Scan barcode
A review by nicole_p
The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure: A Cookbook by Alana Chernila
5.0
I love this book! I have been trying to clear out my cookbook shelves and NOT bring in any more. I don't have an enormous amount, but plenty. Still, this one has such simple, gorgeous, homey recipes using fine (but not hard-to-find), simple ingredients, that I will be buying this one after I have returned this copy to the library. I love recipes with a small list of ingredients that create terrific flavor blends that play off one another.
Chernila includes great basics to build upon (for example, the perfect time and temps to roast nearly every kind of commonly found vegetable) and reminds us that current trendy foods and preparations (such as fermenting) have been essentials in kitchens for centuries and are easily accessible and achievable. I also like that she includes a handful of quick, flavorful recipes for one when one may be tempted to just grab another bowl of cereal or piece of toast.
I also love that she is a cheerleader for exploring and messing up in the kitchen and vegetable garden. Your garden can and will have weeds and not look like all the pictures you admire and you can still use the food you manage to grow. Likewise, the things you create in the kitchen will sometimes not come out picture-perfect, but with a little practice they'll taste pretty darn good and you still may end up with some picture-perfect things from time to time. Maybe I like this so much because it matches my own approach to cooking and gardening of which I have been doing both long before social media. Thus, in this instance she's preaching to the choir, but in our image-saturated, western culture and to a generation who has not known any different, her encouraging message may be just the one some need to hear.
Chernila includes great basics to build upon (for example, the perfect time and temps to roast nearly every kind of commonly found vegetable) and reminds us that current trendy foods and preparations (such as fermenting) have been essentials in kitchens for centuries and are easily accessible and achievable. I also like that she includes a handful of quick, flavorful recipes for one when one may be tempted to just grab another bowl of cereal or piece of toast.
I also love that she is a cheerleader for exploring and messing up in the kitchen and vegetable garden. Your garden can and will have weeds and not look like all the pictures you admire and you can still use the food you manage to grow. Likewise, the things you create in the kitchen will sometimes not come out picture-perfect, but with a little practice they'll taste pretty darn good and you still may end up with some picture-perfect things from time to time. Maybe I like this so much because it matches my own approach to cooking and gardening of which I have been doing both long before social media. Thus, in this instance she's preaching to the choir, but in our image-saturated, western culture and to a generation who has not known any different, her encouraging message may be just the one some need to hear.