Weekly Reading Update, including a brief review of Maman's Homesick Pie by Donia Bijan

For reasons made obvious in my last post (we were out-of-town most of last week for Eldest's wedding), I didn't manage to accomplish much in the way of reading. I did, however finish the two Grandma's Attic books that I briefly reviewed. I hauled all of the Grandma's Attic books, including the two I reviewed last year, to Nashville and passed them on to my multi-talented, cake-decorating sister-in-law, who has two little girls.

I also finished reading Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen by Donia Bijan. Apart from the fact that there was a lot of jumping back and forth in time (which is typical, I suppose, since the book is a memoir), which made the reading occasionally confusing due to tense issues, I really enjoyed Maman's Homesick Pie.

Donia Bijan spent her first 16 years of life in Iran, then her family eventually moved to the U.S., where Bijan attended college. After college, she moved to Paris to train as a chef at the famous Cordon Bleu Cooking School. Bijan moved back and forth between the U.S. and France to work at various establishments and hone her skills, then she opened her own restaurant. Maman's Homesick Pie blends memories of her childhood and home life with talk of college, cooking school and the many places she worked to develop her skills as a chef.

Donia Bijan's story is partly about her love of food, how it developed and how she came to blend the recipes and flavors from the three countries in which she's resided to create her own recipes and menus. But, it's also a loving tribute to her mother, who died in a pedestrian/car accident. Her mother was an excellent cook who loved preparing food and passed on her joy to her daughter. She was also a fascinating woman who was involved in politics and nursing, a woman with a strength and spirit you can't help but admire.

Maman's Homesick Pie is one of the best cross-cultural and "inside the world of the chef" memoirs I've read in a while. Although Bijan's family lost their home and possessions during a regime change in Iran, her mother was determined to bloom where she was planted and that rubbed off on the author. There's no whining about their tremendous losses. Instead, Bijan focuses on the scents and flavors that gave her joy and how she became a chef because it was truly the only profession she could imagine for herself.

If you love a foodie memoir with plenty of recipes and a chatty writing style, you'll love Maman's Homesick Pie. I heartily recommend it. There are some unusual ingredients that I doubt we'll be able to obtain in some of the Persian recipes but the author did mention alternative ingredients that can be substituted, in many cases.

I'm jumping the gun, here. The release date is October 11, but I couldn't convince myself to set down Maman's Homesick Pie, once I started reading. My thanks to Algonquin Books for the sending me this unexpected ARC in the mail.

I'm focusing on Lord and Lady Spy, at the moment. And, I'm enjoying a daily dip into Haiku Mind. Otherwise, I really am not doing much reading; the other books in my sidebar took a nice drive to Nashville and back for no apparent reason. Hopefully, I'll get my groove back, soon. Since I bought a few books that were on my Paperback Swap wish list in Nashville, I have room to add a few titles. What wonderful books would you recommend that I add to my wish list?

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

How to Roast a Lamb by Michael Psilakis

How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking
by Michael Psilakis
Copyright 2009
Little Brown - Cookbook/Memoir
288 pages

First the review. I'll post our favorite recipe separately. The most important thing you need to know about How to Roast a Lamb is that it's not just about roasting lamb. It's a big, hardback book that combines recipes with the author's personal story about how his Greek/Cretan roots, large family gatherings, love of food and fortuitous entry into the restaurant business became a lifetime pursuit that led to owning a series of restaurants and becoming a chef.

Psilakis' story is fascinating. His parents left Crete after WWII, when conditions were terrible and there were severe food shortages. I've read a couple of books about Crete during WWII, so it was easy for me to visualize post-war conditions. When he left for New York, Michael's father brought along seeds from the family garden, which he used to begin a new garden in the U.S. During Michael's childhood, he was put to work in the family's huge garden, taught how to dry and save seeds from each year's crops and, at times, also helped his mother in the kitchen. His family sounded a lot like the family of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and I have to admit I was a little envious reading about their huge gatherings.

The recipes come from years of creating recipes in his restaurants, often using traditional recipes but with some updating. Psilakis makes an unfortunate assumption that people can acquire the ingredients he uses just about anywhere -- a pretty common assumption made by people who are accustomed to life in a big city. This is unfortunate for us because we have to drive 60 miles just to get some ingredients he considers basic and others would have to be either ordered online or substituted. And, even his substitute ingredients (mentioned in the opening of the book) are impossible, difficult or expensive to acquire. He frequently uses a confit, sauce or viniagrette that must be prepared separately.

So, we were a little limited as to what we could make but there is plenty of variety in How to Roast a Lamb. The author has separated the recipes into sections that indicate what they're all about - "My Father's Garden" has recipes made from ingredients in a backyard garden, for example. There are fish recipes, recipes from Psilakis' first menus, game recipes, spreads and other recipes specifically for celebrations and recipes designed to be cooked for large gatherings. Finally, there is a section on "The Aegean Pantry" in which the author shares recipes for confits, spice mix, several vinaigrettes and candied fruits to keep on hand.

My opinion of the book, in general, is that it's a gorgeous book that I love looking at and reading but which seems pretty impractical for our household. I can't say that would be true everywhere. If you live in or close to a city where you have access to a wide variety of herbs, cheeses, seafood and vegetables, you might really enjoy the book.

My husband's opinion: "Most of the recipes are too complex." I should qualify his statement with the comment that the author is of the opinion that if you're having a large gathering, there's nothing wrong with spending days -- literally, up to a week -- cooking in preparation. I think that's lovely if you can do it and if you have good reason, but we have almost no family at all and zippo "gatherings" or parties, at this point in time. And, in spite of his comment, we've found a few recipes we like. I'll share our favorite in my next post.

3.5/5 - Gorgeous book, great personal story packed with personal photos and beautiful photos of each of the recipes but impractical and a bit complex for the ordinary cook. Particularly recommended for those who enjoy cooking complicated menus for large parties and have easy access to a variety of fresh ingredients, including seafood and herbs.

How to Lower Your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food by Chef Alain Braux

How to Lower your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food: A Practical Guide by Chef Alain Braux
Copyright 2009
Alain Braux International Publishing, LLC
266 pages
Link to Amazon that doesn't benefit me but which you need because this is a 5-star book

First the review, then the recipe! I'm going to post the pork chop recipe I've mentioned in previous posts separately because this post would be humongous if I threw a sample recipe and review together.

How to Lower your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food has a title that screams "contrast", since French food has been known to be high-fat, although the cover shows very healthy foods. The French diet, says Chef Braux, was a healthy Mediterranean diet, heavy in fresh regional foods, until some time after WWII. Then, things changed and rich recipes became common fare. Eventually, the French returned to their old style of cooking. Chef Braux draws on the old, healthy style of French cooking and his study of nutrition to create recipes.

How to Lower your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food is not just a cookbook, though. The first 166 pages are text. The author begins his book by talking about his own experience with high cholesterol and how he changed his diet in order to avoid the use of prescription medicine to lower his cholesterol.

Chef Braux is a classically trained French chef who worked in a variety of high-end restaurants for over 30 years. When he moved to Austin, Texas and started his own business, he was asked why he didn't serve vegetarian dishes. He realized he knew how to cook fabulous foods, but he didn't know a great deal about nutrition and that led to study at The Natural Epicurean Academy, followed by work to acquire a B. S. in Holistic Nutrition at the Clayton College of Holistic Health.

All that is just background, of course, to let you know that the author knows what he's talking about. In the text of the book, the author talks about such a broad variety of topics I can't list them all but the topics include foods to buy and avoid, info about fiber, grain, nuts, sugary drinks, fruits, and other foods, shopping tips, cooking tips, anecdotes from the author's life in France, and a lot more. He lists pantry, refrigerator and freezer staples and gives readers a sample week-long menu to get started if you want to dive right in and cook nothing but healthy food from his book, right away.

The best thing about the text of How to Lower your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food is that it's all written in a tremendously accessible, chatty style. I've always found books on lowering cholesterol bored me to tears (although I love reading about nutrition) but this particular book is an absolute joy to read.

Some of his advice may horrify you a bit, as it did me. What? We're not supposed to reuse cooking oil, at all, ever? I spoke to my husband about that, after reading the author's advice on the best types of oil and how to cook with them. My husband said, "So, I can't reuse the oil from the last time I fried a turkey?" Of course, I told him he can't fry a turkey ever again, which pleases me greatly. Sorry, Huzzybuns. We'll have to leave the dangerous outdoor toys to someone else.

On to the recipes. I cannot even begin to tell you how much my family has been loving the recipes in this book. They're delicious but healthy, filling but light. We're actually finding that we're planning our meals ahead for the first time in a long time, simply because we're so eager to keep trying new recipes from the book and repeating the cooking of those we've already tried.

The only downfalls to this book are the lack of photos with the recipes (which, in this case, I can honestly say does not bother me, for once) and the fact that sometimes the author tells you to use a specific type of cookware that you may not own. Of course, you can look at his suggestions as "gift ideas" to hand to your relatives for the holidays. My husband detected one minor mistake in the pork chop recipe I'm about to post but it wasn't a problem and it's the only error he's found.

5+++++/5 - I added the plusses because I don't feel I can do this book justice. It's the best nutrition/cookbook I've ever found. Readable, useable nutrition, shopping and cooking advice paired with amazing recipes. How to Lower your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food is not a book to be missed.

Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Moms by Jane Doiron

Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Moms by Jane Doiron
Copyright 2009
Outskirts Press - Cookbook
208 pages

Seafood Quiche

A great recipe for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

9-inch deep dish frozen pie crust, thawed
1 can (6 oz.) lump crabmeat, drained
1 can (4 oz.) medium shrimp, drained
1 cup mild cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons green onion, finely sliced
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup half-and-half cream
1/4 teaspoon pepper

~A Day Ahead~

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place the crabmeat and shrimp evenly in the bottom of the pie shell. Top with cheese and green onion. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, half-and-half and pepper. Pour the egg mixture over everything in the pie. Place the pie on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Cover and refrigerate.

~Cooking Directions~

Reheat the quiche in the microwave.
--------------------------------------------------------

This is my favorite recipe from Make-Ahead Meals, so far. Confession: I didn't do the cooking; My husband did. He does most of the cooking in our house, so he evaluates the cookbooks and I evaluate the food.

Husband's opinion about the book: It's not what he expected. He thought when I described the book he could expect a book of meals that you prepared in advance (like over the weekend) and freeze, thawing one every day or two so that you had a full week's worth of meals. When he saw the book, he was surprised at the beautiful cover and disappointed when he opened the book to find it totally unillustrated. He did, however, like the fact that the recipes are simple, require few ingredients and are not time-consuming.

My opinion: I had similar expectations. Neither one of us could quite figure out how there's any time saving during the week. I would have liked recipes that could be prepared in bulk, frozen in several containers and stockpiled. But, I loved that seafood quiche and there are several more recipes I want to try. I like the fact that the ingredients are easy to acquire (very important in our area -- we don't have access to a lot of unique or ethnic ingredients) and recipes are not complex. They appear to be more time-saving in their limited ingredients and the ease with which they can be tossed together than in any other way.

We plan to try a few more recipes, but our kitchen is currently in a state of minor chaos. I didn't realize we were going to end up remodeling at the time this tour rolled around. If I have any further comments about the book, once our mess is gone and we're cooking normally, I'll mention them in future posts!

Thanks to Jane Doiron for the review copy of Make-Ahead Meals! I received this for a book tour.

In case you're interested, here's the portion of the kitchen we've managed to complete:


We just managed to get the bottom doors on that side screwed on, today. However, there are some gaping holes that you can't see outside the picture frame. We used to have a double oven but when the door fell off (sigh -- I'll bet nobody else can tell me they had a door fall off their oven), we opted to replace our oven with a single and create drawer space where the second oven used to be. Husband is making the drawers to fit. We're just refacing the kitchen - painting, putting on new doors and drawer facings (and the necessary hardware) and adding those drawers, but everything has to come out of the cabinets when we paint. And, we have on inky dinky kitchen and breakfast nook, so it's been something.

If you make the seafood quiche recipe, come back and tell me. I agree with that comment (from the book) that it's great for any meal. I mostly ate it for breakfast. I'm known for eating quiche for breakfast, though. Nothing overly unusual, there.

Don't forget to stand up and be counted (comment at my last post, that is). And, note that I have three giveaways going in my sidebar. I hope to get some more listed, soon. I signed up for more than I realized (blush). I don't know if I've put Sanjay Gupta's book in the "Now Reading" section of my sidebar but I read the first chapter and they weren't kidding when they advertised it as "like a thriller". It's gripping and a bit of a horror in that the U.S. is behind the world in a life-saving treatment. I hope it horrifies a few really noisy Americans. You should read it to find out what I mean.

Must go crawl into bed and attempt to sleep for the third time. Nighty night!

Quick and Healthy Recipes and Ideas (3rd Ed.) by Brenda J. Ponichtera

Quick and Healthy Recipes and Ideas, 3rd Edition

by Brenda J. Ponichtera

Copyright 2008

Small Steps Press

Nonfiction/Cookbook/Health

334 pages including health tips, grocery lists, weekly planners and index

Before I tell you all about Quick and Healthy, etc., I've gotten permission to share one of our favorite recipes from the cookbook. I knew that would thrill you.

Oven-Fried Fish

1/4 cup cornflake crumbs (can be found in the breading section of the grocery store)

1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/8 teaspoon salt (optional)

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 pound fish fillets (such as snapper, sole, halibut)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the first four ingredients in a plastic bag and set aside.

Cut fish into serving size pieces. Place a few pieces of fish at a time in the plastic bag and shake to coat evenly.

Arrange on baking sheet so that fish is not touching. Bake for 10 minutes, per inch of thickness, or until fish flakes easily.

- Reprinted with permission from QUICK & HEALTHY RECIPES AND IDEAS by Brenda Ponichtera, RD, published by Small Steps Press

Voila! Easy peasy. We used thin, well-drained cod and hubby mixed in a little bit of regular bread crumbs (the first time) because he actually crushed real corn flakes and didn't get them quite small enough to adhere to the fish. He's so funny. Anyway, we loved the result of that recipe and we've begun using it regularly.

But, about the book . . . I requested this one from Felicia at Jane Wesman Public Relations because the publicity material stated that the cookbook contains weekly plans and grocery lists. I'm a very scattered individual and it seemed like built-in grocery lists would be awfully helpful.

As it turned out, the book is even better than I expected. The opening section of the book discusses nutrition, healthy substitute ingredients, use of artificial sweeteners and food exchanges. The author also lists sources of dietary fiber, how many nuts equal an ounce, tips for reducing fat and cholesterol in your diet, time-saving ideas and organization tips to ensure you have the right ingredients at the right time. Then, you get into weekly menus and grocery lists.

There are 20 weeks' worth of menus, each with a menu list (including the page number of each recipe, so you can locate them easily), a detailed grocery list and a side area for notes. Then, the author lists some alternative suggestions using the same recipes and adding a nice little guide that tells you what exactly a "starch" or "nonstarchy vegetable" is, to clarify the bits of suggested meal combinations ("Add a nonstarchy vegetable and a starch" with a list of meat dishes, for example, gives you a quick reference to a variety of meal options).

The recipes comprise the bulk of the book, of course, and they are low enough on ingredients to make the gathering/cooking process quick and simple. We did make a few minor substitutions. I've never developed a taste for mustard, but I don't mind dry mustard, so whenever a recipe calls for pre-made mustard we substituted the dried spice. We also occasionally added an ingredient if we thought a recipe was a little too bland -- often, just a little extra chopped onion or spice was enough to do the trick.

When my friend Judy dropped by, I handed her the cookbook and asked her to flip through it and tell me what she thought. She practically bounced in her seat (not quite, but you should have seen her eyes boggle). "Oh, I could use this! Look at this! Look at that!" she said. My husband, Judy, and I all zoned in on the shopping lists. The ease of shopping with a pre-made list and having an entire week's menus pre-planned is absolutely perfect for a busy lifestyle.

Highly recommended for folks who are on the go and looking for ways to simplify cooking healthy foods at home.

The blurb: Small Steps Press, an imprint of the American Diabetes Association, is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives. Small Steps Press books cover health-related topics such as nutrition, healthy eating, exercise, and weight loss.

Quick & Healthy Recipes and Ideas is available at http://smallstepspress.org/, by calling 1-800-232-6733, or at your local bookstore.