Weir Cooking in the City
More than 125 Recipes and Inspiring Ideas for Relaxed Entertaining
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Chef and teacher Joanne Weir brings every city to life as she takes readers and home cooks into our nation’s ethnically diverse and vibrant culinary and cultural urban landscape.
The American city food scene is thriving. In urban neighborhoods across the country you can find intriguing restaurants, ethnic and farmers’ markets, and artisanal breads and cheeses. Using her adopted city of San Francisco as a guide, Joanne invites readers to search their own cities for the incredible tastes they will find there, showing them where to source top-quality ingredients and how to re-create delicious local flavors at home.
With chapters on Firsts, Soups, Mains, and Desserts, Weir includes more than 125 vividly flavored, inventive recipes—from Parmesan Flan to Silver-Roasted Salmon with Sweet-Hot Relish to Double Chocolate Ice Cream with Dried Cherries—created with urban cooks in mind: those cooks with not enough time and too little space, but an appetite for creating memorable meals and social gatherings. Accompanied by wine suggestions from wine expert Tim McDonald and filled with mouth-watering photographs, Weir Cooking in the City is the ideal guide to effortless entertaining. From creating a dinner party of small plates to a simple but sophisticated post-theater meal, from bustling neighborhood markets to Joanne’s welcoming kitchen, this excursion into city cuisine will inspire home chefs everywhere to explore the unique styles and flavors of urban cooking.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This collection of Asian- and Mediterranean-influenced dishes from celebrated cooking teacher Weir (Joanne Weir's More Cooking in the Wine Country, etc.) succeeds on many levels. The recipes are solidly written; the dishes are appealing and flavorful. As Weir explains, "That range of possibility is so incredibly interesting to me and may be at the heart of why I love to be in the city, cooking and eating city food." She offers such recipes as Spicy Bulgur and Lentil Salad and Shanghai Noodles with Chicken, Cashews, Cilantro, and Mint, as well as Croutons with Tapenade, Orange and Fennel, and Autumn Cheddar, Apple, and Walnut Salad. Weir makes a valiant effort to develop the city theme by including quotes from the famous about cities, with a particular emphasis on her home, San Francisco. (Quotes such as Norman Mailer's "Chicago is a great American city," however, feel more like padding than insight.) And many headnotes refer back to urban living, like the one that introduces Grilled Squid Salad with Winter Citrus and extols indoor grilling. However, this loosely bound collection of modern dishes feels unfocused in the aggregate, and it's surprising to see such a practiced author playing fast and loose with language: a "Tuscany by Candlelight" menu consists of Bagna Cauda (from Piedmont), Prosciutto, Parmigiano, and Pepper Breadsticks (with main ingredients from Emilia-Romagna), Golden-Saut ed Veal with Arugula and Tomato Salad (from Milan, Lombardy's capital) and Warm Polenta Custard with Grappa-Soaked Golden Raisins (relying on ingredients from Friuli).