In August, I chose Soul by Todd Richards as our cookbook of the month, and I have to be honest, I didn’t do a lot of cooking. I was sick and struggling with an intense bout of depression, so I don’t believe I have given Soul its proper dues. What I did get to try, however, went over well with the husband. At least I got that much. During planning stages, I was very obsessed with the section of the book dedicated to collard greens. This is an ingredient suspiciously absent from my normal cooking, partially due to my upbringing and partially due to stigma that surrounded it. This kind of food is supposedly not the kind of thing white, midwestern people eat, and I did not want to stray from it. I wanted to understand it. The only two recipes I actually got to play with were collard green waffles and collard green fried rice. These waffles are made in the cookbook to be paired with a smoked trout, but I was unable to find this ingredient. I used them as part of a classic chicken and waffles combination that my husband now refers to as one of the best things I have ever made. I am now obligated to make this for special occasions in the house. Still, I learned through the recipes that I did get to that the book suffers from what I call ‘project cookery’. Not many of the recipes are good for the weeknight. I wanted to try a salmon croquette recipe, but it calls for a near four hour marinade of the salmon. I don’t have the time for that! Certainly not when I’m sick. Where our previous book was very much for the weeknight, this one is not. That does not discount it’s value, however. Soul has plenty of fun things to try for a weekend, something special. It will remain on my mind going forward so that I can revisit my views on the book for the end of the year. Soul is an interested if challenging new look on an American cuisine often overlooked by the culinary community. The book has been well received online, and it’s easy to see why. Soul challenges the cook and the cook’s views about food. You can get it on amazon. Last I checked, it was on sale.
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August is coming to a close, and you know what that means. It’s time for us to announce our cookbook of the month for September: Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish. It was only a matter of time now that I have started to show some interest in bread baking. This is an award winning cookbook that has been recommended to me more than once since I started making bread. It’s a special book, and you can tell just by looking at the cover. I have yet to pick up a cookbook for this little exercise that has won both a James Beard Foundation Book Award AND a IACP Cookbook award. I’m very excited to dive into this book, so let’s go over some of the basics. The book is broken into four parts with three of them consisting of different dough recipes: basic bread, levain bread, and pizza. There are several essays peppered throughout from what the contents guide shows me, and I am very oddly excited about that. The real treat is that my baking waifu, Amanda, will be guest posting on Eating Normal as we work through this book. She is one of those that suggested it to me, and we will be working out which recipes to try as the month goes on. We’ll let you know what we decide on so you can gook along with us. Bread, bread, bread! August is just around the corner, and to welcome it, I have chosen Soul by Todd Richards as our August cookbook of the month. I was first introduced to Todd Richards by a Bon Appetit podcast on July 5th where Adam Rappaport had him in for an interview. They talked extensively about the cookbook and some of the recipes within it, and I knew instantly this would be one to add to my list. This cookbook would be a new experience for me. Todd Richards is a James Beard Award nominated chef from Atlanta, self taught by years and years in restaurants. I can really appreciate this kind of grit, but what sets him apart from the other chefs who’ve provided my monthly cookbooks is that he is an African American Chef, part of a vastly underrepresented demographic in cooking despite the deep impact of African American cooking on the American experience. I was fascinated by his journey as he told it on the July 5th podcast, and so when his cookbook arrived on my doorstep this week. I was excited to see where his journey would take me. Already, I can see that he balks at the stereotype of soul food that I have in in my head. Yes, there is an entire section devoted to collard greens. But do you know how he tops that bad boy off? Collard Green Ramen. Collard. Green. Ramen. I have never actually cooked collard greens for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I didn’t know what they looked like. Secondly, I never had a recipe that didn’t sound like a pot of boiled leaves. Todd Richards makes this ingredient welcoming to me, and I will be tackling it for sure. On deck for cooking this month:
If these little peeks aren’t enough to convince you to cook along with me, may I just say that Amazon voted this cookbook as the best of 2018 so far? Even in just a cursory look through at Todd Richards’ recipes has me very excited to begin cooking his unique southern dishes. I very much look forward to shattering both expectations and stereotypes I’ve developed over the years regarding both southern and African American cooking through this cookbook. Dining In by Alison Roman has been an experience. When it first arrived, I spent hours pouring over it’s pages and deciding which recipes to pick up for July. I got distracted by each personal section she wrote to go with the recipes or sections. I knew by the first few pages that I was going to like her. She’s such a personable writer, which I find makes a huge difference in a cookbook. When I feel like it’s really the cook and not a persona, I find I trust what’s in the pages a little more. Like most cookbooks, Dining In is littered with a variety of personal blurbs and looks into the woman’s life that lead her up to writing the book. Together with the way she describes her pantry staples and condiments, you can almost feel like you’re in her kitchen with her. Would that I could one day be in the kitchen with her. She has a lot of good tips for home cooks within the pages of Dining In. I would relish the opportunity to probe her brain for some tricks at the stovetop. I approached her recipes with the trust that her opener gave me. There are many meals within these pages that can see some use with my husband and I. My rules on pescetarianism are slowly growing lax, so we tried some of the meat centered recipes that involve chicken or pork on top of her little neck clams recipe. Alison Roman has created a few classics that are going to land right in the middle of our rotation. Speaking of that littleneck clam recipe, Littleneck clams with green garlic and leftover wine, I made a good discovery with this when I cooked it for my husband. Turns out that he likes cannellini beans! Those cannellini beans were a surprising addition to the recipe that helped to bulk it out just enough to feed us both. Rob is a huge clams guy, so the bag we got wouldn’t have filled us both without that surprise touch of beans added to the dish. We have had no shortage of good clams recipes in the last few books we’ve tried. There was, however, one little disaster that I am sure I brought onto myself while working through her recipes. She has an imposter tacos al pastor that I was very interested in when I found it in the book. I could not get ahold of the chilies that she calls for, and so I tried using jalapenos. You have to char them and then boil them for a bit in water, which I assume is to neutralize the capcasin in the peppers. I did those things, but not for long enough, I think. After marinating the section of pork and then cooking them to a nice char, I started to have some trouble breathing. That trouble lasted a whole week. I can only attribute it to burning the ground up jalapenos and breathing it all in. Still, it was delicious afterward. I know that it’s all about correcting how I went about the recipe, but goddamn. Don’t let this one bad experience get you down on the book, though! She has a good section for desserts in the back that I still haven’t gotten into as much as I would like. Her famous cookies are in there, and my first attempt came out a little dry. I will definitely be giving it a shot again to do them justice. She and many others out on the internet swear they will never make normal chocolate chip cookies after making her recipe, so I must be the problem here! To make things easier on her readers, Alison Roman offers alternatives to some of the ingredients that may be hard on the average reader to find, like Labne, green garlic, and the infamous creme fraiche that I can just never seem to find. It’s a nice touch from some of the other cookbooks I’ve been looking at since we started this whole cookbook of the month thing began. She knows what’s going on in some of these little towns. She knows the kitchens of her readers in that she absolutely understands we don’t want to be slaving over the oven all goddamn day just to make Tuesday night dinner. Her recipes, as the title implies, are for dining in. Some of them do take a little time, but the vast variety of true meals are quick, and the side dishes are easy to make alongside any piece of meat you might decide to serve. If you are looking for a cookbook with a variety of challenges as well as some quick dinners, Dining In is a good investment. Where some cookbooks are no good for anything but the actual recipes, Alison Roman crafts an interesting narrative section to section to help keep you engaged as you browse. Those personal sections--- they mean something here. They don’t fade into the pictures of food. Credit where credit is due: Dining In is a champion of the home kitchen. The pictures are beautiful, the writing is fantastic, and I can only hope to continue cooking from it in the future. I will be sure to give you an update when I finally get a successful turnout of her cookies. So I was listening to the Bon Appetit foodcast like I regularly do, and they had a former employee, now cookbook author, on their June 20th podcast to discuss her cookbook, Dining In. Voted the best cookbook of 2017 by a multitude of media outlets, the book rocketed her to stardom, and apparently, made her one of the first chefs to use viral marketing for a cookbook. Her Salted Butter and Chocolate Chunk Shortbread cookies are something of a phenomenon on instagram. (seriously, just look her up. Everyone is making them) According to the podcast, she does her best to comment on every picture churned out by budding American cooks across the country that are helping themselves to her cookbook that promises she will never make us cook something in more than one pan unless absolutely necessary. Thanks, Alison. Can I call you that? Needless to say, I ordered Dining In literally while listening to the podcast. It’s our July cookbook of the month to explore together. If you follow the Eating Normal facebook page before July 4th, you might get a copy yourself! I’m giving away a second copy to the people that follow the page as a thank you to the folks that are helping me build a fun hobby. I have selected the following four recipes to definitely cook this month, but I may dive into more before I give you my final verdict on Dining In. Will it live up to the hype and accolades? Find out with me. Pick it up for yourself, or pray you’re lucky enough to get my second copy. Dishes to Try this Month:
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