If David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl at Green Kitchen Stories have a cookbook coming out, then I’m always here for it! From the beginning of my site, I started sharing my experiences with cooking and feeding my family because, there are no better conversations than the ones about cookbooks. Cookbooks feed us, sure, but they also tell stories and connect us to Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Green Kitchen – Quick + Slow”
Tag: Vegetables
Book Club Tuesday: In Praise of Veg
As Australian food writer Alice Zaslavsky states in the introduction of her new cookbook, In Praise of Veg, “This hefty tome is my tribute to the wonderful world of veg”(8) Her enthusiasm for cooking with vegetables is readily apparent — Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: In Praise of Veg”
Book Club Tuesday: Snacks for Dinner
Inspiration often presents itself in the unlikeliest of places, and for Lukas Volger, the inspiration for his latest cookbook, Snacks for Dinner, happened while on vacation in California. He and his husband, Vincent, went for lunch at a friend’s home and what started with an assemblage of things — cheese, cut vegetables, dips, salads — ended up being a Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Snacks for Dinner”
Book Club Tuesday: Peak Season
What really amazed me when we would visit Ontario to see our grandmother is that, during the summer, there was such an abundance of fruits and vegetables available. The amazing part was that all these green and white cardboard baskets, bursting with the freshest produce around, all came from Ontario. Growing up in Alberta, in a farming family, the growing zone and climate was drastically different. There were no lush stone fruits and even Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Peak Season”
Book Club Tuesday: Your Daily Veg
I am part of a vegetarian family: my husband has been a vegetarian for over twenty years, I joined along almost 12 years ago, and my daughter was born into it 8 years since. When my daughter was born, I wondered what vegetarianism would look like for her? When I became a vegetarian, the cookbooks at the time were very faddy and, what I really longed for was good food: plain and simple. Sometimes I feel that calling food “vegetarian” is like adding a Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Your Daily Veg”
Book Club Tuesday: Grist
Grist by Abra Berens is a welcome addition to my kitchen cookbook shelf because it is such a useful guide to cooking with legumes, seeds, grains, and beans. I think Grist can be considered a companion to her earlier book Ruffage (published in 2019; review here), and just as Ruffage is part memoir, part cookbook, so is Grist. Here the home cook is invited to follow along with Berens as she demonstrates, through her recipes, how crucial Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Grist”
Book Club Tuesday: Ottolenghi Test Kitchen — Shelf Love
What does it take to get people home cooking again? Well, if we look at 2020, it was the situation that brought people back into their kitchens to bake and make, fostering their starters along the way. For some of us home cooking is Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Ottolenghi Test Kitchen — Shelf Love”
Book Club Tuesday: Mumbai Modern
As we ate this meal together, I was reminded of why we were really gathered here. The food, the laughter, and the tears were for my mother. She had just passed away. And this meal tasted as if my mum had made it. Tears flooded my eyes as a lifetime of memories, triggered by this food, rushed to my head and heart. Fourteen years ago, I had no way of knowing this was just the start of my food journey. (11)
Reading these words from the introduction to Amisha Dodhia Gurbani‘s Mumbai Modern: Vegetarian Recipes Inspired by Indian Roots and California Cuisine, it shows how deep the connection to food can be. It brings us together to nourish us and, food ties us to so many things — the crucial one being our memories. Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Mumbai Modern”
Book Club Tuesday: Vegetables — A Love Story
Most good love stories have a certain amount of magic in them; mine just also happens to contain vegetables. (11)
The most interesting cookbooks are the ones that also offer a connection in addition to the recipes. While there has been much written maligning narrative recipe writing, I strongly believe it is the personal stories that make the recipes worth trying. And in a world of myriad recipes, as a home cook, I want to know why ingredients are important and what makes a recipe special. I need something to hang my Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Vegetables — A Love Story”
Book Club Tuesday: Occasionally Eggs
Even though my husband and I were vegetarians long before my daughter was born, I really didn’t give much thought to what we ate. We were both working outside the home, so most meals were pasta-based, with lots of cheese and a side of bread. Whatever was quick and inexpensive, but between us, Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Occasionally Eggs”