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Go
ahead and freeze the peaches, puree your red-ripe tomatoes, and dry out your
fresh basil, rosemary, and tarragon. Pull the stock pot off the top shelf, and
winterize your outdoor grill. Then, purchase a copy of The Rustic Table
and you are set to move from light salads to hearty soups and breads for the
cooler and colder months ahead.
Open this lovely book to any page and you will find a recipe with simple
ingredients combined just right to make a hearty and healthy meal that will
please any palate and can translate to any world cuisine. Each recipe is
introduced with background and ethnic information. (For also recommending what
to serve with each offering, the author gets bonus points galore.) Go through
any of the recipes just once, and you will receive a brief culinary education, a
menu, and instructions for storing what’s left.
Because we are all such foodies and could look down on a simple recipe for a
pot-o-beans, Ms. Snow spices up each recipe, bringing it up to speed for today’s
discriminating consumers, not so that you have to go all over town for
ingredients, but so that you are truly not making a simple pot-o-beans. For
example, the Lentil Soup, Eight Ways shows how to make this inexpensive and
nutritious mainstay as a Greek, Indian, Sephardic, Sicilian, French,
Southwestern, or Dutch entrée. Carnivores can add lamb shanks or a ham bone!
This month, our wonderful café will feature such dishes as Sicilian Lentil Soup,
Belgian Beef Stew with Ale, and Santa Fe Pork and Green Chili Stew. I just had a
Greek clove cookie, which is today’s sample. What a fine and rustic cookie it
was. You need to try one.
Constance Snow is the author of Gulf Coast Kitchens, which won the IACP
Cookbook Award, and she writes for a variety of magazines. Since 1995, she has
written two weekly cooking columns for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The dust jacket says she lives in New Orleans. My heart goes out to her.
Review by Sarah Bagby, Watermark groupie since 1978. See what else she's
reading: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/sarahbagby.html
September 1, 2005 |
