Heritage
By Sean Brock
When You’re in the Mood For: Low-Country Southern food, refined.
For Fans Of: Leah Chase, John Besh, Hugh Acheson.
The Centerpiece: Chicken Simply Roasted in a Skillet (p. 109).
Level of Difficulty: The most skilled of skilled home cooks.
Dinner Party or Home Alone: These dishes deserve to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.
Dog-eared Pages: Every. Single. One.
Chef’s Notes: With each passing moment, we become more dependent on artificial means to advance our lives. More technology, however, means less nature. And as we become less inclined to be in touch with nature, we lose our culinary heritage. Sean Brock,* on the other hand, is doing whatever he can to preserve our country’s rich food history. Brock, the James Beard Award–winning chef of the restaurant Husk (found in Charleston and Nashville) is one of the true American heroes reclaiming our food daily and bringing it back to its natural roots. Brock’s passionate yet focused cookbook, Heritage, is a marvelous manifesto — literally: Brock includes a two-page list that reads like the Ten Commandments of cooking — that invites everyone, regardless of skill level, to learn the true roots of Low-Country cuisine and to challenge themselves in the kitchen. Brock expects a lot from us: namely, to source the best heirloom ingredients possible. He praises the great Benne grain (a superior cousin of sesame), details the commitment of North Carolina seafood maven “Clammer Dave” Belanger, and laments the scarcity of the black walnut. This kind of deep involvement with food is inspirational: you find yourself wanting to rise to Brock’s challenge. He develops exciting recipes, like Lobster with Parsnip Puree, Leeks Braised with Orange and Vadouvan Jus (p. 182), and Chewy Benton’s Bacon Caramels (p. 303). They may be complicated, but with a careful hand, each can be executed by a seasoned cook. Beginners might struggle, but have no fear: Brock includes instructional guides that are written with a clear and concise voice. This tough-but-firm approach allows the novice cook to gain confidence in her skills while creating dishes that will leave guests in awe. Brock wants to lead a revolution, and he is looking for fellow cooks to fight alongside him. After reading this book, I think you’ll join his cause.
*On the PBS show The Mind of a Chef, Brock is featured on Season 2, traveling to West Africa to find the roots and influences of southern cuisine. If you haven’t watched it, you should.
Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes
By Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns
When You’re in the Mood For: Eastern European meets Asian.
For Fans Of: Thomas McNaughton, Renee Erickson, Elisabeth M. Prueiit, and Chad Robertson.
The Centerpiece: Chapter 1, in its entirety.
Level of Difficulty: Skilled home cooks with a lot of time on their hands.
Dinner Party or Home Alone: Dinner party, canning party, meat curing party.
Dog-eared Pages: Pp. 34–39, Alliums; pp. 61–63, Dried Meat and Fish; pp. 87–94, Oils and Animal Fats; pp. 162–65, Warm Beet Soup with Smoked Brisket and Brussels Kraut; pp. 302–3, Rooster Boil; pp. 346–47, Steamed Parsnip Cake w/ Cider, Kefir, Honey, and Bee Pollen.
Chef’s Notes: The resurgence of the home food preservation movement has an inevitable quality to it. After terms like “farm to table,” “C.S.A.,” and “grass fed beef” became apart of our daily vernacular, it was only a matter of time before drying, pickling, curing, and other culinary techniques made their way from your local farm stand or restaurant into home kitchens all across America. These high quality ingredients cost more, and most people want to make them last as long as possible. However, if proper care is not taken, the results can be awful, not to mention dangerous. Which is why Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns’s cookbook, Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes, is such an important book for the movement. Balla and Burns, who run the kitchen at San Francisco’s Bar Tartine, have a vast knowledge of preservation techniques that they have learned over the course of their world travels and culinary careers. They have taken that knowledge and created one fantastic textbook for food preservation. Broken up into two parts, the book allows for a cook of any skill level to comfortably and safely learn the fine art of preservation. The first part is dedicated completely to the science and technical aspects. There are tons of beautiful pictures paired to each technique taught, almost like a step-by-step guide. The text is a little dense: understandably so, considering how much time, effort, and care is needed for food preservation. Be forewarned, careful reading is extremely important, especially for people new to preservation. For instance, Balla and Burns talk about very different techniques of drying, how to properly store dried items, how to process them into powders and toast them for other culinary uses. The duo likewise go into great detail about how to dry all types of ingredients, such as flowers, peppers, and meats. There is so much information being dispersed, a cook of any skill level would want to take notes and have a highlighter handy. But by forcing the reader to pay such close attention to details in the first part of the book, the authors set up the reader to be extremely engaged with the fun, innovative, and just plain delicious recipes in the second part of the book. The names alone entice: Persimmon Salad with Honey and Black Walnuts (p. 204), Smoked Potatoes with Ramp Mayonnaise (pp. 226–28), and Preserved Rainbow Trout with Greens and Mushrooms (pp. 258–61). These two parts also work hand-in-hand like a textbook. First comes the information you need to learn, followed by the recipes, which serves as a kind end-of-the-chapter assessment: a delicious quiz, if you will. Balla and Burns pair the preserved food with bright bouts of fresh ingredients and unique flavor combinations, and the results are nothing short of stunning. So make room to dry some herbs, cure some meat, and pickle some vegetables. You’ve got a lot of studying to do.
Make It Ahead
By Ina Garten
When You’re in the Mood For: Fancy meals from your favorite Fabulous Aunt.
For Fans Of: Martha Stewart, Julia Child.
The Centerpiece: Moroccan Lamb Tagine (p. 111).
Level of Difficulty: Home cooks of all skill levels.
Dinner Party or Home Alone: While the book was designed with entertaining in mind, most of these recipes would work better for a quiet night in after a busy day.
Dog-eared Pages: Pp. 32–33, Truffled Chicken Liver Mousse; p. 54, Cauliflower and Celery Root Soup; pp. 85–86, Zucchini and Goat Cheese Tart; p. 161, Pear and Parsnip Gratin; p. 225, Make-Ahead Zabaglione with Amaretti.
Chef’s Notes: TV chefs and cooks often get a bad rap — and a lot of them deserve it. For every Julia Child, there are thirty-seven Rachael Rays. It’s not that they don’t know food: it’s that most become more interested in building their brand and less about building cohesive dishes. So when a culinary personality impresses me onscreen, I always become very protective of them. In my opinion, the best TV chef of the past ten years is Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa. She has an air of intelligence and sophistication rarely found since the inception of the Food Network — and her food is as sublime as her personality. Garten appeals to a rather interesting niche of people, predominately made up of busy women dreaming of dinner parties in the Hamptons, and gay men everywhere (including yours truly). So it pains me to write that this book is, overall, not all that successful. In Make It Ahead, Garten attempts to appeal directly to that busy woman. The recipes were designed to be simple but delish meals one can prepare a day or two in advance. The fault is not in the individual recipes themselves. The dishes developed here are much in line with the tasty food that Garten produces on her show. Dishes like Tomato Mozzarella Pan Bagnat (p. 82), Rosemary Rack of Lamb with Easy Tzatziki (pp. 120–22), and Fresh Blueberry Pie (p. 205) all have that air of simplified elegance that has come to define Garten’s food. I believe Garten worked hard and long on creating the recipes. But after that — and I say this with the belief that she was either too busy with other fabulous food projects or spending precious time with husband and Contessa co-star Jeffrey — she left the completion of the cookbook’s design and organization in someone else’s hands. For example, there are full pages devoted to photos of her backyard and living room rather than to food. A section titled “Cocktails” is mostly devoted to appetizers. And I can’t for any reason think why somebody thought to include a dog bone as the first recipe in the book. These missteps are almost fatally distracting. All this is a shame, because Make It Ahead’s recipes are in fact well organized, easy to follow and recreate, and, most important, come with solid advance-prep guidelines. One could effectively cook wonderful dinners for friends even with a packed schedule. Not only that, there are some genuinely great tips and asides that remind us of the effortless charm and class that Garten exudes on her show and makes her fans (again, me) dream of spending an afternoon in her kitchen, drinking cocktails and making noshes together. Garten creates recipes where it is easy to make it ahead. I just wish she followed through better.