The Cookie Countdown
I am, and always have been, a cookie person. I'm happiest when there's a nearly-full cookie box or jar somewhere in the kitchen, just waiting for me to have an excuse: a story filed, a disagreeable chore completed, or…
Shelf Life With Susie
In a pickle! 2014's preserving books
It's mid-December, which means that those of us in the Northern hemisphere are enjoying the hard work we did months ago, in the form of Mason jars full of glowing preserves and crisp pickles plucked right off the pantry…
Globetrotting vegetarians
Vegetarian cookbooks are not what they once were - that is to say, big on brown rice and a few other Asian pantry ingredients, or filled end to end with pasta and cheese. No, they travel everywhere and anywhere, and if…
Glass class
If you're like most of us living in the U.S., this week you're currently scrambling with shopping lists and cleaning and agonizing over the weather forecast (which, at least on the East coast of North America, is dire)…
Straight outta Brooklyn...
A while back I noticed a new adjective creeping into my cookbook reviews. "The latest Brooklyn bakery book". "Yet another Brooklyn bistro book". "Another hip Brooklyn-based title from [X] Press." So - just for fun - I…
In a word: Chefs
You know the cookbook season is in full swing when the coffee-table books start arriving (ker-THUNK on the porch!). The spines are the first thing you notice, stark and black, with a single word emblazoned across…
The Font That Ate 2014
I don't usually make a big deal about typefaces in cookbooks, except to complain when they are too small. But every once in a while the jackets all suddenly start to look eerily similar, and once you figure out why you…
Meat, meat, meat, meat!
Is cooking meat the first great hurdle of any omnivorous cook? I think it's between that and baking. I think my progression was pretty typical: first boneless chicken breast, then ground beef, then pork chops, then…
The Perfect Instruction
So, over my years as a cookbook reviewer, I've come to realize there is actually a word formula for the kind of recipe that works for me. The ingredients list doesn't matter that much - unless there's a bunch of…
La belle cuisine...
This is me in the kitchen: Hair up in a messy ponytail. An apron that is laundered but nowhere close to white. Scuffed clogs and glasses spattered with something or other. This is Mimi Thorisson in the kitchen. And by…
A glug and a dollop...
What do you think of those Brits and their chatty, poetical way with instructions? Whenever I read a Jamie Oliver recipe, I prepare myself for an aggressive style of non-measurement - the "glug" of olive oil, the "knob"…
Scriptures for the cook
The third edition of The Spice and Herb Bible came last week, and I did what I always do. I looked up "fenugreek," and sighed with satisfaction. There were four solid pages on fenugreek, with its name in 20 different…