Martha Pearl Villas has served meals to everyone from Pierre Franey to Craig Claiborne, and her son James is food and wine editor at Town and Country and a cookbook author (French Country Cooking, not reviewed, etc.). They team up here to offer classic southern cuisine with homespun anecdotes and inventive twists. In the introduction, James admits that his family doesn't ``pay any mind to diets, fats, salt, and cholesterol,'' and that's obvious in recipes for dishes like cheese and eggs (with ten eggs, one and a half cups of milk, and a pound and a half of cheddar to serve six to eight people) and the turkey roasted with bacon slices, served with giblet gravy and a cornbread dressing that requires a stick of butter and four eggs. And often side dishes that could have been light feel heavy (the summer tomato pie, while thoroughly delicious with its savory blend of fresh herbs, also includes a cup of mayonnaise, two cups of cheddar, and half a cup of Parmesan). Luckily, an unflagging commitment to taste also translates into many more healthful dishes as well, from the wonderfully loopy cold shrimp and wild rice salad to the succulent paper-bag roasted chicken. The recipes are generally well written, but the occasional use of mise-en-place (how many onions make up one cup of chopped onions?) and failure to provide detailed information (how many people know that for a salmon mousse to ``chill till firm,'' it must set overnight?) prove irritating in an otherwise charming and sophisticated effort. Comfort food at its best.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-622015-6
Page Count: 291
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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