Popular Food Network personality, restaurant owner and executive chef Sánchez (La Comida del Barrio, 2003) infuses personal history and big flavors into more than a dozen fiery components of Mexican cuisine.
The author credits his upbringing in Texas, a love of family and apprenticeships with gastronomic luminary Paul Prudhomme and New York chef Douglas Rodriguez with helping to hone the culinary style he brings to both his Tribeca restaurant Centrico and this cookbook. Here Sánchez presents 15 “magical” culturally inspired Mexican sauces, pastes, toppings and salsas. To each, the author adds an explanation of how they are best incorporated into dishes, alongside suggestions for alternate uses that leave home chefs a lot of room to mix, match and substantially shake up the dinner table. He opens with “Garlic-Chipotle Love,” a “dead simple” sauce marrying roasted garlic, cilantro, oil, chipotle chili peppers and lime zest into one of the author’s “favorite flavor memories.” This mixture is the spitfire ingredient igniting recipes for mussels, raw oysters and mashed potatoes. Elsewhere, “lip-tingling” Salsa Verde, bold Adobo, fragrant Cilantro-Cotija Pesto and the author’s signature, 23-ingredient “Mole Sánchez” provide the zesty springboard for pork tenderloin, “Banging Baby’s-Got-Back Ribs,” chicken or crab tostadas and empanadas. While the heat quotient is high, most recipes are accessible and flexible enough for newcomers to Mexican cuisine to dial down the more aggressively spiced ingredients to suit their individual tastes. Tips on how to keep pesto green, choosing the best tomatoes and secrets to making pickled onions are friendly and helpful. The book closes with sweet inspiration from Dulce de Leche–flavored ice cream and a temptingly sophisticated version of Bananas Foster. For Sánchez fans and those unafraid to fire up their taste buds like a pro.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1150-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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