Of Cobblers and Cookbooks
Nov. 24th, 2019 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitI have somehow ended up with an absurd number of haute cuisine restaurant cookbooks, and I do not know how this has come about, because there is just about no circumstance in which I am actually going to cook anything this complicated. Or even go to a restaurant serving it, really. (Generally if I go to any restaurant at all it's because I'm humoringbenign_cremator. I'm just not an eat-out sort of person.) In general, any cookbook that's for extremely fussy food is getting weeded this round, because I don't do extremely fancy food. The one currently under examination is Battersby: Extraordinary Food from an Ordinary Kitchen, and they purport to be good for regular people because the kitchen their restaurant has is tiny and doesn't have that much more equipment than a home kitchen so this is fine! I think they're leaving out some things here, like the fact that they are, y'know, trained chefs. I just can't think of a circumstance in which I am ever going to make "Duck Consomme with Foie Gras Wontons" or "Stuffed Quail with Peas and Cipollini Onions." It's just... a bit much. And they're very proud of having been taught by Alain Ducasse, which... why? He's the one who got himself famous for being too snotty for haute cuisine, which let me tell you takes some real effort.
One of the fussy-food cookbooks is staying, though-- Cooking for Mr. Latte. But that's staying because it's pretty much "What if Sex and the City was about a food writer instead of a fashion one?" Like, seriously, the writer is actually Carrie Bradshaw, even to giving the guy a ridiculous nickname, although she does tell us about halfway through the book what his name is, once they start getting serious. It's mostly an account of their courtship, with a few recipes at the end of each chapter. They're extremely fussy recipes but the book is really entertaining. (She's terrible in a lot of the same ways Carrie is, but I find the whole thing much more enjoyable than I ever found Sex and the City.)
Experimentations in cranberry cobbler (from Wintersweet, a beloved favorite) have revealed that white wine and red wine are both acceptable substitutes for cider, but the red wine will assert itself much more strongly in the flavor profile than either of the other two. This is not necessarily a *bad* thing, but it is something to be taken into account when baking. (One of my roommates keeps bringing home random half-full bottles of wine. I have been endeavoring to use the random half-full bottles of wine in things.)
benign_cremator. I'm just not an eat-out sort of person.) In general, any cookbook that's for extremely fussy food is getting weeded this round, because I don't do extremely fancy food. The one currently under examination is Battersby: Extraordinary Food from an Ordinary Kitchen, and they purport to be good for regular people because the kitchen their restaurant has is tiny and doesn't have that much more equipment than a home kitchen so this is fine! I think they're leaving out some things here, like the fact that they are, y'know, trained chefs. I just can't think of a circumstance in which I am ever going to make "Duck Consomme with Foie Gras Wontons" or "Stuffed Quail with Peas and Cipollini Onions." It's just... a bit much. And they're very proud of having been taught by Alain Ducasse, which... why? He's the one who got himself famous for being too snotty for haute cuisine, which let me tell you takes some real effort.One of the fussy-food cookbooks is staying, though-- Cooking for Mr. Latte. But that's staying because it's pretty much "What if Sex and the City was about a food writer instead of a fashion one?" Like, seriously, the writer is actually Carrie Bradshaw, even to giving the guy a ridiculous nickname, although she does tell us about halfway through the book what his name is, once they start getting serious. It's mostly an account of their courtship, with a few recipes at the end of each chapter. They're extremely fussy recipes but the book is really entertaining. (She's terrible in a lot of the same ways Carrie is, but I find the whole thing much more enjoyable than I ever found Sex and the City.)
Experimentations in cranberry cobbler (from Wintersweet, a beloved favorite) have revealed that white wine and red wine are both acceptable substitutes for cider, but the red wine will assert itself much more strongly in the flavor profile than either of the other two. This is not necessarily a *bad* thing, but it is something to be taken into account when baking. (One of my roommates keeps bringing home random half-full bottles of wine. I have been endeavoring to use the random half-full bottles of wine in things.)
