4th Annual Holiday Cookbook Extravaganza! What's new?

With all the warm weather we've been having it's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week!  I usually title this annual post the Thanksgiving Cookbook Extravanganza!, but really this whole season offers ample opportunities for pulling out the cookbooks so I decided to broaden the scope and change it to Holiday Cookbook Extravaganza!

So the focus this year is on new cookbooks.  There are just so many great new cookbooks coming out that I wanted to review a few of them for you.  I am the type of person that actually reads cookbooks, for entertainment as well as edification.  I have learned so much about cooking from reading recipes without actually making a particular recipe.  I find that many of the newer cookbooks focus more on vegetables and grains, with smaller helpings of a lovely protein, which is more in line with my way of eating now days. So let's get to it!

Small Victories by Julia Turshen  

I just checked this one out and I am love, love, loving it!  Ina Garten wrote the forward, if that tells you anything about the book.  The recipes are straightforward (not a lot of piddly steps), flexible (options given for whatever ingredients you may have on hand), and beautifully photographed.  Most of the recipes also focus on learning a new technique or a way to make something easier.  I'm not a from scratch baker, but I did make the Afternoon Cake (no creaming butter with sugar! Yay!) with stunning results.  I'm asking for this one for Christmas.

Cooking for Jeffrey by Ina Garten  

I really like Ina Garten's cooking aesthetic.  Lots of flavor, fresh ingredients, beautifully and simply prepared.  She's really all about pulling the best flavor out of the ingredients-so many time I have tried a recipe only to be disappointed by the amount of flavor I am getting, whether it's garlic or lemon or whatever.  If Ina makes a recipe called  roasted potatoes with lemon, you can be sure you will taste the lemon! And her husband Jeffrey is just adorable. There's a menu section called Jeffrey's all-time favorite dinners, and Jeffrey appears to like some really tasty dishes.  How great is that?

Scratch by Maria Rodale

You won't find any long lists of ingredients here.  Many of the recipes have only 4 or 5 ingredients.  For example, crispy roast chicken with gravy:  1 chicken.  Also water, flour, salt and pepper.  That's it.  The snack time chapter is especially inviting-3 ingredient guacamole, fried chickpeas, roasted pumpkin seeds.  These are simple, new and old classics that are not difficult or intimidating.  Beautiful photos, too.

The Vegetable Butcher by Cara Mangini

In my quest to eat more vegetables I turn to this book.  I like that the chapters are arranged alphabetically by vegetable (I am a librarian). Each chapter starts off with a description of different varieties of a particular vegetable.  It covers how to choose the best veggies, when they are in season, what flavors will complement.  Then it moves on to how to clean, prep, and store your veggies, with photos to guide you, and a couple of different ways to cook your chosen veg.  Each chapter finishes up with 2 or 3 recipes to get you started.  Not all the recipes are savory.  There is one for a parsnip-ginger cake with burnt buttercream frosting which I am anxious to try. I'm sure it involves creaming butter with sugar but I'm willing to five it a whirl with my hand mixer.

My final review is really for a class of cookbook, those focusing on Nordic cuisine.  These books are just what you would expect from Scandinavia-uniformly spare, clean, lovely photos not just of food but of the countryside.  Happy people eating healthy, beautiful food while sitting around in their IKEA kitchens using their littala dishes and their Maimekko linens on their annual month off of work. I suppose there are recipes too.

 

  These seven new books are just the tip of the    iceberg. Check out our HUGE selection of  cookbooks at the library.          Happy Holidays and bon apetit!

The 3rd Annual Thanksgiving Cookbook Extravaganza! Vegetable Dilemmas

It's hard to believe that this is the third year of the annual Thanksgiving Cookbook Extravaganza! As I contemplate my menu for the meal, the question always comes into my mind of whether or not to include a vegetables other than some type of potato. No one ever eats them but still I feel there should be a token something on the table. This year I turn to food history to help me decide.

To begin at the beginning, I will investigate the "harvest celebration of 1621", as the first Thanksgiving was called by the inhabitants of Plimoth Plantation.  According to Smithsonian.com. the menu would have consisted mainly of poultry, venison, fish and shellfish, nuts, and perhaps corn..  Potatoes, both sweet and white, were not yet known in North America. No cranberry sauce. Wheat for flour was scarce, as was butter (no pumpkin pie).  The turkey or other wild fowl would have been stuffed with onions and herbs.

In a letter of 1779, Juliana Smith describes a New England Thanksgiving dinner to her Cousin Betsey, which includes this description of a vegetable: "one which I do not believe you have yet seen.  It is called Sellery and you eat it without cooking."  The full menu is still pretty meat-centric. I feel the "sellery" is only included as a novelty.

           Haunch of Venison          Roast Chine of Pork                     Roast Goose
              Roast Turkey                     Pigeon Pasties                               Onions in Cream
              Cauliflower                        Squash                                            Potatoes
              Raw Celery                       Mincemeat Pie                               Pumpkin Pie
              Indian Pudding               Plum Pudding                               Apple Pie


So where did our traditional menu come from?  Most likely from the Victorians of the 1800's, which is when Sarah Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, made a big push for Thanksgiving. According to Smithsonian.com there was a real nostalgia for the Colonial era at this time.  In 1863 Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday.  The Original Boston Cooking-School Cookbook of 1896 offers this menu:

          Oyster Soup                         Crisp Crackers                                 Celery
           Salted Almonds                    Roast Turkey                                   Cranberry Jelly
           Mashed Potatoes                 Onions in Cream                             Squash
           Chicken Pie                           Fruit Pudding                                   Sterling Sauce
           Fancy Cakes                         Neapolitan Ice Cream                   Mince, Apple and Squash
           Nuts and Raisins                Bonbons                                                     Pies
           Crackers                                Cheese     

I have to admit that I like the unabashedly celebratory feel of this menu. Oysters, meats and lots of desserts. Also lots of crackers. Celery is still there though.    

By 1949 the menu was smaller and more manageable for a housewife without extra help. The Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking suggest this holiday  menu:

         Roast Turkey                                     Oyster or Chestnut Dressing             Giblet Gravy
         Mashed Potatoes                              Buttered Onions                                    Cranberry Sauce
        Hot Rolls, Butter                               Head Lettuce, 1000 Island Dressing
        Pumpkin or Apple Pie          

More onions still, buttered this time.  Who would have thought?

Marthastewart.com offers several Thanksgiving menus, many of  which include onions. She suggests Braised Onions, Roasted Pears and Red Onions, or Glazed Pearl Onions.  

Of these menus onions are the only vegetable to appear on all three.  So, in the interest of being historically accurate, I am going to go with the lowly onion as the side dish this year.  I think maybe I'll just throw pearl onions in the pan with the turkey and let them caramelize.  Yum.  

For help with your own menu dilemmas, stop by the library before you start cooking.  Check out the display of holiday cookbooks for menu ideas.  We are open until 6:00 pm on Wednesday the 25th.

A very happy remembrance of the Harvest Celebration of 1621 to you all. 

              
         

How to Cook a Turkey-The 2nd Annual Thanksgiving Cookbook Extravaganza

We can all picture it-the Norman Rockwell Turkey. Huge, enough to feed 20 people with leftovers for a week. A glistening golden brown skin. A moist, juicy interior. There is Grandma bringing it out from the kitching. The loving family gathered around oohs and aahs over it as Grampa expertly carves it all up.

Norman Rockwell was an artist. Art does not always imitate life.  A  huge turkey will never cook evenly in a home oven.  That golden perfection of a skin will hide an under-done inside. Grandma will never be able to lift that platter. (Really, take a look at the size of that bird in the original. Maybe scrubbing all those floors by hand and kneading homemade bread made Grandma strong.) As for the rest of it, you know your family better than I do.

But the question remains: How to get that perfect turkey? There are as many ways to cook a turkey as there are cookbooks. Brined-wet or dry. High heat . Slow heat. Deep fried. Spit cooked. Stuffed/unstuffed.  What is the home cook to do?

My old Betty Crocker cookbook says you can cook the turkey from frozen.  Just remove the giblets about an hour into the cooking time.  My mother told me they used to put the turkey in the oven at very low heat the night before Thanksgiving and it was ready to eat around noon.  This might be similar to a recipe found on the Nourished Kitchen blog: 225 F for 12 hours, then 375 F for 1 1/2 hrs until the turkey is done, basting it every 2-3 hours. The instructions can be found here http://nourishedkitchen.com/slow-roast-turkey/

Nigella Lawson's turkey recipe in 'Feast calls for 2 hours for a 10 pound bird,. It involves starting the roasting off with the turkey upside down at 400 F for 30 minutes, down to 350 F for the rest of the time, and turning it back right side up for the last half hour. I don't know about you but turning a hot turkey up and down sounds like a recipe for disaster. Of course Nigella is English and the English don't really do Thanksgiving.

Rick Browne in 'Grilling for all Seasons' says you can pretty much grill the whole meal, He allows 20 minutes/lb if you are grilling the bird, 3-4 minutes for deep fried.  This means my 10 pound turkey will be done in half an hour or so.

'Thanksgiving: How to Cook it Well' by Sam Sifton suggests cutting the turkey up into its parts before roasting.  This method takes 45-60 minutes for a 12-18 pound bird.  I can see the merits to this method, but it just doesn't appeal to me for obvious reasons-see the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving above and replace the whole bird with a platter full of parts.  Just doesn't seem right.

This is just a sampling of what's out there.  Check out the library's display of Thanksgiving cookbooks for all the help you need.  Or you could always do the smart thing and have it catered from the deli. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!