Around the Table: Easy Menus for Cozy Entertaining at Home
Author: Ellen Wright
The best entertaining is about welcoming guests to a comfortable setting with lively conversation and simple memorable food. In Around the Table Ellen Wright offers 24 seasonal menus, accompanied by gorgeous color photographs, for easy but still stylish entertaining for family and friends. Menus include It's Payback Time, when you've enjoyed friends' hospitality too often with reciprocating, with Parmesan Toasts, Tomato Onion Soup, Mustard Brown Sugar Pork Loin, Baked Onions, and Pound Cake with Berries; and Let's Stoke Up the Fire, a cookout with grilled Leg of Lamb, Creamed Spinach, Peach Tomato Mint Salad, and Blond Brownies. Ellen's philosophy is to keep it simple, fun and delicious.
Publishers Weekly
Wright admits she's neither a restaurant chef nor a professional party-thrower, but she's been cooking and entertaining for over 40 years. She wrote this book for other culinary non-professionals who agree that "when it comes to really enjoying a meal, there's no place like home." Filled with 24 amusingly themed menus, divided into cold weather and warm weather categories, this volume is decidedly accessible. The recipe for Perfect Lemon Cake with Fresh Lemon Glaze might sound intimidating, but it calls for simple cake mix and lemon-flavored instant pudding, and comes with a sanity-saving tip: "If the cake breaks while you are unmolding it, take the pieces out and place them in their rightful positions. When you glaze, the break won't show." Entertaining at home is not about impressing guests, says Wright; it's about making them comfortable. Pop culture references, such as a Valentine's Day dinner menu entitled "Six and the City" and a TV tray menu to accompany viewing of The Sopranos might date this book, but the recipes-simple, classic and, above all, easy-will always be crowd-pleasers. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Read also MCITP Self Paced Training Kit or Groovy in Action
Annie and Margrit: Recipes and Stories from the Robert Mondavi Kitchen
Author: Annie Roberts
ANNIE ROBERTS is the Executive Chef at the Robert Mondavi Winery. Her cuisine has been showcased in the winery's Vineyard Room since 1974. Annie and her husband, Keith, live in Santa Rosa, California.MARGRIT BIEVER MONDAVI is Vice President, Culture at the Robert Mondavi Winery. She joined the winery in 1967, pursuing a life-long interest in uniting wine with fine arts, music, and culinary artistry. She married Robert Mondavi in 1980; they live in the Napa Valley. VICTORIA WISE was the first chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and created Pig-by-the-Tail, the first American French-style deli. She went on to become the acclaimed author of 12 cookbooks. Victoria lives with her family in Oakland, California.
Publishers Weekly
Although it can't escape a certain air of privilege (where but in Napa would you assume everyone can get hold of Dungeness crab, microgreens and flageolet beans), this earnest book emphasizes the relationship of Roberts and Biever Mondavi and their fresh, surprisingly global cuisine. Swiss-born Mondavi, the winemaker's wife, spent an army childhood roaming the globe, which explains why Chilled Udon Noodles with Shrimp and Shiitake Mushrooms rubs shoulders with Tajine of Poussins with Aubergine. Her daughter, Annie (from a previous marriage), contributes an earthy appreciation of the Mediterranean ingredients so thoroughly domesticated in California. Roberts and Biever Mondavi offer a handful of delicious and relatively simple home-style dishes, like Rock Shrimp Gazpacho and Winter Apple Tart; some of the recipes are more labor intensive, however, like Lobster Tartlets with Leek and Fennel Confit, Haricots Verts and Lobster Sauce or the julienned purgatory of Halibut with Vegetable Confetti and Scallop Sauce. Though the title promises "stories" from the kitchen, few can be found outside the brief introduction. Nevertheless, with its cleanly styled cuisine and artfully composed photographs of mother and daughter at work, this is a heartfelt cookbook that exudes all the peaceful luxury one associates with the wine country experience. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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