Book Review | Too Many Cooks

So this post is all thanks to Erin Cooks. She had a giveaway for this book on her blog and I won!

Too Many Cooks is written by Emily Franklin about a year of food life. She is a mother of four (8, 6, 3 and a baby) and wants to introduce her kids to new food. Every chapter has stories about their adventures and how food is a part of their lives, then there are recipes at the end of the chapter.

Her kids aren't terribly picky but they have very vocal opinions. My favourite quote would be in regards to a fish dish she made where one of her sons says "If you are trying to kill me, and you obviously are, this is the worst way to die".

Also her husband won't eat any fruit that ends in "Y". Or is cooked.

It's a super fun read and was very light compared to the foodie books I've been reading lately. She's not gonna lecture you about how you should eat and why, but most of her recipes are reasonably seasonal and contain whole ingredients.

I would really recommend this book to anyone wondering what approach to take when introducing new foods to kids, or anyone that just likes reading about funny kids and kitchen adventures.

The only downside to me, is that I don't know that I will remember to refer back to the recipes, like I would with a cookbook. There is an index of recipes in the back though.

Book Review | Supernatural Cooking

I love this book and it's on my to buy list. She's given me hope that I can make amazing food without compromising taste and texture while using great natural ingredients.

Here's the website.

Here's a blurb by salon.com:

"Can this woman make quinoa sexy?" -
"...In Super Natural Cooking, Swanson not only goes a long way toward helping "whole" foods shed their stale, hippie stigma but also makes a strong case for putting natural foods at the center of an emerging, modern, global cuisine. Her seductive recipes, like lime-bathed peanut salad and an updated (almost guilt-free) take on the classic Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie, reach out to cooks who want to eat smart but still do it in style. Without preaching, Swanson playfully shows readers five simple steps -- including building a natural pantry, embracing grains, and cooking with an eye on color and super-foods -- that should form the foundation of healthy habits. The result is enough to make any closet Cheetos muncher think we're lucky to be living in times when food that is good for you can actually taste good too."

The five sections of the book mentioned above are all started by a great resource on how to use the ingredients, for example she goes through all the natural sweeteners available and explains what they are, what they taste like, what they go well with, how they will react in recipes. It's fantastic.

Heidi Swanson started off as a photographer and it's obvious by how gorgeous this book is. It makes you hungry when you look through it.

Happily, Heidi also has a great food blog which I follow called 101 Cookbooks. Her recipes here are also very healthy and yummy looking. I've tried her maple sryup scones, and they were fantastic, as well as the cherry choconut ice cream.

Go check it out, see if you get urges to buy strange food. I now have whole wheat pastry flour, millet and maple sryup in my everyday cooking and it's all her fault.

Book Review | Real Food

I recently read Real Food by Nina Planck. Here's the blurb:


Don't you find it odd that the experts blame butter and beef for heart disease, even though heart disease is new and traditional foods are old? Heart disease as we know it was first diagnosed by James Herrick in 1912; it is a 20th century disease. Meanwhile, we (or our ancestors) have been eating milk and butter for 10,000 to 30,000 years and beef for 2 or 3 million.

Don't you find it funny that the foods in many traditional diets - starting with breast milk and moving on to coconut oil, butter, eggs, and pork fat - are loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol, yet people who eat these traditional foods liberally don't get heart disease? Nor are they fat or diabetic.

I believe the conventional wisdom on traditional foods is mistaken. The so-called diseases of civilization - obesity, diabetes, heart disease - are not caused by real food. The diseases of industrialization - as I call them - are caused by the foods of industrialization.

What are industrial foods? In the triple epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, the three main villains are trans fats, corn oil, and sugar - not butter and eggs. White flour and other refined carbohydrates are also trouble.

In Real Food: What to Eat and Why, I explain why traditional foods such as butter are healthy and industrial foods are not. You'll learn how butter, lard, beef, cheese, eggs, and other foods we've been eating for thousands of years got a bad rap - and why it's a bad rap.

The book is full of good news about foods we love to eat. Perhaps you will feel liberated, and resume eating raw milk, cream, butter, egg yolks, and coconut oil with impunity, as I do. One other thing: the experts are right about fish, olive oil, and fresh fruit and vegetables - they're all good for you, too. I'll tell you why that is, too.

I have to say, this book was really helpful for me. I've been reading a lot about traditional vs industrial diets but this book explains it well. She gives nutritional backing for why you should eat traditional foods (butter instead of margarine etc) and doesn't get overly bogged down with the ethical and environmental reasoning. I care about that too, but I'm really interested in what foods are good for me and why. Real Food explains all that. While it's a lot of information to *ahem* digest, I found it very readable and finished it in about three days.

I highly recommend to anyone who cares about what you eat. And to those who wonder why they keep eating low fat food without becoming...lower in fat. Oh, and to people who are vegetarians. Because it might change your mind.

Book Review | Last Bite

Today's book is Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance by Nancy Verde Barr.

This is a chick lit romance for foodies, and thus I have much love for it. Nancy Verde Barr served for years as Executive Chef to Julia Child. She's written cookbooks, but this is her only novel. Which makes me sad.

Drawing directly on Nancy's experience as an executive tv chef, her main character, Casey Costello is the behind the scenes magic worker of a morning show with the big star of the cooking world. There is much good Italian food, both in her family and in a trip to Italy. Yes, there is European adventures, plus romance, mystery, spies...what more do you need? She also has a few of the recipes mentioned in the story in the back of the book. I'll let you know if I try some of them out, my mouth was pretty much watering for the whole book.

Any of you have fiction favourites that make you hungry while reading?

Book Review | Whitewater Cooks

Whitewater Cooks is the cookbook put out by Shelly Adams who runs the Fresh Tracks Cafe at Whitewater ski hill near Nelson, BC. It includes many recipes from the cafe as well a few others she's come up with. This is one of my all time favourite cookbooks for three reasons.

3) It's really pretty, great inspiring photos, nice layout. Makes you want to just sit around and look at it.

2) The food? It's really really good. As in I actually cook more than one or two recipes out of it.

1) The best thing about this cookbook is that it's local. Everyone I know who loves to cook in the area has this cookbook. Or at least really wants it. We sit around and talk about the muffins. The veggie burgers are legendary. It's part of the local food culture, and I love that.

If you can get your hands on this baby, here are my favourite recipes:

- The Glory Bowl - It's a rice/tofu/salad thing. Best dressing every. My supper tonight.
- Tabbouleh and Chickpea Salad.
- Whitewater Veggie Burger. We had this for dinner last night. I couldn't believe how good they are. We were in awe. Better than beef, and I do love beef.
- Whitewater Marvellous Muffins. My copy falls open to this one. I especially love making them with dried cherry, dark chocolate and pecans...mmmmm
- Whitewater Granola Bars. Best bar ever. Chewy toasted deliciousness.

So go get it! Buy it local if you are lucky enough to be a Kootenian, but otherwise you can get it on amazon. It's also a great cookbook if you're vegetarian, it has meat recipes, but a lot of meatless ones as well.

She has a new book coming out tomorrow, so I'm on the watch for it!