Reviews

Books

My Berlin Kitchen, A Love Story: Luisa Weiss Finds Home

Meatballs with Chipotle-Tomato Sauce

Where is home? Is it where you grew up? Where you have a house? Where you yearn to live? Where your heart lies? What about people like me, who call more than one place home? In today’s mobile world, finding home can be a challenge.

My experiences shuttling between two countries ...

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Massaging Kale: Review of Wild About Greens by Nava Atlas

Kale, Pear and Radicchio Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Though not a vegetarian, I’m an avid fan of greens, both wild and domestic. I’ve studied them extensively and cook greens regularly. I’ve read and used every English and Greek language book about greens I can find. When I heard Nava Atlas, an accomplished vegetarian cooking authority, had written a ...

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Review: Jasmine and Fire by Salma Abdelnour

Tiss'ye (Fatteh Hummus)

Jasmine and Fire: A Bittersweet Year in Beirut is Salma Abdelnour’s story (with recipes) of returning to Lebanon, where she hadn’t lived for thirty years. During her year in Lebanon, Salma contemplates the meaning of “home,” travels throughout the country, and thrives on eating and cooking Lebanese food.

With my gaggle ...

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Cookbook Review: Beginnings, My Way to Start a Meal by Chris Cosentino

Roasted Castelvetrano Olives & Cherry Tomatoes

San Francisco chef Chris Cosentino has a great new book called Beginnings: My Way to Start a Meal. It has wonderful recipes, Cosentino’s hand-drawn doodles and food musings, and Michael Harlan Turkell’s inspirational photographs.

Beginnings‘ recipes mirror the remarkable food served at Incanto, Cosentino’s San Francisco restaurant, and Boccalone, his artisanal ...

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The Moosewood Cookbook: A Cookbook, An Obsession, A Soup

Gypsy Soup

In 1977, while a student, I lived in a Quonset hut in Portland, Oregon. My bedroom was painted white; the bed a mattress on the floor topped with a quilt made by my grandmother. On sunny mornings, rainbows danced on the curved white walls, refracting off crystals hanging in the ...

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Review of The Fishes & Dishes Cookbook

Commercial fishing drew me and my friends to pre-pipeline Alaska in the early 1970s. We grew up on Puget Sound, and left without looking back.  In those years, we worked in canneries, hoping for lots of overtime, or on boats for a percentage of the catch, hoping our captains would ...

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