

So, here, for your reading pleasure, is a recipe – a troll’s recipe – for bathtub gin:

ONE GALLON BATHTUB GIN
Half a gallon of water
1 1/2 ounces sugar
Half a gallon of grain alcohol
1/3 spoonful of juniper oil

Combine and simmer the sugar and 1/2 cup of the water, stirring until all the sugar dissolves. Stir juniper oil into the alcohol in a large cookpot or a [CLEAN, CLEAN] bathtub, then add the rest of the water and the syrup, stirring to combine. If you’re a troll, it’s suggested you can vary the mixture with peppercorns, citrus peels or crushed cardamom pods. Or in my F-I-L’s case, a drop or two of his wife’s perfume.

If any of you are interested in this book, the first person who lives here in the continental U.S. and contacts me and will send me $5 to ship it, I’ll mail it to you. It’s brand new, obviously.

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This isn’t a new photo. You’ve probably seen it more than once over the years, if you’ve been reading my blog since way-back-when. My cookbook shelves look much like that now, except that there are some stacks of recipes and a few narrower cookbooks placed horizontal on top of the stacks. I can’t seem to stop buying cookbooks.

This year I even told my friend Cherrie and my friend Linda – “don’t buy me any cookbooks this year.” It was said in a New Years’ Resolution kind of voice – “I really need to be done with buying more cookbooks.”

Have I been successful with that promise? No. When Ina Garten’s new cookbook appeared at Costco I promptly threw it in with the paper towels, breakfast sausage, boxes of Ziploc plastic bags and a nice big piece of salmon.

Have I cooked from it yet? No. But I wanted it. And Cherrie told me a few weeks later that she’d already bought it for me for Christmas, but she gave it to someone else.

So therefore, I was ever-so pleased to see that there are other people out there who have the kind of gift or curse (whichever your opinion) of collecting cookbooks. I read about Georgeanne Brennan at Eat Your Books, and when I read the blurb, I clicked through to the Sacramento Bee’s article she wrote – about her lifetime of cookbook collecting. She’s never given away or donated a single book in her collection. Ever! In this instance, she was visiting friends in Napa Valley, their home nestled into the vineyards. Oh my mind’s eye could just see it. Can’t you? They had a small barn and it had become the cookbook library. Georgeanne said about her vision:

I’d be thinking white-washed wood plank floors, Persian rugs, floor to ceiling shelves, maybe a book-ladder like the ones that always seem to be in Merchant Ivory films, comfy wingback chairs, plus pools of light cast by old-fashioned standing lamps. I was mentally snuggling down to long hours of reading in a private place . .  .

That quote just grabbed my imagination. But then, I don’t live in Napa Valley. Among the vineyards. I don’t have a barn. I do have an 8×10 Turkish carpet that my DH and I purchased on our trip in 1997. It resides in our front entryway. But that’s about all I have to complete the picture. And, in fact, the barn didn’t turn out to fit her imaginary cookbook description at all. But, it got me to thinking, and wishing I had such a place. I’ve always wanted a home where there was a small reading nook near the kitchen. I’ve seen photos of such homes in magazines. Usually there is a small sofa, or possibly 2 chairs (for sure, wingbacks), and a table, even a coffee table, because when I’m researching a recipe, I need SPACE to spread out several cookbooks. There could be a very small fireplace in there too. And the seating has to be super comfortable, maybe something like chintz. Soft, cuddly where I could nestle in. I have a beautiful kitchen, with a nearby 6-shelf bookcase (above) that houses 3/4 of my collection, and it’s about 15 feet away from the kitchen. There is a window seat nearby – but not an honest-to-goodness kind that allows for leaning against – it’s just for perching and bringing in lots of light. So, there’s no good place to sit next to it, unfortunately. Ah well, in my next life maybe . . .

So I went online to look . . . there’s a photo of one at left. No chairs, soft and pillowy. Alas, no fireplace, either. Found this image at Kalynor.

Then there was another I found at right. That looks a bit more like what I had in mind. But it’s missing the table, and the fireplace. That one doesn’t look like it’s in or near a kitchen, either. Nor does it have reading lamps providing pools of light. But the idea works.

As I said, in my next life . . .

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I can’t believe that I bought yet another cookbook. Geez. I’m hardly cooking these days, but when I read about it online my fingers were just pulled mysteriously to that one-click method on amazon. I pay for amazon prime, so it’s free shipping in 2 days (yes, I know I still pay for it, but I buy a lot of stuff from amazon). Pressed one button and 2 days later it was on my doorstep.

Years ago, when I started watching that years’ The Next Food Network Star, as they introduced Aarti Sequeira, I knew. I just KNEW she’d win. And she did. She has the most infectious smile, and cute way about her. (Did you know that she worked at CNN for a few years?) I’ve been a long time lover of Indian food, and she made it more approachable.  She adapted it to Western tastes. She played with flavors and spices. I faithfully watched her show, Aarti Paarti that was on for a couple of these things they call “seasons.” I mean what’s with this “season” of about 6 or 7, or maybe 8 shows. Not for me to reason why. When her show didn’t come back, well, let’s just say I was sad. But I’d been reading Aarti’s blog for several years, so I knew a bit about what was going on in her life. She never did explain, exactly, why her show didn’t return. I guess when you do get your network-star-show, they don’t renew it. I don’t know that any of the winners have a continuing actual cooking show. Correct me if I’m wrong. But then, we know that most everything on the Food Network is about showmanship and acting anyway. The food is less important.

So, Aarti is married to Bren (he’s in the acting/producing world in Hollywood) whom she met in her first days at Northwestern(journalism major). Aarti grew up in Dubai, although she’s 100% Indian and her family still lives in India. Aarti and Bren now have a baby daughter and while Aarti was pregnant she wrote her cookbook Aarti Paarti: An American Kitchen with an Indian Soul. And what a gem it is. I also love her because she’s an active Christian.

Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) wrote the forward to the book, and as I sat and read that last night, all I could say was that Ree absolutely loves the book. Ree doesn’t (I don’t think) cook Indian food. At least I don’t recall any recipes on her site or show that were Indian in nature. But she says she loves Indian food. However, I’ll tell you, as I began reading through the book (and so enjoying all the stories about Aarti, more details about her growing up, her sisters, her mum, her grandmother, her dad) she became so much more the fun girl next door. I just would love to have her as a friend. I can’t say that about very many food network people, but Aarti? Yes, indeed.

It would take me forever to write down all the recipes I’ve mentally flagged in the book already. I’ve read about 2/3 of the book so far, and I’m in love. Below are a few that rocked my boat and made me wish I could cook all of them today!

Of course, Indian spices feature prominently in nearly every recipe. How could they not. And many of those spices I do have in my kitchen. Maybe not so for everyone, but most are easy enough to find.

Good Girl Granola – the usual kinds of ingredients but with coconut oil added, along with cardamom and garam masala. Also cocoa nibs, cinnamon, maple syrup.

Ketchup Chutney – well, we know Indian cooking often features chutneys, and Aarti’s explanation about her home-made ketchup chutney just made my mouth water. And no, it uses no ready-made bottled ketchup.

Aarti’s “Real-Deal” Hummus – she’s very particular about her hummus. I’ve basically OD’d on hummus (the store bought stuff) in the last year. But her recipe makes me want some – it has a slightly different method of preparation (still using canned beans, though) and a few different ingredients as well. I’ll be making this. Soon.

Chewda – pronounced just like it sounds. It’s an Indian snack and contains cornflakes, rice crispy type cereal, nuts and seeds plus turmeric, curry leaves and golden raisins. Very different.

Lasagna Cupcakes – Aarti says she has a real problem with portion control when it comes to American lasagna, so she decided to make them in individual portions – using won ton skins in a muffin tin with the meat sauce inside, ricotta and topped with cheese. The only Indian thing in this is a little bit of mango chutney added to the ricotta filling.

I’m a sucker for dal (lentils). I gosh-darned love the stuff though I don’t make them very often just cuz they’re so high in carbs. They’re very good for us, you know, but still, they’re high in carbs. My daughter Sara came to visit me last Sunday night and at my request, she made a batch of the Moroccan Harira Chicken Soup that contains garbanzos and lentils. I can’t get enough of that stuff and now I have a bunch of bagged containers in the freezer. Aarti explains in the chapter on lentils and beans, that her Mum’s Everyday Dal was on the dinner table every single day, just as the title explains. Notice the link there –  I made this recipe in 2010 after she prepared it on her TV show.

French Onion Soup – who would think that onion soup could be adapted to be Indian. Why not?And indeed it can be adapted, and it sounds so scrumptious with cinnamon, cardamom and paneer (that’s a cheese that doesn’t melt) croutons. I cannot wait to make this one. Good for freezing for winter dinners.

Tomato Rasam (or Tomato Soup) – made Indian style. Can’t wait to try this one either. It uses pigeon peas (toor dal), cumin, curry leaves, tamarind paste and some yogurt and cilantro for a topping. Oh my that sounds so good. Another one I’ll make in quantity to freeze.

Indo-Chinese Chicken & Corn Soup – did you know that Indian people, in India, are crazy about Chinese food? Yup. So, combining things from an Indian cuisine and something from Chinese is a given. This one, even though it looks creamy, contains no cream, just canned creamed corn. What makes it unique is coriander, bay leaves, anise and fresh ginger.

Dill, Cilantro & Coconut Milk Fish Chowder – Aarti says that her husband has been a big inspiration for recipes – he’s from Maine and asked her to make chowder. So she did, but she used garam masala, ginger, garlic, cumin, turmeric and coconut milk to round it out. She used cod fillets.

Pregnancy Potatoes – reading this recipe had me laughing. Aarti had her fair share of morning sickness (or any-time-of-day sickness) and she said that when it came on, this was what she craved, among other things. It can be a side dish to a dinner, but for her it became a snack. They’re wedged potatoes baked with all kinds of Indian spices on them and could be served any time of day.

Beet(root) Thoran – I can’t say that I buy fresh beets all that often. My darling DH adored them, preferably pickled right out of the can. But once I came into his life in 1981 I wouldn’t let him have those anymore (because they were so full of sugar). One year we raised beets and in order to get me to fix them he had to put on his painting clothes and I required him to wash, roast and then remove all the skin because he got purple juice everywhere. Then I made them in several ways. But anyway, Aarti’s recipe sounds so different – it’s grated raw beets cooked with Indian spices and served with toasted cashews. Sounds divine.

Coleslaw – I never expected to find a recipe for this in her cookbook, but it’s nothing like what you think. It does contain some mayo and yogurt and it uses lime juice, turmeric, garlic, cumin and mustard seeds as well. Also half of a celery root too.

Dal Bukhara – this is a main dish lentil in a curry sauce. The ingredient list is long, but my guess is it would be amazingly flavorful. The spices include coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom pods, chiles and paprika. Another one I want to make soon.

Well, so that’s just a smattering of recipes that appeal to me. And I’m not finished reading the book yet.

Update on me: My foot is still healing – the boot comes off next week, then we’ll see if the cumbersome thing (that feels like a small sack of cement and makes for ever-so difficult walking) on my foot has done any good. I am counting the hours until I get the 2nd cataract surgery done next week so I can SEE better! The last 9 days I have basically stayed home and rested my foot. And I mean rested. I’m going stir crazy, especially without my DH here to keep me company, go shopping or just entertain me. I have gone out of the house just a few times and have tried to walk very, very short distances (Trader Joe’s, the eye doctor’s office). That’s it for now.

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It’s not a new tidbit here, that I love cookbooks. Now, there are collectors, and then there are collectors. I’m just a general all-purpose cookbook collector. I own about 300 or so now, and have given away at least another 150 or more. I tell myself that I do NOT need one single solitary additional cookbook. Ever. But I just can’t seem to help myself. I do occasionally order one because I just have to, that’s all. Others I’ll put onto my wish list at amazon, hoping that family or friends will buy it for me for my birthday or at Christmas.

If you haven’t noticed, cookbooks are one of the hottest selling genre of books these days. Didn’t used to be so. It seems like amazon sends me an email every few days (maybe it’s weekly) telling (touting) 2 or 3 more new cookbooks that I should look at and perhaps buy. There’s probably a special tag in the amazon servers just for me (and others like me) that says “sucker” or “easy” where it comes to buying cookbooks. You think?

The shelves you see at left reside in our family room, right next to the kitchen. Actually I’ve culled some out of that since I took that photo a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I have a sofa-table just a few feet away that is a repository for stacks of stuff. Magazines I haven’t gotten to yet (and have been there for at least a year!), books I’ve pulled out of the shelves above and never re-filed, then I’ve stuffed some other cookbook into it’s slot. The depth on that sofa table is about 16 inches or so. Mostly more cookbooks. People give me books (not always ones that I’ve requested) and they have no home, exactly.

As of a year or so ago I created a cookbook annex up in my office (upstairs). I think I have 3 shelves there, and mostly they are books I don’t refer to for cooking. Most of them are memoirs and some rather esoteric cookbooks that are pretty to look at, but not to cook from.

When we had new carpeting installed underneath the family room shelves a year ago I had to unload that entire shelf system. Oh my gosh was that difficult, time consuming and back breaking. I sorted through the books when I went to return them, and tried my best to group them and I did give away another 20 or so. Problem is that some barbecue books that really belong on the 3rd shelf left had to go on the bottom shelf because they’re tall. Really tall, and they won’t fit anywhere except at the bottom. I’ve considered using a Dewey decimal system, but no, that makes no sense since all the books, just about, are within one small, really narrow group of numbers. Because of the variety of heights, I can’t group all similar genres together.

Some years ago when I subscribed to Eat Your Books, the site that helps you find recipes within your own cookbooks, I entered most of my cookbooks into my own site there. I’ve mentioned it numerous times here, that if I want to find a recipe for chicken and artichokes, for instance, I can go to my site at Eat Your Books and enter those two items and it will give me a long list of the different recipe titles, the book they’re from on my own bookshelves, and the list of main ingredients. I use it all the time. Far better to sit at my computer than to stand in front of that bookcase for 45 minutes hunting. I love that site.

Today I was catching up on my blog reading and really enjoy the varied things I find (read) on the Eat Your Books blog. This one has to do with Anne Willan. She’s the American author, chef, and owner of the La Varenne cooking school in Paris. She and her husband have lived in Paris for a long, long time. If I ever have the inclination, and the time, on some trip to Paris I’m going to sign up for a class.

Anne Willan has just published a new book, a memoir type with recipes: One Soufflé at a Time: A Memoir of Food and France, and I ordered the hard copy just yesterday. Once I’ve read it, I’ll let you know what I think of it. Cookbooks I always order in hard copy; memoirs about cooking as well; nearly everything else goes to my Kindle.

In the meantime, though, I have some other books that require my attention. I’m doing the review in one of my book clubs of The Submission: A Novel. I read it last year and highly recommended it to everyone I met. Because I couldn’t stop talking about it, our selection committee chose it to read in my AAUW book group for 2014, and of course, no one else was willing to do the review, so I’m it. I’m a little intimidated about that because there are some very sensitive religious and ethnic issues in that book, and generally, in that group, anyway, we don’t choose books that have that kind of potential discussion problems. Fortunately for me, Seattle (the city of) selected that book in it’s read-a-book program, and they have a very detailed guide available with discussion questions. So I may be able to use those without having to figure out for myself how to squeeze through a minefield of religious issues to have an open discussion. No one in my group is Muslim, and perhaps I’m overly concerned, but I think it will take a sensitive hand (voice) to keep the discussion from getting out of hand. I’m also supposed to be reading any book by Alice Munro for one of my other book groups, but haven’t even started on that one. My 3rd book group, fortunately, I’ve already read the book. Just today I also ordered 5 more books on my Kindle. Just finished reading  The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice. A novel about 2 young girls sent to a convent in Venice and both become musicians of note. Both are taught by Vivaldi. I’ll be writing that up on my left sidebar in the next day or so.

To get back to the reason I started this post, on the Eat Your Books blog, they discussed a Cookbook Tree of Life that has been created by Anne Willan (the print pictured at left, photo from the La Varenne website). I immediately clicked through to the source article at zester daily, and then further to Anne Willan’s blog post to take a look at it. In a nutshell, Anne laid awake one night thinking about her own family tree (framed copy) in her closet, and began thinking about whether cookbooks, as a collective group, could also have a comparable family tree. She must have spent months researching this, and narrowed the field to the first four cookbooks printed prior to 1500. And then expanded the tree in width and height to reach the breadth of books about 100 years ago. The cookbook tree covers the period of 1674-1861. From what I can see, the 16” x 20” $65 limited edition print would be a keepsake. I’ve thought about ordering one for myself, but I lack wall space anywhere near the kitchen to hang it. Besides, do I need it? No. But do I want it? Yes. But . . . I’ll try not to order it. Perhaps you’d like to, though.

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Having read at more than one website or blog about this book, I decided I did need to read it. The food magazines mostly have given the book high ratings. It’s the memoir of a 30-something woman who hits a crossroads in her life (left her good-paying corporate job) to pursue  her childhood dream of going to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Encouraged by her new boyfriend (now her husband), she packs a minimum of belongings, hops on a plane and starts in the professional course in Paris.

She, this American woman, spoke no French, yet she joined a group of international people with the same aspirations, most of them wanting to be a chef. She aspired to be a food writer or journalist of some kind. The course is the same – learning all those basics of sauces, meats, entrails, pastry, yeast, etc. There’s a bit of catty behavior amongst the adult women (students) which was a little difficult to imagine, yet the school is certainly competitive, so I suppose some people could stoop so low as to take all or most of the necessary ingredients so someone else wouldn’t have any (and thereby score poorly). That seemed to be a repeated event in the book – the sous chefs who prep the food for the students sometimes didn’t have enough of one thing or another (the early birds caught the worm on each occasion, and Kathleen was never the early bird). Sometimes the items were essential. No complaining allowed, though. No histrionics in class, for sure. She had to endure some harsh words many a time.

The book chronicles her couple of years there, interspersed with updates about her romance (he actually lived in Paris with her part of the time), the foibles of the different apartments she/they lived in and the lack of certain things she needs to cook. It’s also about her classmates (who change with each session) and the competitive nature of the school. If the teaching chefs at LCB treated most people the way they treated her, I’d doubt many people would last but a few weeks. She does learn French, discovers that success means mastering some of the recipes in her apartment kitchen, often laboring into the wee hours.

Each chapter ends with a recipe – perhaps modified slightly from the official ones at the school. They’re recipes you’ll find in most French cookbooks. I can’t say that I found any recipe I wanted to rush to the kitchen to prepare. But Le Cordon Bleu teaches almost more about technique than the recipes.

What I came away with was one sure thing: I’d have never survived that culinary school. I’d have been reduced to tears (something that just wasn’t done) on day one or two. Kathleen nearly quit once, but was encouraged to keep going. Part of her problem was the language – in the second and subsequent sessions the classes were taught only in French. She did take French lessons, and eventually she more-or-less mastered it – at least culinary French for sure.

Whether she really was disliked at first by the French teaching chefs, it’s hard to know, but they were very hard on her. It seemed like the chefs didn’t like Americans; English speaking students had to work harder to prove his or her mettle. Kathleen persevered, however, and it seemed that some of the chefs came around. For her final exam she decided to prepare a very grand plate – was advised by the chef not to, that it couldn’t be done in the limited time – she practiced it ad nauseum at home to perfect it and complete it in the time allowed. The chefs were mightily impressed. Perhaps that exam meal was her piece de resistance. At graduation she was offered a plum stage but opted not to do it. In the interim her husband was in a bad accident here in the U.S. and felt he needed her more than a non-paying stageI in a Swiss restaurant. Besides, she never aspired to be a chef.

The book, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School is interesting. Not the kind of book you can’t put down, however. Every student took copious notes (obviously she did that part well) so she had ample material to write a book. There were some funny incidents that gave pause. I particularly enjoyed one thing: the French teaching chefs, in trying to pronounce her name, called her “Meez Fleen.” Every time she wrote that in the book I chuckled.

Her favorite teaching chef said to her as she left school for the last time, “Remember, Meez Fleen, taste, taste, taste.” A good mantra for every cook. It’s something I try to do with everything I make (well, you can’t do it with baked goods). Hence my little silver Mint Julep cup of tasting spoons that sits beside my kitchen stove. (And, the muse for my blog’s name, obviously!

If you’re new to my blog, those spoons (and a few forks) pictured at left are very old silver plated ones that belonged to Dave’s mother. Some are engraved, some with initials we don’t even recognize as part of the family tree. Some need replating, and we do have to polish them periodically. But, rather than let them sit in the silverware box in a drawer, rarely seeing the light of day, I pulled them out some years ago. They’re a variety of styles, all thinly shaped and small, which makes them just perfect for tasting as I cook. I like to think that Dave’s mother smiles every time I reach for one, which is often. I hope the chef at Le Cordon Bleu would also smile in approval.

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Having never heard of “The Cookbook MANifesto,” I was intrigued when I read about it on the Eat Your Books blog. It makes perfect sense to me:

• Don’t buy a cookbook because everyone else has it.
• Just because someone can act or sing, doesn’t mean they can write a cookbook.
• If there are tons of ingredients you cannot pronounce, move along.
• You should love the images.
• If it makes you drool, that’s a good sign.
• You should be able to actually make the recipes inside.
• As a rule, you may make 6 – 8 recipes out of any given book, so see if you can find those first.

That’s just the BUYING part of the manifesto. There’s more about the using of cookbooks, and also about creating them. Click on over if you want to know more.

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So it is, each year somebody writes up a collective essay about the cookbooks from last year. This one about 2012. I read about it over at Eat Your Books (on their blog). The folks over at EYB write up frequent posts (and you don’t have to have an EYB account in order to follow their blog), always interesting, and this one particularly so. Since I assume you, my readers, are just like me, I keep saying I’m not going to buy any more cookbooks, and then something comes along that woos me to break that promise to myself. And since I have an amazon prime account (no shipping fees for most of their products), I convince myself that I’m saving money. (Sure!)

In addition to telling me about what cookbooks were the most popular sellers last year, they also quote some statistics about the buyers of cookbooks (more men? or women? what ages?) and this article also provided their take on cookbook trends. Their blog post was based on statistics in an article by PW, Publishers Weekly, but EYB just condensed it to the most important facts. So what did it have to say?

You probably already heard that Jerusalem: A Cookbook (above photo) won the IACP award for 2012. I’d read many blogs and magazine articles touting the recipes in the cookbook during the year, so I gave in and bought that a couple of months ago. So far I’ve not made anything from it, and I stuck the book on my bookshelf when we were entertaining recently, and intend to dig it out again and continue reading through it.

The TRENDS:

• Vegetarianism is ever-more popular.
• Middle Eastern cooking is the “it” cuisine at the moment. And it’s increasing.
• We are developing a greater respect for ingredients. We want to know where our food products come from and how it/they were raised so we can make a conscious decision about whether to buy.

And who buys cookbooks? The graphic at right I found at the Publisher’s Weekly website. You can (hopefully) read the fine print – 30-44 year olds buy more cookbooks than others. I thought it interesting that 13-17 year olds buy 3%. How about that? 69% of cookbooks are purchased by women (not surprising), although I suspect male buyers are increasing. I happen to love watching HGTV’s House Hunters and House Hunters International, and I would say that for at least 3 out of every 10 home buyers, men are the ones interested in having  a nice, big, updated kitchen because they do the cooking in the family.

Cookbook are certainly popular, and ever more so with each passing year. Here are the winners for 2012:

1. Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust , Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, 428,105

2. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier , (her 2nd book) Ree Drummond, William Morrow, 267,909

3. In the Kitchen with David: QVC’s Resident Foodie Presents Comfort Foods That Take You Home, David Venable, Ballantine, 264,953

4. Eat More of What You Love: Over 200 Brand-New Recipes Low in Sugar, Fat, and Calories, Marlene Koch, Running Press, 132,796 (a friend told me about this one – it’s a book that is often recommended through Weight Watchers because it shows WW points, although it is not sponsored by WW)

5. Great Food Fast (Best of the Best Presents) Bob Warden’s Ultimate Pressure Cooker Recipes, Bob Warden, Quail Ridge, 122,665

6. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, Deb Perelman, Knopf, 114,547

7. The Chew: Food. Life. Fun., Peter Kaminsky, Hyperion, 109,020

8. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl (her original cookbook), Ree Drummond, William Morrow, 103,751

9. Weeknights with Giada: Quick and Simple Recipes to Revamp Dinner, Giada de Laurentiis, Clarkson Potter, 95,040

10. Hungry Girl to the Max!: The Ultimate Guilt-Free Cookbook, Lisa Lillien, St. Martin’s Griffin, 86,656

Want to know about hardcover, vs. paperback, vs. e-books? Hardcover cookbooks still outsell all others, but as a portion of total unit sales, hardcovers dropped from 49% in 2011 to 42% in 2012. And e-book sales more than doubled, up from 9% to 22%. I don’t know about you, but I still prefer a hard cover cookbook to an e-cookbook. Obviously, I’m contrary to the trend, though.

The article talked some about how much the Food Network influences our cookbook buying, and never let it be said that any one of the stars on FN (or the Cooking Channel, for that matter) passed up an opportunity to monetize their shows. Hence new cookbooks appear on a regular basis. One of the newest ones to join the ranks is Mario Batali’s two sons (ages 16 and 14) who just published their own cookbook based on recipes they made themselves (apparently) and presented in a hand-made form to their dad on his 50th birthday. I won’t be buying it, but it’s a cute idea – The Batali Brothers Cookbook. It would make a cute gift for a teenage son or grandson.

FYI: I have an amazon associates account, and if you happen to buy a cookbook through any of the links above, I get a few pennies.

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