Wrapping Up, and Up Next

I declare The Epicurious Cookbook to be solid. Everything except for the spice-bomb lettuce wraps, which were practically inedible, ranked at least an "okay,"with the majority (13 out of 18 recipes) being in the "liked" or "loved" category. Not too shabby.

Usually, by the time I've cooked 18 recipes from a book, I'm antsy to move on. In this case, there's a ton I still want to cook, but I'm switching books to afford myself a better chance at losing any weight during the 3 months of Weight Watchers that I paid for. I've gained four pounds since I signed up in January. ARGH! Anyway, I have one month left included in what I've already paid for, so I'm going to try really hard to make it work.

I unenthusiastically claim my next book to be Giada's Feel Good Food, because a) they're healthy recipes, and b) each recipe provides the nutritional breakdown per serving, so I can just plop that into WW's points calculator and be done with it, rather than having to build recipes one ingredient at a time to figure out how many points the meal will be. I hate that crap.

I'd pre-ordered this book when I heard about it, because I'm compulsive like that. It arrived, and bummed me out. It's totally uninspiring. Almond Butter Strawberry Toast? Smear bread with almond butter. Add strawberries and a drizzle of honey. Really? This is a recipe?? Very little sounds appetizing to me. You can be damn sure I won't be cooking a Strawberry-Mint Omelet for breakfast. Sugar in my eggs? I just threw up in my mouth. I will not eat Detox Broth for three meals a day. One of her dinner recipes is Grilled Herbed Tofu with Avocado Cream. As dinner? Really? It even looks sparse in the book's photo.

I've made a recipe or two since I got the book. The Chewy Granola Bars were weird and gross. I had the adorable idea to make them and cut them into heart shapes for Valentines Day. No one ate more than a bite. The Oatmeal with Olive Oil was not exactly delicious, but it was somehow more satisfying and kept me full longer than oatmeal with a smashed banana or applesauce, which is how I usually eat mine. Maybe I ate it slower because it was savory/bland. I don't know. So that recipe was okay. Still, I don't have high hopes for this book.

I know it's meant to be helpful, but the personal stories in this book make me jealously hate Giada a little. My  main thought is, "Well la-dee-dah for YOU." The only other time a cookbook evoked this feeling in me was when Ina Garten recommends that everyone have two dishwashers in their kitchen, for easy clean-up. Lady, I don't even have one dishwasher in my kitchen at the moment. I AM the dishwasher, so shut up. So Giada's pretending to be normal and cute too much, and it grates on my nerves. Regarding her weekly manicure, she says "I'll embellish my ring fingers with something a bit special. I stay in the same color family so it's a little hit of fun but nothing too crazy!" SMACK. Her favorite things to freeze so they're ready to cure a sweet tooth are "chocolate chips, grapes, mini peppermint patties, sliced banana, and berries." If frozen grapes were sufficient to cure my sweet tooth, I wouldn't need your damn book. Every three months, Giadia, her aunt, and her sister "head to the same Korean spa for a head-to-toe scrub." SMACK. She wears concealer, because "Between being a mom, working, and traveling, I dont' often get to catch up on my beauty rest!" SMACK SMACK. Maybe I'm surly, or maybe it's her excessive use of exclamation points, but the tone is so sappy and annoying. As I said before, I'm jealous. She's so perfect in her white house with her white shirt. Giada at Home made me worry that, if I knew her, I'd spill something in her squeaky clean house. This book makes me fantasize about smearing pasta all over her couch. She's pushing an image of being a normal person, but includes pictures of her gorgeous self washing her face, as if this brings her closer to us.

See? Jealous.

Pictures like this make me feel worse about me, and for that, Giada gets another SMACK SMACK.

All will be forgiven if the food turns out to be tasty. I'm not holding my breath.

Quinoa

The recipe for Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa on page 70 of The Epicurious Cookbook hit that sweet spot of lime and cilantro and green onion flavor that I don't come across in Italy unless I make it myself.

I approve.

Conclusion: Liked it. Basic "southwestern" salad, but a good one. It would be a good BBQ dish, because there aren't any ingredients that could go bad in the hot sun.

Enh

There's not much to say about the recipe for Soft Scrambled Eggs with Ricotta (without chives) from pg 15 of The Epicurious Cookbook. It's scrambled eggs. With ricotta. It tastes exactly as you would expect it to. Did I like it? Well enough. Would I make it again? Nah.

Conclusion: Just okay.

If I ever create a recipe, I'll make sure to omit the superlatives in its title. The outcome can only suffer from inflated expectation. I made Amazing Chocolate Chip-Peanut Butter Cookies (pg 283) for my husband to bring to a poker night last weekend. They're intro describes them as "crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside." I fiddled around with the baking time with each sheet that went in the oven, and never achieved that effect. The day I baked these, I thought they were dry, even when I practically undercooked them, and the peanut flavor (provided by chopped peanuts and Reese's peanut butter chips) didn't pack much punch. My big takeaway was that I want to add chopped peanuts and Reese's peanut butter chips to my gold standard Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe, and in the future, that's what I'd do.

I concede that these became moister and more flavorful overnight. Not sure how the moisture level change. Maybe the peanuts released oil or something. They were much better the next day.

That said, everyone at poker night devoured/raved about them, so maybe I'd feel more kindly toward them if the book hadn't amped them up so much. Regardless, I'll stick with adding things to Toll House's recipe next time.

Conclusion: Just okay, as far as cookies go. Don't get me wrong, I ate my fair share. Not as good as they could be, though.

Tilapia with Artichoke, Caper, and Cherry Tomato Sauce

It felt like it took a long time to prepare dinner tonight, but that's really only because it took me forever to clean the giant bag of brussel sprouts that Matt pulled from our garden. I've found enough little buggies and mystery matter (eggs? I don't know) hiding in loose leaves, that I'm psychotic about pruning the sprouts before cooking them. Regardless, the brussel sprouts had nothing to do with this recipe. The Tilapia with Artichoke, Caper, and Cherry Tomato Sauce (pg 246 of The Epicurious Cookbook) took very little time to prepare.

I was skeptical that the breadcrumb and parmigiano mixture would adhere to the fish without any egg, especially after I followed the instructions to pat the fish dry before dredging it, but it did, in fact, stick. Surprise!

I'm out of onions, so I left it out. I cooked garlic for a few seconds, then added in the halved canned artichokes, cooked it a few minutes, added halved cherry tomatoes and capers, cooked it a few minutes, until the tomatoes started to mush up a bit, then added in the water from the canned artichokes, some chicken stock, and a little butter. The mixture reduced for a few minutes, and dinner was ready. Perfetto!

Conclusion: Loved it. Easy and tasty.

Bookending Bologna

On Friday, two hours before we were scheduled to leave for the train station to head up to Bologna for the weekend, Charlie requested pancakes. This kid asks for specific food so infrequently that I decided, sure, let's have pancakes for lunch.

I've had Nigella's Cheesecakelets (pg 191 of Feast) in my head for quite a while, ever since I first saw her whip them up on her tv show. Despite the name, these don't much resemble cheesecake. They have cottage cheese in them, and she says that they remind her of her grandmother's cheesecake. Who am I to argue with an individual's food associations?

There's not a ton of flour involved (only 1/3 cup), especially when taking into account that there are 3 eggs. The eggs are separated, the whites whipped, then folded into the batter.

I found these pancakes to be impossible to handle. They stuck to the griddle and were very slow to cook through, meaning that I kept flipping too-wet pancakes to try to keep the glued-on bottoms from burning. It was a hot mess. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe my pan was too hot. I didn't heat the pan any differently than I normally do for pancakes.

I managed to get one to stay intact for Charlie, and he ate it (including cottage cheese) without complaint. I wound up with the torn up messes, and didn't bother cooking the remainder of the batter. The flavor wasn't unique or interesting enough to make this recipe instead of a normal pancake recipe, especially when taking into account how difficult they were to actually cook.

Conclusion: Dislike. Pain in the ass. I may try and slip some cottage cheese into our normal pancake recipe in the future though, for extra protein, since it didn't seem to bother Charlie that it was in there.

I made sure I had all the ingredients on hand to make Penne alla Vodka (pg 133 of Feast), because it seemed like it would be easy enough to throw together on Monday, after a day of travel. It was. This was very delicious, and it tasted like home. Not my actual home, because vodka sauce was not something my mother ever made, but my neighbors did, and I used to like ordering it in restaurants. Kids need vodka too. What? haha.

One thing I found odd, and that I'm not sure I would do again, is that, instead of adding the vodka to the sauce, which is the only way I've ever seen this made, Nigella has you mix butter and the vodka in with the drained pasta, prior to adding it to the sauce. This made it much more obvious that vodka was involved, which may be why she prefers it. I don't know. I think it tastes smoother and less jarring when mixed with the sauce. Also, on Monday night, I'd pulled out Charlie's pasta prior to adding the vodka, and he inhaled his entire plate of pasta and sauce. Last night, I tried to give him the leftovers (which included the boozified pasta), and we fought about it for two hours. In retrospect, I'm wondering if he could taste the difference. It's equally likely that he was just being a pain. The majority of our meals turn into fights, so who knows.

Conclusion: Loved it.

We adults ate Dominican Chimichurri Burgers (pg 152 of The Epicurious Cookbook) last night. The intro describes this as a "messy masterpiece." Messy, yes. Masterpiece? Let's not go crazy.

The basis of this burger--ground beef mixed with diced onion and red pepper, garlic, cilantro, oregano, soy sauce, and Worcestershire, topped with a mixture of mayo, ketchup, and mustard--was very good. I know, because I had the leftover patty for lunch today, minus all the extra unnecessary hooplah. The hooplah in question is sliced cabbage and shredded carrots cooked for two minutes until wilted (huh? Why? It was still crunchy. Not sure what the point of this step was.), grilled tomatoes, and grilled onions. I don't like all that messy crap on top of my burger. The whole thing fell apart while I was eating it. It's just a peeve of mine. The cabbage and carrot was especially unnecessary. Out with it!

Conclusion: Liked it, minus the toppings.

Comfort Foods

Since moving to Naples, I have become obsessed with the extra starches Italians add to pasta. Never, in my carb-conscious American life, would I add potato or beans to pasta, but they do, and the resulting miraculous textural amalgamation creates one of the world's great comfort foods. I always perk up when I find out I'm being served pasta fagiola (literally, pasta and beans). I say "when I find out," because it's rare to actually order your food around here. You sit down at a table, and they start bringing out food. Whatever is fresh, and whatever the chef makes well. It's marvelous. Anyway, I've never tried to cook Pasta Fagiola myself, and figured the recipe in The Epicurious Cookbook was as good a place as any to start.

This recipe produced a very nice tomato-based soup, chock full of sausage, onions, cannellini beans, pasta, and spinach. It would take well to any veg you may have laying around.

It bore no resemblance to any pasta fagiola I've had here in Italy, and misses out on all that creamy, starchy, thickening that the beans and pasta can give each other, but it was a good, cozy soup. I wish I made a plate for Charlie before adding the frozen spinach, because he refused to touch it once he saw green.

Conclusion: Liked it.

We (ie, Matt) planted a winter garden for the first time in our lives this year, just to see if we could produce some vegetables that are hard to find around here. Some seeds have done better than others. Swiss chard and turnips are growing like champs. Red carrots are slow and steady. We had no luck with parsnips or spinach. Our Tuscan Kale, which I thought would take off like a rocket, since we're in Italy and all, has remained quite small. Matt pulled up a bunch of turnips and a few carrots the other day, and asked if I could figure out a way to use them this week. He doesn't like pot pie much, but when I saw that Chicken and Fall Vegetable Pot Pie (pg 249) called for a pound of turnips and a few carrots, I was sold. Our turnip greens are inedibly bitter, so I used some of my swiss chard instead.

The crust is supposed to have extra pizzazz with the inclusion of fresh parsley and thyme. I was sure I had parsley in the fridge, but didn't find it until two minutes after I was done cooking. I threw dried thyme into the crust and called it a day. The pastry dough was surprisingly easy to work with (surprising, b/c pie crust type things usually infuriate me), and it turned out flaky, which I was afraid would not happen, as it was sitting on top of a puddle of goopy filling.

Tastes better than it looks.

Conclusion: Liked it. Matt ate it, too. I didn't try to figure out the WW points, and I don't want to know. Suffice it to say, there's enough butter, flour, and shortening in here to blow it off the chart.


Last night, I made Braised Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives (pg 52). This is an easy roast chicken recipe. Toss tomatoes, onions, olives, and sliced garlic with oil, herbes de Provence, fennel, salt and pepper, and dump it into a roasting pan. Rub the same mixture, sans fennel, into the chicken skin. Add chicken to the pan. Roast.

Next time, I'd rub the spices under the skin. I always pull the skin off, so the seasoning was lost on me. Still, some salty garlicky flavor did seep into the meat.

I've never roasted tomatoes alongside a chicken before, and it turns out to be a lovely combo. I didn't like the olives. Their time in the oven concentrated their saltiness until they were flat-out unpleasant to eat. I'd omit them next time. 

Conclusion: Liked it.

Blackened Steak Salad

Two nights ago, I made Blackened Steak Salad (pg 254 of The Epicurious Cookbook). The spice rub for the steak was delicious, and I will use it again (paprika, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, cayenne, oregano, thyme).

You can't see it, but there's a whole heap of greenery under there.

The salad component (lettuce, green pepper, sliced red onion (which I grilled, and know I liked better than I would have if I left them raw), tomato, and blue cheese) had too much roughage for me. I enjoyed the first half, but I was tired of chewing halfway through. Some salads are interesting, and give you different flavors with every bite. This wasn't one of them.

Conclusion: I'm going to say Liked It, because the steak part was mighty tasty. I won't make it as a salad again, though.

Another Round-up

I really need to start posting about these recipes closer to the time I've prepared them. Some are a little fuzzy in my memory. Maybe that should tell me something.

Peruvian Grilled Chicken (pg 143 of The Epicurious Cookbook) doesn't resemble any Peruvian chicken I've ever had. Once in a blue moon, for a treat, my dad's best friend would stop at a Peruvian chicken place and bring a few birds to my house, where we all descended upon them like a pack of rabid zombies. They were salty and juicy and delicious. Same goes for the ones we used to get when we lived in Norfolk. This version was tasty enough, when looked at objectively, but did not come anywhere close to being delicious enough to be called Peruvian chicken. It was, however, easy. Just marinate chicken parts overnight, then roast them in the oven for a half an hour at really high heat. It was good, but not great. It will not satisfy a Peruvian chicken craving.

Conclusion: Just okay. If it were called Soy Sauce Chicken, I might score it higher, but this is no substitute for the real thing.

Southwestern Lime Chicken (pg 145) is another marinate, then grill recipe. There are other spices in the mix, but the only two flavors that stand out are lime juice and soy sauce. If limey and salty, with a finishing touch of melted Monterey Jack, is your thing, then this is a recipe for you. I liked it. My chicken took a lot longer to cook through than the designated ten minutes. Another easy recipe that I'm glad to have in my pocket.

Sorry, I cut them all to make sure they were done, so it looks a bit dismembered.

Conclusion: Liked it. Can anyone tell me how to use a cast-iron grill pan without smoking out my house?

Thai Fried Eggplant with Basil (pg 273) is technically supposed to be a side dish. I probably should have paid attention to that fact prior to preparing it. This was mighty tasty (especially to my deprived-of-Asian-food tastebuds), and healthily veggie-laden (4 WW points, without counting the rice), but Matt and I were both starving by bedtime. Stomach-growling hunger. No good. However, the protein of your choice could easily be tossed into the wok and stir fried with the rest, so I'll know better next time.

Conclusion: Liked it.

Last night, as a side to a rotisserie chicken, I made Wild Rice with Pecans, Raisins, and Orange Essence (pg 354). Despite the fact that I cut a tablespoon of olive oil, and halved the pecan and the raisins, in order to bring the points value into a more reasonable range (7 pts), this was still very good. There's lots of good flavor here, with the zest and juice of one large orange (or 2 tangerines, in this case), balsamic vinegar, mint leaves, nuts, raisins, and green onions. It's meant to sit for an hour or two, then be served room temp, so it's another easy do-ahead recipe.

Conclusion: Loved it. This tastes extremely orangey, which I like. The whole "essence" business made me expect less flavor.

Lastly, as part of Charlie's Curious George themed birthday party, I made monkey and banana shaped cut-out cookies, using Nigella's recipe in Feast. I can't say I was very impressed. Matt and Charlie had a stomach virus earlier in the week, and I came down with it the night before his original party date, and was congested before that, so it's possible my tastebuds were off, but these cookies didn't have much flavor. They cut well and were fairly sturdy, but if they don't taste delicious, I don't need them in my life. Unfortunately, I wound up having to toss them out because we were all too sick to be interested in eating them before they went bad, and I didn't get a chance to make new ones for his belated party, this past saturday. If I had made new cookies, I would have used a different recipe.

My icing skills need some work.

Conclusion: Disliked. Don't care if they look cute. I want my cookies to taste good.

Fingers Crossed

Charlie was sick to his stomach all night. Around 5:30 this morning, Matt got sick, too. I figure it's only a matter of time before I'm taken down, so while I'm exposing myself to contagion, snuggling with wee man on the couch, I might as well catch up on a few recipes that I've neglected to post about. If I'm lucky, it'll distract me from the annoying voice of Annie on Little Einsteins. In general, I really like this show (and am always surprised and delighted when I'm listening to Ben Folds and Charlie announces, "That piano sounds happy"), but seriously. Annie has to be a producer's daughter or something. Her voice is nails on the chalkboard of my brain.

Last week, I made Roasted Lamb Chops with Charmoula (pg 62 of The Epicurious Cookbook). This was easy (score: 1). Blitz cumin seeds, parsley, mint (which I couldn't get my hands on), cilantro, garlic, paprika, salt, cayenne, and lemon juice in a food processor. Still running the machine, add olive oil. You're supposed to marinate the lamb in this mixture for 4-24 hours. I only marinated mine for the time it took me to prepare the rest of the meal. Still good. The recipe instructs you to place a rack on a baking sheet and roast the chops in the oven. My cooling racks are coated with something, so I wasn't about to put them in the oven. I grilled the chops on the stove instead. This seems faster and more straightforward to me, anyway.

Conclusion: I seem to love every lamb recipe I come across, and this one is no exception. Delish! 

I made Creamed Spinach from Nigella's Feast (pg 207) to accompany the lamb. Holy moly. I could have eaten the entire pot myself. With a stick of butter and a cup of heavy cream, this is way too caloric to be anything but a special occasion vegetable, but it is so, so good. It makes me laugh that Nigella says to "heat the butter -- using less if this amount frightens you." It did frighten me, Nigella. I used half a stick of butter, and didn't miss the other four tablespoons.

I've only had creamed spinach out of a can, and never liked it. This homemade version is rich and nutmeggy and cozy. I added a can of while beans to it, just for kicks, and Matt said he loved it with the beans, and didn't think he'd like it as much without the beans, for textural reasons. I could eat it either way.

Conclusion: Loved it. Dangerously delicious.

Back to Epicurious, I made Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Jalapeno (pg 220). In hopes that Charlie would taste some, I toned down the heat. Instead of using an entire hot pepper, seeds and all, I only used the flesh. I don't think including the seeds would have changed my opinion of this all that much, though. It was kind of bland. I might feel more favorably toward it if I wasn't already in love with Nigella's black bean soup from How to Eat. Nigella's is more time-consuming (though not that much more actual work), but it's also a lot more flavor.

Conclusion: Just okay.

Last night, I made Salmon Cakes (pg 25 of TEC). A few things concerned me during the process, but it all turned out ok. The salmon in my freezer had skin on it. I worried that it would be hard to cut the skin off, but it really wasn't. Then, after I was midway through cutting my second fillet into bits, I felt bones. Nooooooo! the fillets were supposed to be boneless. I felt around, picked a few out, and hoped for the best. Fortunately, I didn't find any while I was eating them.

The raw salmon is mixed with torn up bits of pita bread, mayo, an egg, coriander, cayenne, and lemon zest (though I used tangerine zest, b/c that's what I had). There's also supposed to be chives in there, but I didn't have any. Then you just make patties and cook them in a little oil for a few minutes. I worried that they'd fall apart. I worried that they wouldn't cook through. Everything worked perfectly.

Conclusion: Loved them. Crispy on the outside, soft, yet solid on the inside. Chives would make them even better. I might try them with only one pita bread instead of two. I think I'd prefer a different bread to fish ratio, assuming that messing with it doesn't impact how it sticks together. Really good, just as it is, though. It's supposed to be served with a lemon yogurt sauce, but I omitted that part b/c I'm doing WeightWatchers again. In case you care about point values of things, best I can tell, each patty is 7 points. I served it with a delicious 3 pt serving of Warm French Lentils from Barefoot Contessa's How Easy Is That? Yummy meal.

Chilis

I'd made Epicurious' Chicken Chili (pg 251 of The Epicurious Cookbook) when my in-laws were here. At the time, I remember a) being able to blitz the soup base in my food processor without any overflow, b) being surprised at how thick the chili was, and c) loving it. It reminded me of the inside of an enchilada at Don Pablo's.

I decided to make it again, in what I thought was exactly the same way, apart from the fact that this time I used pinto beans instead of white beans. The recipe actually calls for "pink beans," but I don't even know what that means. The cannellini worked better than pinto, flavor-wise. Both times, I used canned chiles in adobo sauce instead of "dried New Mexican or guajillo chiles."

I don't know what happened, but this time, when I whirred the broth, chiles, canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro, peanuts (!!), cumin, cilantro, and salt, it was too much fluid for my food processor and it leaked out all over my counter. The finished product was much soupier than it was last time.

Did I forget to add the broth the first time I made this?

I have no idea. I think I must have. I really need to try it again and figure out what the difference was, because I preferred it before.

Another problem this time was that, because my food processor was leaking, I didn't blitz the base well enough. Instead of turning into a nice, thick puree (I must have forgotten the broth before), the peanuts were too chunky. Last time, they helped thicken the soup. This time, they were annoying to chew.

Conclusion: liked it, but loved it the first time. I must determine what I did "wrong" on the first go.

Several weeks ago, I made Nigella's Cornbread-Topped Chilli Con Carne (pg 399 of Feast). I'd totally forgotten about it until I flipped by it in the book, so that should tell you something. The chili itself was okay. Not disgusting, but not good. Unmemorable. I baked the cornbread separately, in a pan, rather than dolloping it on top of the chilli and baking the whole in the oven. This recipe serves 20. I was serving 2. I had a hunch that cornbread was going to turn into a soggy, vile mess upon sitting in the fridge and reheating. Anyway, the cornbread itself was disgusting. Totally flavorless. It would have been gross whether I followed her instructions to bake it on top of the chili or not.

Conclusion: Disliked.

The Flavor of Pain

The first dish I selected from The Epicurious Cookbook was Indo-Chinese Lettuce Wraps (pg 45). Because of its carblessness, it's ground chicken, and its veg component, it seemed like a nice, light recipe that would still have a lot of flavor (2 tsp each of garam masala, cumin, and coriander, plus a bit of cayenne, jalapeno, garlic, ginger, and cilantro).

I added black beans to the mix, had to use a hot red pepper instead of a jalapeno, and added a splash of lime juice at the end, but otherwise stuck to the recipe.

My eyes hurt just looking at them.

Twenty minutes later, my mouth is still throbbing. Are red peppers spicier than jalapeno? I don't know. I don't know if it's because of the hot red pepper or because 1/2 tsp of cayenne is more than my mouth can stand, but this lit my tongue and lips on fire. The lettuce helped cool it off, ever so slightly, but this could definitely have used some sort of yogurt sauce component, or a lot less cayenne. Or both. Or rice. Or something.

Conclusion: Just okay. I'd try it again, cutting back on the heat, but as written, it's more than I can handle.

If this recipe is any indication, I will not be complaining at the end of this book that its recipes were bland. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to guzzle a gallon of milk.

Update: Matt, who has a very high spice tolerance, reacted thusly: "All this tastes like is hot. It's burning my sinuses."

I'm downgrading this to a Dislike.

Wrapping Up, and Up Next

I'm moving on from Rome. It's a beautiful book, in terms of full page photos of the Eternal City, and lots of information about how and what Italians eat. Lots of information. Lots of information. This book has 192 pages, and only 50 recipes. As such, I consider my preparation of 13 of them to be a sizeable statistic. That's what? 26%? If I'd been a better math student, I'd be able to stake that claim with more confidence.

There are some excellent, easy recipes that I will (and have already) make many times. Favorites are Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Rigatoni con Guanciale e Cipolla, Petti di Pollo in Padella, and the Tozzetti. Apart from the cacio e pepe, nothing I tested was downright bad.

I'd only recommend this book to people who really want to look at pictures of Rome. For a book that only has 50 recipes, they included some pretty lame-sounding ones. Grilled Eggplant? Asparagus Frittata? Salad of Roman Field Greens? Thanks, but I'm not interested.

I'm keeping it, because the recipes that I love, I really love. I begrudge it the space it occupies on my shelf, though.

Next, I'll mosey about with The Epicurious Cookbook: More Than 250 of Our Best-Loved Four-Fork Recipes For Weeknights, Weekends, and Special Occasions. Phew. That was a mouthful.

You probably know this alread, but epicurious.com is a nifty little website and search engine in which you can find user-rated recipes, both professional and home recipes submitted by normal people, for pretty much anything you can think of. This book highlights a selection of their highest rated (Four Fork) recipes.

Off the bat, the broken-down-by-season thing doesn't work for me in this book. I don't mind it in some cookbooks. That type of breakdown is least offensive in books that predominantly focus on produce.

This book does not focus on produce. Why in the world should Soft Scrambled Eggs with Ricotta and Chives be in the Spring section? Yes, chives grow in the Spring, but they're pretty standard in any grocery store year-round, right? Same goes for the Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper, and Sea Salt that can be found on the following page. If green onions are enough to qualify something as a "Spring" recipe, then everything I've ever cooked would belong in that section. Again, with the Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa Dip. Mayo, Swiss, and minced onion are mixed together and baked. How is that seasonal? (Also for Spring, if you were wondering.)

Anyway, that says  nothing about the success of the recipes, but it just doesn't seem like an appropriate layout for these particular recipes. Because of it, it's nearly impossible to find a recipe that you mentally flagged. It could be anywhere. I'd much prefer a standard Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner/Dessert or Appetizer/Soup/Chicken/Beef/etc breakdown. Perhaps, as I use the book, the layout will begin to make sense. We'll see.

On the plus side, this book has a huge variety of recipes for every different meal of the day, and they all sound good to me.