I love Christmas. Let’s face it, who doesn’t love presents? With family in Texas and Boston, exchanging Christmas presents means sending them through the mail. Oh how I look forward to those packages! After they arrive, I have the added excitement of opening the box and taking each gift out one by one. This is where it gets really good. By this time in my life, I know what a book feels like. I also know that my family doesn’t just send any ol’ books, they send cookbooks. For the next however many days until Christmas arrives, I’ll have to wonder which book they found that they thought I would like. This year I got 4 cookbooks! From my husband, I got Fine Cooking Appetizers: 200 Recipes for Small Bites with Big Flavor, which I’m sure was meant for me and not for me for him… From my sister, I received Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu which is a Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2012: USA Winner, Best Japanese Cuisine Book. This is a book I will read cover to cover. My sister is well aware of my affinity for Japanese cuisine. Rarely a week goes by when I don’t think about EN in NYC or breakfast at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. Japanese Farm Food provides a glimpse into rural farm food and making delicious recipes based on what’s produced. The official Amazon description is, “Japanese Farm Food offers a unique look into life on a Japanese farm through 135 simple, clear-flavored recipes along with personal stories and over 100 stunning photographs. It is a book about love, community, and life in rural Japan.” The pictures are beautiful and the recipes do not look difficult at all. It is next on my reading list. My current cookbook read is one of the two books I received from my Aunt. I’ll start with the 2nd which is the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman. As expected from this famed food blogger, the book is full of beautiful pictures and home cook friendly recipes. There are also stories to go along with the recipes. This is another book that I will want to read cover to cover. And finally onto my current read which I have just about finished.
That read is the I Hate to Cook Book: 50th Anniversary Edition by Peg Bracken with a forward by her daughter Jo Bracken. How could I not start reading this book first? This book is for everyone – from those who love to cook to those who hate to cook. It.is.HI-larious! The book is composed of recipes from a group of women who would rather be drinking martinis then cooking. As you can imagine, the recipes are short, sweet, and easy. The first chapter has 30 recipes, one for every day of the month (except those months that have 31 days in which case, go out and eat) so that you don’t get bored making the same 7 recipes over and over. I’m definitely going to try some of these. I’ll let you know upfront, I have never seen so many uses for canned vegetables in my life. In fact, in one of the recipes there’s mention of canned lunch meat. Canned lunch meat? SPAM? Anyway, besides the fact that the author has amusing introductions to the chapters and some funny snippets with different recipes, it’s a fun window into history. Before the TV show Mad Men, I really did buy into the whole 50s housewife image. Having never really talked to my grandmother about what she did in the 50s as a housewife, I had only Leave It To Beaver reruns and old ads to go off of. Mad Men cleared things up a bit and this book continues the education. Not all women spent all day in the kitchen. Some of them had lives! Fun ones with cocktails! I digress, let’s just say I’ve laughed out loud at some of the writing. I may need to serve some recipes with a fresh salad or vegetables not out of a can, but that’s to be determined. I am very excited to see how these turn out. And hey, if they’re horrible, there’s always pizza. Stand by…
I grew up on that one (Wooky cookies!); it’s so funny to read, regardless of the value of the recipes. I’m pretty sure my mother makes a few recipes from it, too.