Review of 'Recipes for our Daughters'

503-248-2015

In Good Taste
located in the Pearl District, Portland, Oregon.
http://www.ingoodtastestore.com

Review of

Recipes for Our Daughters

For those of you who’ve read my September ’05 review of Marion Cunningham and James Peterson’s cookbooks, you’ll know that my 20 year-old college daughter discovered the kitchen and has been forced to cook for herself. There have been the last minute phone calls asking how to cook hamburgers in advance for twenty sorority women (answer: don’t), and the mastering of cooking a salmon dinner with green beans and garlic pasta. It’s been a good year.

I now have another book to add to her culinary library, Recipes for Our Daughters by Naomi Neft and Cynthia Rothstein. This unassuming cookbook is like giving someone your 3x5 recipe box. It is a comprehensive and practical cookbook designed for today’s young women. The dishes jump from the page as a recipe card would from its box. These are recipes a daughter would ask her mother for so she could build her own repertoire.

The book grew out of a close friendship that began in kindergarten between their daughters Debbie and Lori. Once the girls were grown-up and on their own, they began phoning home for recipes and culinary guidance. Neft and Rothstein gathered their own family recipes and then decided to add recipes from contemporary role models reflecting the changing world young women are entering. The contributors are a wonderful eclectic cross section of American women. Joan Baez, Elizabeth Dole, Judith Leiber, Chris Evert, Cokie Roberts, Oprah Winfrey, and more present their favorite recipes and tips.

Introducing each chapter is a general overview of useful information for the inexperienced cook. Every recipe starts with a detailed list of ingredients followed by clear and concise directions. Related cooking hints and tips are included at the end of many recipes. There is a final chapter called Help! Troubleshooting or “What can I do if it’s…” that holds a treasure trove of answers to questions such as: a quite extensive volume measurement section, pot and pan sizes and volume, substitutions, and how to make recipes healthier with less fat. I hope young cooks will thumb through the book first and discover this valuable chapter.

The contents are divided in a very basic way. They start with Bread and Breakfast and finish with Desserts. We learn how to buy and store eggs. Which pot is the best for making soup and how to make cleanup easy when peeling vegetables. Some of the chapters tie in complementary recipes from other chapters. Appetizers and Snacks suggest we also check out Spareribs, Crab Cakes, and Sesame Paste Chicken as other snack options. Desserts send us to Dutch Babies and Blueberry Soup.

The ingredients are basic and recipes straight forward. In a culinary world of BAM! and 30 minute dinners, it’s nice to see Broccoli-Rice Casserole, Concert Ham Loaf, and Grandma Pearl’s Healthful Vegetable Soup. For the more adventuresome there is Tomato-Dill Bisque, Chicken with Plum Sauce, and Meringue Cookies. No matter what recipe is picked each one has been perfected, loved, and enjoyed.

Everyone needs a book, like those dog eared 3X5 cards that are tried and true recipes. There are challenges such as Nicole Miller’s Summer Rolls. She states: “It takes a few tries to get these right, but after a while, you get the hang of it.” But what recipe box doesn’t hold a clipped untried recipe to intrigue and master?

If we eat the 3 a-day meal plan that means over 1,000 meals are consumed. Even if half of those are eaten at home, that’s 500 meals and usually they are more than one pot dinners. How daunting for a new cook what ever age to collect a reasonable tasty repertoire based on every day ingredients that aren’t going to break the bank and be worth making a second or third time. This is where Recipes for Our Daughters comes in. It gives the cook a toe-hold on becoming a decent every day cook. At the end of each chapter there is space to write your own family recipe to give the fledgling cook.

I wish I’d had this book when I was starting out. It would have saved a lot of money on entry level cookbooks. But for me cooking became a passion and career. I’ve moved on to Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s Nobu Now and Eric Ripert’s A Return to Cooking to challenge and expand my skills.

Don’t tell anyone but I’ve turned down the corner to Quick and Tasty Meat Loaf to make when my not so silent partner returns from LA. Wild Rice and Cranberry Salad will be present at our summer dinners as well as Black Bean, Corn, and Feta Salad with Pita. Chocolate Soufflé anyone? These all can be found in Recipes for our Daughters. As a last resort there is Wendy Wasserstein’s favorite recipe in the epilogue- the phone number of the restaurant Shun Lee West in New York City.

Read! Eat! Enjoy!

Judith Bishop