Comfort Foods

We don't eat out a lot, which means my wife makes dinner for me almost every night. She taught herself how to cook and I get to enjoy the fruits of her labor. In exchange, I do the dishes. It's a system that works out very well for us. It plays to each others' strengths. If I was in charge of the kitchen she would have to choose between Hamburger Helper or Taco Bell every night. HH is the only meal I used to cook regularly in college and I got very good at mixing it up to taste like different things. It's what we both ate a lot during our first years living in Los Angeles, though that was long before we met. It was such a go-to dish it made a weekly appearance on our dinner table at the beginning of our relationship. I think we're both glad she developed higher culinary skills than cooking pasta out of a box and that I was no longer allowed in the kitchen.

Our house is strewn with cookbooks, some used more than others and none ever cracked by me. Until recently, when she got one called Recipes Every Man Should Know. Since using the microwave is a challenge for me (unless she tells me how long to cook something), I wasn't sure I could handle any of the recipes from this little black book. The introduction claims that cooking will make men look sexy and that it will be fun because it involves fire, sharp instruments and meat. It's an intriguing premise, (who doesn't want to appear sexier) so I took it as a challenge to see if it could help someone like me make a meal we could enjoy.

I love exploring the Russian grocery stores out on Geary Street in San Francisco and often purchase luscious sour cream, delicate blini and caviar, sweet cheese pancakes, frozen pelmeni and vareniki dumplings and different varieties of smoked fish. So I was very excited to see that A Taste of Russia by Darra Goldstein was being reprinted on the occasion of it's 30th anniversary.

It's filled with all kinds of dishes I want to make such as Piroskhi, Cabbage with Noodles and Poppy Seeds, Radishes in Sour Cream, Cranberry Kvass and Circassian chicken. It's my first Russian cookbook and while lacking photos, it does cover all the basics with recipes that are easy to follow and helpful and enlightening notes from the author who spent time living in the former Soviet Union.

Maybe it's just my love for potatoes, but another cuisine I associate with comfort is Irish food. Cooking teacher Rachel Allen's latest book is Rachel's Irish Family Food and it has loads of dishes that while nothing fancy are particularly appealing this time of year. I've bookmarked Ham and Egg Pie, Oatcakes, Beef and Red Wine Pot Pie and Whole Grain Shortbread.

Many of the recipes are very simple and for things I'm not sure I really need a recipe for like Salmon with Capers and Dill, Slow Roasted Shoulder of Pork and Creamy Mashed Potatoes, but if you are just starting out cooking, are firmly in the meat and potatoes camp or are just looking for more options on St Patrick's day, this book is a good pick.

April is National Grilled Cheese Month so highly appropriate for Laura Werlin’s newest book “Grilled Cheese, Please!” Werlin has quite the cheese expert pedigree having written four previous books on the subject which have won James Beard, IACP and the World Gourmand Awards.

Who doesn’t like grilled cheese? It has to be one of the most comforting of all comfort foods. A basic grilled sandwich, like those from many of our childhoods, is comforting enough but up the ante the way Werlin has and it’s food nirvana.

“Grilled Cheese, Please!” has fifty different grilled cheese recipes and covers eight chapters: Just Cheese, Meat and Cheese, Anything Goes, Veggies and Cheese, Global Grilled Cheese, Grilled Cheese on the Go, Regional American Grilled Cheese, and Old Favorites and Modern Sides.

How do I love Nigella? Let me count the ways. Sometimes she’s bigger, and some times she’s smaller, but she’s always incredibly beautiful. She is incredible intelligent and well-educated, and has had some incredibly hard knocks (including the death of her first husband) and survived with consummate grace.

She is a mother over 40 who oozes sex appeal, admits to cooking pasta for herself to eat in bed while watching television, and deep fries candy bars in batter. Most important, in an age of molecular gastronomy and foodie preciousness, she cooks food that is simple, sensuous and exactly what you were yearning for but couldn’t name until you saw the recipe.