Sharon R. (hazeleyes) reviewed The Gourmet Garage Cookbook: 185 Recipes Using Fresh and Exciting Ingredients from Around the World on + 331 more book reviews
4-star customer review at amazon:
Excellent!, June 13, 2000
By Dave Reap (Vacaville, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Gourmet Garage Cookbook: 200 Everyday Recipes Using Fresh and Exotic Ingredients from Around the World (Hardcover)
This is a must have reference book for all cooks. It will not teach you how to cook, but for amatuer, budding, or professional cooks, it provides valuable information that you may not have thought about, or long ago forgot. I didn't understand the title until I opened the book, then it was like cleaning out the garage and finding old forgotten treasures! I rank it with "The Joy of Cooking" and LaRousse's "Gastonimique".
Editorial Reviews (amazon)
Amazon.com Review
There are 185 recipes in Sheryl and Mel London's Gourmet Garage Cookbook, a text that runs close to 500 pages. This should tell you that the authors have a lot to say between recipes. And what they write about is food, from both the cook's and the food shopper's perspective. New York City's Gourmet Garage, offering at bargain prices food products of a kind and quality only found in the best restaurant kitchens, is their inspiration.
The Londons organize their book as though they are pushing a shopping cart down one aisle of Gourmet Garage and then up another. First to appear is garlic, then onions, leeks, shallots, scallions, and ramps. Last to appear is bread. In between you'll find chapters devoted to leafy greens, root vegetables, mushrooms, squash, tomatoes, salad, dried beans, pasta, shellfish, meat, apples, berries, nuts, cheese, caviar, and smoked fish. Each chapter opens with brief notes about the product at hand. In the chapter "Demystifying the Unfamiliar Vegetables," for example, the authors include notes about jicama, salsify, sunchokes, cardoon, okra, and burdock root. These notes not only explain a little of the natural history of each plant, but also how to prep and cook them. In the Shop Smart sections the authors explain what to look for and how to buy the best representatives of any product. And then the recipes. In the case of the "Unfamiliar Vegetables" chapter, there are seven recipes that range from Jicama Salad with Blood Oranges and Mizuna to Beef with Burdock and Shiitake Mushrooms, Japanese Style.
Obviously, you won't find a Gourmet Garage everywhere you go. But it hardly matters. An exciting variety of food products can be found in markets throughout the U.S. The Gourmet Garage Cookbook is a road atlas to the best of what's available. More than a cookbook, it's a cook's resource. --Schuyler Ingle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
This excellent cookbook makes use of today's most timely ingredients in interesting ways. What it doesn't do is draw any more than a tenuous connection between itself and Gourmet Garage, the upscale grocer currently expanding in New York City. Admittedly, readers are likely to find most of the ingredients there, but you can find the makings for Avocado, Fennel, and Anchovy Salad with a Tomato Olive Vinaigrette or Garnet Yams with Pears, Dried Figs, and Crystallized Ginger in almost any gourmet store. The Londons, who are documentary filmmakers as well as the authors of A Seafood Celebration, organize dishes by main ingredients--following a grocery-store scheme--so that Double Citrus Squid and Monkfish Salad with Celery and Parsley appears in a chapter on seafood, while Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup with Madeira is featured in one on grains. Good use is made of ethnic flavors, whether in traditional form (Beef with Burdock and Shiitake Mushrooms, Japanese Style) or in more fused creations (Kohlrabi with Pancetta, Carrot and Onion). General information at the start of each chapter is solid and voluminous; a chapter on salads lists types of oils, tips for buying fresh lettuce, varieties of lettuce and more. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc
Excellent!, June 13, 2000
By Dave Reap (Vacaville, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Gourmet Garage Cookbook: 200 Everyday Recipes Using Fresh and Exotic Ingredients from Around the World (Hardcover)
This is a must have reference book for all cooks. It will not teach you how to cook, but for amatuer, budding, or professional cooks, it provides valuable information that you may not have thought about, or long ago forgot. I didn't understand the title until I opened the book, then it was like cleaning out the garage and finding old forgotten treasures! I rank it with "The Joy of Cooking" and LaRousse's "Gastonimique".
Editorial Reviews (amazon)
Amazon.com Review
There are 185 recipes in Sheryl and Mel London's Gourmet Garage Cookbook, a text that runs close to 500 pages. This should tell you that the authors have a lot to say between recipes. And what they write about is food, from both the cook's and the food shopper's perspective. New York City's Gourmet Garage, offering at bargain prices food products of a kind and quality only found in the best restaurant kitchens, is their inspiration.
The Londons organize their book as though they are pushing a shopping cart down one aisle of Gourmet Garage and then up another. First to appear is garlic, then onions, leeks, shallots, scallions, and ramps. Last to appear is bread. In between you'll find chapters devoted to leafy greens, root vegetables, mushrooms, squash, tomatoes, salad, dried beans, pasta, shellfish, meat, apples, berries, nuts, cheese, caviar, and smoked fish. Each chapter opens with brief notes about the product at hand. In the chapter "Demystifying the Unfamiliar Vegetables," for example, the authors include notes about jicama, salsify, sunchokes, cardoon, okra, and burdock root. These notes not only explain a little of the natural history of each plant, but also how to prep and cook them. In the Shop Smart sections the authors explain what to look for and how to buy the best representatives of any product. And then the recipes. In the case of the "Unfamiliar Vegetables" chapter, there are seven recipes that range from Jicama Salad with Blood Oranges and Mizuna to Beef with Burdock and Shiitake Mushrooms, Japanese Style.
Obviously, you won't find a Gourmet Garage everywhere you go. But it hardly matters. An exciting variety of food products can be found in markets throughout the U.S. The Gourmet Garage Cookbook is a road atlas to the best of what's available. More than a cookbook, it's a cook's resource. --Schuyler Ingle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
This excellent cookbook makes use of today's most timely ingredients in interesting ways. What it doesn't do is draw any more than a tenuous connection between itself and Gourmet Garage, the upscale grocer currently expanding in New York City. Admittedly, readers are likely to find most of the ingredients there, but you can find the makings for Avocado, Fennel, and Anchovy Salad with a Tomato Olive Vinaigrette or Garnet Yams with Pears, Dried Figs, and Crystallized Ginger in almost any gourmet store. The Londons, who are documentary filmmakers as well as the authors of A Seafood Celebration, organize dishes by main ingredients--following a grocery-store scheme--so that Double Citrus Squid and Monkfish Salad with Celery and Parsley appears in a chapter on seafood, while Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup with Madeira is featured in one on grains. Good use is made of ethnic flavors, whether in traditional form (Beef with Burdock and Shiitake Mushrooms, Japanese Style) or in more fused creations (Kohlrabi with Pancetta, Carrot and Onion). General information at the start of each chapter is solid and voluminous; a chapter on salads lists types of oils, tips for buying fresh lettuce, varieties of lettuce and more. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc
