Great Cookbook/Memoir

I wish I could remember who recommended A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table because I would find that person and thank him or her profusely.

The book is a combination memoir and cookbook, with each short section composed of a short story from the author’s life and a recipe that reminds her of that story.  I enjoyed reading about the author and her family, and following the story of how she coped with loss and change and learned to love Paris.

Usually when I read a cookbook I come across a handful of recipes I want to try, but as I read A Homemade Life I found myself wanting to make nearly every recipe.  The author uses whole foods and generally seasonal ingredients, and she gives great tips for how to get better results for even basic recipes like pancakes.  A few of the many recipes I bookmarked include:

• Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger
• Red Cabbage Salad with Lemon and Black Pepper
• Butternut Soup with Pear, Cider, and Vanilla Bean
• Chana Masala
• Fennel Salad with Asian Pear and Parmesan
• Carmelized Cauliflower with Salsa Verde
• Pistachio Cake with Honeyed Apricots
• Pickled Grapes with Cinnamon and Pepper

If you enjoy reading food blogs, you might want to check out this author’s food blog, Orangette.  I haven’t followed it before, but it looks good.  Now if I could figure out how to make it show up in full post form rather than digest on my feed reader, I could keep up with it!  But in any case, I highly recommend the book!

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