DINNER'S READY

TURN A SINGLE MEAL INTO A WEEK OF DINNERS ALL YEAR LONG

by Andrew Schloss with Ken Bookman ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 1995

Schloss and Bookman (Fifty Ways to Cook Most Everything, not reviewed) have a firm vision of what we eat todaythey just don't understand how we cook it. The basic principle is: Prepare one large dinner on Sunday, and then ingredients reserved from the preparation of that dinner will interlock with the recipes for the rest of the week. That format is too rigid, however. For example, one week's Sunday menu of Roasted Vegetable Paella, Artichokes Braised with Fennel, and Warm Tapenade Bread sounds appetizing, but if you don't plan to make Grilled Vegetable and Chävre Pizza, Frittata Carciofi, and Grilled Black Chicken later in the week, you're left with odds and ends like 1´ cups eggplant mixture and ´ cup olive paste. Basically, if one recipe from this book catches your eye, you're virtually locked into an entire week of set menus, and these aren't recipes that can be manipulated easily, since often what's set aside is a portion of a single vegetable or a mixture that's prepared halfway. Nor are concessions made for those who don't need four servings at every meal or who just might not like an individual recipe. That's a shame, because there are some great, quick dishes with a lot of interesting touches in these pages, and the recipes are quite clear. Brown rice cooked with soy sauce and then tossed with a pecan-garlic mixture was savory and crunchy, and radicchio braised in balsamic vinegar and red wine was delicious and tender. Codependent recipes render this book dysfunctional.

Pub Date: March 24, 1995

ISBN: 0-688-12720-7

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION