Cookbooks!

I have a vegan friend (who is thankfully not very obnoxious about it) but part of what started her down that path was reading Forks Over Knives. When she started on all this she had a roommate who we're also friendly with who went down the same path, and I remember the roommate talking about "saute with water" which frankly I could rant about in the unreasonably angry thread all day. THAT'S NOT SAUTEING ahem sorry.

Like, fine, avoid hydrogenated oils and animal fats to your heart's content but sweet baby Jesus we need some fat in our diets!

(There's a vegan blogger whose name I'm failing on whose cookbooks said friend used to edit and she also promoted this sort of thing. Ugh.)

It's not even the veganism that gets me. It really is the saute with water thing. Like, I had to stop reading the book it was bothering me so much. You're just steaming the aromatics! Ugh I can just imagine how everything they make has that insipid steamed onion taste with no caramelization or fat to carry the flavors.

And yes, you NEED fat! Where else are they getting it? Nuts? I can just imagine how skeletal these authors are.

I'm so happy this saute with water thing sets other people off too.

Olive oil--the thing that's, you know, literally been part of our diet for millennia--yes, THAT'S the enemy and that's why we're so unhealthy. Sure. Let's get rid of that.

I think Forks over Knives started out as one of those crackpot Netflix documentaries. I've only seen part of it, but it's basic premise is that "western diets" are animal and oil based which causes obesity-diabetes-everything, where as the "eastern diet" (because all Asians are the same, right?) is vegetable based due to poverty (wrong) and that in their ancient wisdom they know that oils are unhealthy (also wrong). An (infuriating) example they give is how during WWII the Nazis occupied Finland and took thier livestock, and thier rate of heart disease dropped. This overlooks that 1) the Nazis stole thier doctors 2) they were still eating fish 3) there was still a black market 4) they were dying off from other things like starvation OR JUST THE FUCKING WAR THAT WAS STILL GOING ON.

So yeah, it's all semi-racist bullshit.

Oh - I thought of the name of that weird-ass vegan blog - it's called the Happy Herbivore. She's written some cookbooks too.

pairesta at least she doesn't avoid things like canned beans or salsa but she does do the whole "saute with water" nonsense. Blergh.

To undo whatever meager benefits I might have gained from healthier, vegetarian cooking, the cookbook I'm working with this month is The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine, a monstrous, 800 page tome by John Folse.

I still want to do some lighter, easier cooking during the week, though, so last night I researched the soups, salads, and vegetables chapter for ideas and I've got my work cut out for me. He leans hard into the stereotypes, with almost everything garnished with some kind of smoked pork, and thickened with either roux, cream, or both. So I won't be using exactly the recipes, but as a springboard for ideas, and came up with a few vegetarian or seafood meals to make on weeknights that aren't swimming in butter. This should be interesting; I'm excited.

For March I'm diving into The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert. I've had this book for a few years, and but for a burst of cooking I did from it right after I got it, I haven't revisited it since. Hopefully it gets more use. I've handed it over to my daughter to pick some interesting meals to cook together as well.

Diving into a cookbook per month sounds like a very smart idea. I have too many that sit on the shelves, uncracked for months at a time. Tonight making my first recipe from Carolyn Phillips' All Under Heaven - albeit a simple veggie stir fry. And for pleasure I'm reading Andrea Nguyen's Pho, which is a very short book that's basically some essays on the history, culture, and varieties of pho, followed by some essays about making it, followed by a handful of pho recipes. Also includes tips on how to make your own hoisin sauce, sate sauce, and sriracha, which I might have to try.

Now I wanna know your full lineup! Her voice is super appealing and obviously deeply knowledgeable - strikes the right balance between "I am an expert and you should listen to me" and "I'm gonna act all buddy-buddy with you." The substitution suggestions are pragmatic. Of course, it's only been in my possession for 24 hours, but the first few chapters of essays were super good. 

Continued book reports will be very, very appreciated.

Also I will suggest to Ms. Ron Howard that we start doing this.

I've always meant to ask what your fridge even looks like anymore. I remember Scott Reitz writing about his sad, sad fridge that was near-empty, because he was paid to eat out all the time.

It was super delicious, but how could it not be, I guess. "Three Fruits of the Earth," from page 30-40ish. Quick stir fry of eggplant, potato, red bell pepper, garlic, ginger, and green onion. Simple, seductive.

In April my mantra was "simple" cooking, and I used the following books as a template:
Jamie at Home, Jamie Oliver
Tender, Nigel Slater
Notes from the Larder, Nigel Slater

I can't say I was entirely successful, both in sticking to the theme, or using the cookbooks. I've reached a stage where unless I'm on completely new ground, I have to rebel against the recipe. Then again, it seemed to go against these books theme to run to the store if, say, I didn't have an ingredient in one of the recipes, or if I thought it sounded better a different way.
Example: at one point I had a huge amount of swiss chard from my mom's garden. I cut the leaves off and cooked them, leaving me with lots of stalks. It seemed wasteful to get rid of them, so I looked through the books. Sure enough in Tender there's a recipe for a swiss chard stalk gratin. I combined that with an asparagus tart recipe from Jamie at Home, using the chard stalks instead of asparagus. It was surprisingly good.
So. I feel weird reviewing these three books if I didn't cook so extensively from them. That said, I do really like them. They are inspiring, and provide lots of simple, creative ideas for dishes.

My favorite of the lot is probably Notes From the Larder, which I've recommended around here before. It's organized by month, and so the cooking is arch-seasonal. But Slater has a very engaging writing style, and explains how he came by a certain recipe, or how he satisfies cravings for a certain food, even if it's not entirely authentic. It's fun to just read as a book.

Tender is half a gardening book, half cookbook. Slater focuses on a particular vegetable in each section, first on how to grow it, then what to do with it. (He leans a little too hard on gratins; my only complaint).

Jamie at Home is arranged almost as a hybrid between Slater's two books, going by season, then ingredient. It gets a little lifestyle porn-y in parts (he has his own gardener, for example). But I really like Oliver's accessible, simple style, and this is one of his best works. The cooking show accompanying this is one of my favorite cooking instructional shows of the past decade or so.

All three recommended.

Based on your experiences with his books, I'm feeling like I should pull out my copies of "Tender" and "Ripe" and try to keep them on hand for this coming farm/garden/orchard season.  My impression had been that they are a little more guideline-y than serious-recipe-y, if that makes any sense, but that's probably the entire point!