Cookbook review: Baking by James Peterson

Baking by James Peterson is an enormous, step-by-step, multi-picture guide to baking just about anything. Sponge cake, challah, apple tartin, blueberry pie, you name it. I've never had an big sweet tooth, but this book makes me want to go make some chocolate fondant.

However.

Some of the information in the book is incorrect.

The reviews point to serious typos, in both ingredients and baking times. The recipes aren't listed by weight (a serious no-no for serious bakers, as the only way to get a truly accurate flour measurement is by weight), and some of the information is just plain weird. For example--he asks you to press the graham cracker crust onto a cheesecake AFTER it's already been baked. Huh? I don't even know how that would work. Plus, he calls for a blueberry pie to be top-crust-less. Everyone knows a good blueberry pie has a top crust.

So I'm not sure I can actually recommend this cookbook. It's very inspirational, I'll give it that. I love James Peterson's other tomes (especially Sauces); I think I'll peruse some of his others, and keep looking for a good all-purpose baking book.

Beef stew with sweet potatoes and green beans

I made this for my parents when they were in town. My dad is a notoriously picky eater, and even he loved this.

It's essentially the same recipe as Beef Stew with Butternut Squash, only with sweet potatoes. I roasted, peeled and chopped the sweet potatoes before adding them. Also, I left out the onions (my mom is allergic) and threw in an entire head of garlic instead. At the last minute, I added two or three big handfuls of frozen green beans.

Zucchini crudo

Or zucchini tartare, if you prefer. Essentially raw zucchini sliced very thin, spread out over a plate, and marinated with the juice of half a lemon and half a lime. Sprinkle feta cheese on top (maybe a little red onion, too) and serve.

Wine from my collection: Bear Flag

This is a fun wine.

I selected a bunch of inexpensive wines at random during my latest stock-up; at $9.99, I figured I'd give this one a try, despite (or because of?) the crazy label. So-called "critter wines" tend to be drinkable but not especially tasty.

But Bear Flag was actually pretty good. Their "soft red" blend is a mixture of tempranillo, zinfandel, and a couple of other things, and was very smooth and well-balanced. Not too sweet, not too tannic. I really liked it with stinky cheese. I think I'll have to make it a point to seek this one out in future. I like having good under-$10 wine around for everyday drinking.

Wine from my collection: McWilliams Pinot Noir

It's hard to find a drinkable pinot noir under $20. I got this one on sale for $9.99, so I wasn't optimistic. But it's pretty darn close to drinkable. I'm not sure I'd seek this one out again, but it went down a lot better than I feared it might.

It's smooth, not too tannic, sufficiently fruity. It is better if you finish the bottle all at once; the next day it wasn't nearly as tasty.

Cookbook review: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

Gotta have it.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook is, you know, a collection of all the recipes that have appeared in the Times. I have the older Craig Claiborne NYT cookbook, and it's comprehensive but dated. This, however, is brand-spanking new, featuring all the things that weren't on the food scene in the earlier edition--quinoa, miso, bison.

I looooooooooove it. I especially like the Table of Contents for each section, listing each recipe. It's big, it's beautiful, you're getting me a copy for Christmas, right?

Cookbook review: Keys to Good Cooking by Harold McGee

You'll remember Harold McGee from On Food and Cooking, the magnum opus of food science and kitchen lore. It's hefty, but indispensable.

His new book, Keys to Good Cooking, is essentially a big pretty book of kitchen tips. How to achieve the perfect hard-boiled egg, how to select fresh watermelon, how to sear steak, that sort of thing. It's fascinating stuff, but the book lives in that weird neverland of not-quite-a-reference-book, not-really-a-book-you-want-to-read-from-cover-to-cover. It's the sort of book you want to dip into periodically; it'll be difficult to absorb all that information otherwise. Like I said, fascinating stuff, but there's a lot.

I haven't decided whether I want my own copy of this or not (I got it from the library; I audition a lot of my cookbooks that way). I think I'd like it better if it were a Twitter feed I could subscribe to; a new kitchen tip every day!

(Speaking of Twitter feeds, you follow mine, right?)