On 12/10/2022 at 12:35 PM, Anna N said:I am by no means a beginner cook, but physical challenges put me back into the “it’s got to be fast and easy” camp.
Not sure how you feel about Melissa Clark or if you've seen her new book, Dinner in One (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)? This was last month's cookbook club book. I'd pre-ordered the book but it didn't click with me and I only cooked a few recipes but there were others in the group who were delighted with it for ease in getting meals on the table with minimal fuss, though most allowed that they'd needed to tweak the recipes to add flavor. In her interview on the Salt & Spine podcast, Melissa described carefully combing through each recipe to make sure every nonessential ingredient, bowl, pan, step and transfer had been eliminated. Seemed to me that process kind of sucked the life out of the recipes. Maybe it was because this book followed Falastin in our lineup. That one has all sorts of little flourishes that make the recipes special. On the other hand, Ali Slagle's I Dream of Dinner is even more minimal than Dinner in One and I love that one. I decided the Melissa Clark books, Dinner, Dinner in an Instant and Comfort in an Instant give me a good sampling of her simple recipes and I've also got her Dinner in French and In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite so I'm going to let this one go.
On a completely different tangent, I'm reading and enjoying another 2022 release: Jeremy Lee's Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many. That's an Amazon UK link as it offers a "Look Inside" sample. I ordered my copy from Blackwells after reading this interview with Mr. Lee that Russ Parsons wrote: Jeremy Lee: ‘I want to encourage people to go into the kitchen and in half an hour make something absolutely delicious’.
Edited to add - Here's a little quote from the introduction of the book that I liked:
I don't see a pub date yet for a US or Canadian edition and I'm not sure how it would fly with the US cookbook buyers who want brilliantly colored and styled photos of each dish. This book is largely illustrated with pen and ink drawings, which I find charming. Actual photographs are few and far between and most look like completely unstyled snapshots taken of a pot or plate on a drizzly day. Each chapter begins with an essay (which may be long or short), followed by a recipe or six. This makes for great reading as you can easily sit down and treat yourself to a chapter and get a bit of writing and a bit of cooking. The chapters are organized alphabetically, which means more or less randomly: Chard is followed by Chocolate and then Equipment. Aside from the chapter title page drawing, the only illustration in the Equipment chapter is a photo of crock full of wooden spoons. Speaking of spoons, metric measurements are standard here, aside from "soup spoons" which he uses quite a lot. I haven't cooked anything from the book yet. The griddled chicken livers, bacon and sage (half a strip of bacon topped with a sage leaf and piece of chicken liver, skewered and grilled, then brushed with olive oil & red wine vinegar) are first on my list.
I've got another pile of 2022 releases that I've barely looked at so I am banned from purchasing any more until I make some major progress. If anyone wants to hear about any of these, let me know and it will give me a place to start.
And yes, I know I have a problem 🙃
