Fresh and Seasonal

If the sun-drenched yellow of summer sweet corn or the regal purple of ripe blackberries makes you flutter with anticipation, then the stunning new book, Ripe: A Fresh, Colorful Approach to Fruits and Vegetables, by Cheryl Sternman Rule, is for you.

Arranged by color, Ripe takes you on a dazzling visual journey of produce, in all its natural glory. The book begins boldly with audacious red and pink (beets, rhubarb, strawberries) and ends serenely with calming white (cauliflower, coconut, turnips). In between it travels through orange and yellow (corn, pineapple, nectarines), green (broccoli, edamame, fava beans) and purple and blue (bluberries, eggplant, plums).

Each fruit and vegetable is beautifully photographed by Paulette Phlipot. Some like the exposed heart-shaped red strawberry, the water-dappled kale leaf and the once-bitten green apple remind us what real food porn looks like. Phlipot does the impossible: she makes celery look sexy.

Patricia Wells’ “Bistro Cooking” is a staple in our kitchen. The hearty, fresh, robust, easy-to-follow recipes were inspired by the famous bistros in France and, now, we could make them at home.

So, I was incredibly excited when Patricia Wells’ Salad as a Meal: Healthy Main-Dish Salads for Every Season arrived on our doorstep. It was summer. And she was Patricia Wells. And she understands that salad as a meal isn’t simply two slips of lettuce and a tomato from the garden. It’s salad as a meal!

The salmon gravlax with potato and parmesan galettes. The idea that you could make salmon gravlax at home was incredibly appealing. Okay, it takes three days, but it’s really fun and it’s completely delicious. And what could be wrong with potato and parmesan galettes?! The lobster salad with green beans, apple, and avocado is divine. (My method, order a really large lobster at a restaurant because you’re celebrating something and bring home the leftovers for a salad!) But you can also buy two small lobsters (which aren’t that expensive in the summer) and make the whole thing at home.

My son Ethan and I once tried to cook our way through Jamie Oliver’s Italy—he was going off to school and had some delusional fantasy that there would be a kitchen in his dorm (not!) and that he would be able to cook for his friends and his girlfriends and somehow simulate some of the cuisine he was accustomed to...  It was great.  Everything we made was perfect.  I don’t even like swordfish and Jamie Oliver’s swordfish is one of the best things I’ve ever had.  He thinks “fruit is lovely”, he uses words like “drizzle” and you sort of feel like he’s in the kitchen with you. 

So, I was really excited when Jamie Oliver’s new book “Jamie at Home” arrived in the mail.  And it’s xmas and it’s chaotic and I haven’t had time to even begin to cook my way through it.  But I’m really pleased that they’re allowing us to excerpt some of Jamie Oliver’s new recipes.

Would you be inclined to buy a cookbook devoted to burgers, fondue or toast? I wouldn't. None of those things are all that challenging to make in the first place. A whole book on grilled cheese sandwiches? Gimme a break.

Cookbooks on single subjects have to be something special to catch my eye. They have to be varied, cover more than just one meal, and they should intrigue me to try something new and way out of the ordinary.

Pomegranates: 70 Celebratory Recipes is just such a book. Kleinberg's book includes recipes appropriate for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Not to mention beverages. Pomegranate juice and syrup is all over the place.

No wonder as it is filled with antioxidants, used in many different cuisines and amazingly versatile. You can use the jewel-like seeds or the juice in recipes that are sweet or savory.