A Reader’s Cookbook
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
This generous and handsome book—larded with delightful literary quotes about food—offers hungry readers a recipe to match almost any literary setting, utopia or dystopia included.
Judith Choate reads almost as much as she cooks—and that’s saying something. Here she offers readers—solo or as book group members—a way to amplify their understanding of the culture of a novel, memoir or poem.
Her recipes appeal to multiple senses and are easy to make. Some are aimed at teatime while others are for cocktail hour. Many are for transportable dishes, truly intended to be part of a moveable feast.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Choate, co-author of New American Classics and the French Culinary Institute's Fundamental Techniques of Classic Cuisine and Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts (a James Beard award-winner), dumbs it down way down in this rote collection of regional recipes. Geared toward book clubs, Choate organizes her recipes by region, allowing clubs to create menus based on a book's setting or author's homeland. Recipes are scaled to accommodate large groups, enabling book-lovers to make enough Stuffed Mushrooms or Boston Baked Beans to feed an army, and enough of the Southern sweet Bourbon Balls to stock a store. Most of her American fare is as predictable as it is pedestrian (Buffalo Chicken Wings are par for the course), though the occasional international recipe surprises: Feijoada, a meaty Brazilian stew, perfect Turkish coffee, and the Russian drink Kvas lend an air of authenticity to clubs working their way through Anna Karenina. But not even a bottomless glass of Southwest Margaritas (serves 12) can save the book; its cheap layout, seemingly random quotes from famous authors, and the inclusion of dishes as basic as Deviled Eggs make this an easy one to skip.
