#2. the cover of my book is different and it’s ‘100 recipes’ and not ‘120 recipes’..the cover in this blog is a mock up, perhaps?

I can remember someone suggesting a book when I was in school that sounds a lot like the one you’re reading. I never got the book.

What I did do is apply the skills I picked up in my wine classes to food. Its not foolproof but its definitely a quick way to make an assessment of whether or not something will work.

Take 2 foods/spices/ingredients you want to combine. Actually chew 1 but inhale the scent of the other. Technically you’re tasting both of them on your palate. You can try the same chewed ingredient against a whole slew of other things very quickly that way.

Or chew 2 things and smell 1 – you get the idea. Its a very simple shortcut. It also helps me speed up wine selections for a particular dish, too. Of course, sometimes wines smell totally different from how they taste, but that’s another topic altogether……

It’s important to recognize the components of taste in a cuisine and also the ingredients and textures that are compatible.

This will help me a lot to define and organize my kitchen and my cuisine.

I think Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill Cookbook is great in that respect. Because Flay Lists the goto southwestern ingredients in his cuisine. Flay DIFFERENTIATED his food from others in this way. This is the key to consistency and efficiency.

Broccoli Rabe with Orecchiette should be simple until you make the little ears from scratch. Then it becomes difficult and a masterpiece at the same time.

I’ll turn on Sandra Lee if I want to make simple stuff.

I agree with Jennie above.

I also believe in knowing the fundamentals, and at least acquainting oneself with the classics.

If all else fails, using my nose and sense of taste to recreate any dish over which I have swooned either made by a friend or relative, or enjoyed in a restaurant.

It works if you know the basics, use quality ingredients and follow your “gusto.”

So why have I been guilty of purchasing those sorts books? Gullible, gullible, gullible!

They did lead me back to what I have always known.

That said, I do believe there could be a culinary equivalent to “absolute pitch” in music for cookery.

Those who are just born great chefs who can turn ingredients into culinary symphonies naturally with no training.

Most chefs relate their years of apprenticeship and experience to achieving greatness.

Possible interesting topic for this blog.

-Wilmita

Ducasse has many, many long and rather scholarly cookbooks out. His thoughts on food are as well-recorded as those of any chef in the history of cuisine. But as you know, his food is revolutionary not in its unusual combinations or new techniques, but in its exquisite attention to detail, something that can easily be communicated to even the most novice of cooks. Out of his thousands of published recipes, it is not far-fetched to imagine that there would be at least a hundred or so easily adapted to the needs of the modest home kitchen.

And I have to admit that Claudia’s comment about a recommended box stock had me chortling.

But I wonder in all the proffesional cooking books and textbooks you collect if someone hasn’t really developed this theme.

Not from a Kafka or a Chesman perspective (let’s cook what’s in season,recipes) but more from a Karen Page Flavor Bible (flavors that work together,no recipes) empowering point of view?. How do I know which veggies cook well or taste welll with others? Other than experience and trial and error?

There is a 6 in that list. Its – please proceed to #7.

Okay – I’ll bite!

I’ll go with -

1. Choose what’s in season
2. Never overcook (mushy means you killed it and its no longer a veg)
3. Cut them to equal sizes so they’ll all cook evenly
4. Shock them to prevent carryover heat from overcooking them
5. 15 vegetables and 6 different herbs in a veggie salad is too many flavors and won’t taste good (I actually know a caterer who did that). It was awful. Less is more.
7. Multicolored veggies = good. Monochromatic veggies = bad.

What are the rules for combining vegetables in a dish??????
Can you answer that question for me?

I want “quick and easy” in a woman, not my food.

I agree with you, that sometimes… OK, a lot of times… cookbooks should be read like books. I love ‘em that way. It’s a great way to find out someone else’s point of view, learn about another part of the world. But, if that’s the case, I want the real McCoy to be the one doing the writing, not someone giving me an interpretation of the real McCoy’s cooking. I spend plenty over at Jessica’s Biscuit (ecookbooks.com), I don’t need to waste my money on a knock-off.