Life With….

Cover - The Pleasures of Cooking For One by Judith Jones (Winner of the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award)

Yesterday, I went to brunch at Parker and Otis, with a friend.  While I waited her for her to arrive – I puroused the many, many temptations of the gourmet/upscale/hippy market.  While there I found a remarkable cookbook (all links to the book and reviews are postscript), Judith Jones’s The Pleasures of Cooking for One.

Judith Jones, for those who don’t know her, has had one of the most enviable careers in contemporary American Publishing.  She started, as far as I can tell, at Random House, where supposedly she discovered the Diary of Anne Frank in a discard pile.  Int the 1950s she moved to Alfred A. Knopf, where she has since remained.  Her credits include editing Updike and other literary rockstars.

But her greatest accomplishments are with food.  She discovered and edited Julia Child, and as we all know mastering the art of french cooking changed American palettes and awareness of food.  She also edited many other luminaries of the culinary world (and I mean true cooks not celebrity chefs) like Scott Peacock, Edna Lewis (their co-authored book The Gift of Southern Cooking is one of my favorite cookbooks, as much about the philosophy and style of cooking as the recipes themselves – it gives you a why as to how the recipes are structured something often lacking, I modified its recipe for crabcakes when creating my own), and James Beard, whose foundation gave her a lifetime achievement award.  To top it off she summers in Northern Vermont where she raises her own grass-fed cattle (which she mentions eating in the book and how much better properly fed local and fresh cattle tastes) and collects her own apples.  Not a bad life.

In any case, I bought the book, and took it home and devoured it – reading most of it in a single sitting.  Not the recipes mind you, but the philosophy and stories surrounding them – only skimming the recipes for ideas and suggestions. I had not done this since Christmas when I read Second Helpings of Roast Chicken the follow up to Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories, in which the author tells a story about the ingredient he is wiring about, such as a dish served at a restaurant or the sensation of watching it grow, buying, and/or cooking it.

One thing that both of these books have is a serious respect for food and cooking.  They are not for people who are slavish to recipes – using words like pinch, dash, to taste, – but for those who already enjoy cooking and have a sense of ingredients.  They are for people who truly enjoy both the preparation of consumption of food.  (In case you had not noticed, I have trouble following recipes from cookbooks – unless for baking- often using them as inspiration rather then slavishly following them, which is why so many of my own contain words like splash and dollop – as they are descriptive of the amount and ensure that the dish can be replicated, and varied easily)

In addition to the philosophy, Jones has theories about what you need in a pantry.  She separates it into essentials and useful add-ons – focusing on both tools and pantry ingredients.   She talks about weekly shopping trips – and how three meals (depending on your portion size) can be made from Chicken or Pork Tenderloin that aren’t leftovers but unique meals unto themselves.  She also offers tips picked up from her chef’s – such as Jacques Peppin keeping rinds and bits of food discarded and eventually using them to create soups and/or broths.    Additionally, she shows how, and inspires you to, find ways to reduce the portion size of dishes intended to serve multitudes – like risottos or beef bourgioun, or even apple tart.  While not all the recipes are novel – it encourages a way  of thinking about meals and food, as part of an enriching experience that does not always have to be shared, but that can be invigorating and even pleasurable if done just for yourself, and eaten over books or with a good movie.

All in all – this book is a worthwhile addition to the shelf of a person who enjoys words, food, cooking, and a good meal at home.  In someways, I think this maybe the first book I have “read” in a while that will not be discarded soon and that will be re-read.

Finally, I promise that not all reviews will be/are positive but somehow, right now I only want to share things that I think others would/should enjoy .  Is it condescending to say others should enjoy something – yes – but I will say it anyway – it certainly beats speaking in IM language or emoticons.

Judith Jones’s Blog piece on errors in the book.

Wall Street Journal Interview with the author

Amazon or

Barnes and Noble

All text and copyrights preserved by the author 02csb For more information visit http://www.peebesalgy.com Courtney Brown

Create Your Badge  All text and copyrights preserved by the author for words and original pictures and may not be used without author's permission. For more information visit http://www.peebesalgy.com Follow me on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/peebesalgy or contact me directly through http://www.peebesalgy.com/blog/contact-me/ Courtney Brown | Create Your Badge