Date: Fri 20-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Famularo-Garlicky-cookbooks

Full Text:

(cookbooks) Vegetables Are Good, But It's Time For Some Comfort Food!

BY KAAREN VALENTA

Two broad categories of cookbooks have crossed my desk recently, the "watch

your health" low-fat and vegetarian books and those of the "indulge yourself"

comfort food genre.

Give me comfort food every time.

Not that vegetarian and other healthful cooking can't taste good. But there

seem to be too many no-fat cookbooks rolling off the presses lately, and the

recipes in them often aren't very satisfying.

Moderation in everything, my grandmother used to say.

We really haven't had much cold weather this winter but Random Houses's Delia

Smith's Winter Collection: Comfort Food (November 1997, hardcover, $35)

presents a lot of soul-satisfying seasonal food. Delia Smith is without a

doubt Britain's all-time best-selling cookbook author. This book is the

companion volume to the Summer Collection and the companion volume to the

12-part BBC television series.

Delia Smith seeks new ways to bring out the fullest flavor of the ingredients,

whether by oven roasting or grilling to emphasize the essence of a dish, or by

her individual blending of flavors to transform even the simplest of recipes,

such as Black Bean Chili with Avocado Salsa or Roasted Fish with Sun-Dried

Tomato Tapende. She has searched out new ways to save readers' time and shares

her ideas for creamy risottos made in the oven, vegetable combinations to cook

alongside main courses, and preserves that eliminate time-consuming hassle.

Above all, her winter recipes are guaranteed to bring a little sun into

anyone's kitchen, with flavors and fragrances from all over the world that add

a whole new dimension to traditional winter favorites: Bread and Butter

Pudding with the tang of Seville oranges, Teriyaki Steak, and soups with the

aromatic flavors of the Middle East.

The Good & Garlicky, Thick and Hearty, Soul-Satisfying, More Than Minestrone

Italian Soup Cookbook by Joe Famularo (Workman Publishing, 1998, softcover,

$13.95) is a collection of 150 recipes from family, friends and chefs that

celebrates the simple art and individuality of Italian zuppa. Prepare to be

tempted.

The recipes range from delicate broths, some to be served as a first course

such as Stracciatella and Passatelli, to more hearty fare, like the Poached

Eggs Parmigiano in Broth and Filippo Di Niro's Soup of the Four Cheeses. There

are soups with legumes, soups with rice and barley, pasta soups, soups with

poultry and meat, soups with seafood, pureed and cream soups, and also breads

and soup enhancers like herb butters and pestos.

In Breakfast in Bed: 90 Recipes For Creative Indulgences (Harper Collins

Publishers, October 1997, hardcover, $19.95), author Jesse Cool says, "The

very best way of taking care of myself is to eat in bed. There is something

almost indecently delicious about the experience."

Ms Cool learned long ago that breakfast is a special time, and the physical

and emotional nourishment that come with that meal last throughout the day.

Served in bed - to a lover, a child, a parent, oneself (!) - breakfast can

become sensual, nostalgic, loving, nurturing, sustaining - a truly magical

start to an otherwise ordinary day.

Breakfast in Bed is written in a comfortable, easy style. It is interspersed

with personal anecdotes about the origins of family favorites like Fresh Corn

and Bacon Pudding, the first dish her son Jonah ever made for her (and an easy

dish for kids to prepare).

Some recipes are clearly comfort foods, as in Mom's Nurturing Mashed Soft

Boiled Eggs. Others have a special touch of elegance and romance like

Buckwheat Herb Blinis with Caviar, Sour Cream, and Chive Blossoms.

There are six varieties of fruit butters that guarantee to brighten up any

morning, especially when served with Sour Cream-Orange Lavender Biscuits,

Herb-Lemon Zest Popovers, or Spicy Buttermilk-Corn Basil Biscuits.

From the moment they roared onto the scene on their gleaming Triumph 950

Thunderbird motorbike and Watsonian Jubilee sidecar, Jennifer Paterson and

Clarissa Dickinson Wright have put the food world on notice: the Fat Ladies

are here and they've come to cook! As hosts of "Two Fat Ladies," the BBC's

most watched cooking show in history and the Food Network's hot new program,

Paterson and Wright have emerged as exciting new presences on the culinary

scene today. And they have just published their first cookbook, Cooking With

The Two Fat Ladies (Clarkson Potter, Crown Publishing Group, February 1998,

hardcover, $25).

From a seaside jaunt where the duo searches for wild mussels and crabs for a

sinfully rich seafood pate to the posh Westonbirt School where the ladies are

invited to prepare a slap-up meal after a lacrosse match, the authors offer

their impressible views on everything from the proper hanging of meat to the

vilification of cholesterol. The result is a no-nonsense yet enthusiastic

approach to eating well that is a refreshing change from today's obsession

with fat-gram counting.

Betty Bussell's Home Bistro (ECCO Press, 1997, hardcover, $24.95) is a revised

and expanded compilation of Eating In (first published in 1986) and Betty

Fussell's Home Plates (first published in 1990). Subtitled Simple, Sensuous

Fare in the Comfort of Your Own Kitchen, this creative collection of nearly

100 recipes is for people who salivate just by reading the words

Orange-Cranberry Soup, Sweet Corn and Caviar, Pasta with Avocado Cream,

Wood-Smoked Salmon in Orange Butter, and Polenta Foie Gras.

There are recipes for dessert pastas like Orange-Almond Fettuccini and Sweet

Lemon Noodles. From the "Starters and Nibbles" to the mouthwatering

"Afterwards," most of the recipes are one-dish meals designed to serve two,

but they can be easily doubled or tripled for larger groups.