PATI JINICH (Pati’s Mexican Table, Mexican Today, Treasures of the Mexican Table)
MARY SUE MILLIKEN AND SUSAN FENIGER (Mesa Mexicana and Too Hot Tamales)
SILVER PALATE COOKBOOKS
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I completely agree that there need to be both weeknight-friendly and challenging recipes. There are a lot of cookbooks that include a range of recipes with varying degrees of difficulty, so this sometimes makes the categorization difficult. I think there are multiple ways to accomplish this goal(e.g., one easy and one difficult book OR two books with a range of recipe difficulties). I think that is why I am less concerned about categorization than validating that the books selected can accomplish both of these goals.
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VIANA LA PLACE MONTH
NIGELLISSIMA
BON APPETIT FAST , EASY, FRESH
FRESH MEXICO by Marcela Valladolid
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I think it is also important to note that it is important to have nominations AND voting because someone is more likely to nominate from books they have access to. If the books that are selected from nominations don’t move on to a vote, it is unfair to assume that because one made some nominations they are going to go ahead and participate without voting on final choices. Personally, I only participate in voting if the books moved forward are 1) ones I have access to (either because I have them or there are online options I can access) and 2) am interested in.
Sometimes, if it’s a book I’m not interested in initially, I might get interested based on the recipes that people make and post. That happened with AMÁ.
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BON APPETIT FAST, EASY, FRESH
… (is a complete sentence)
I gave away the Fast Easy Fresh Bon Appetit cookbook years ago but I could get on board with a combo quarter with the original orange cover BON APPETIT COOKBOOK.
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Just letting COTM folks know about this, since Gio was a longtime participant on CH.
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We’ve got some great nominations so far.
I like the idea of VIANA LA PLACE month/quarter for summer.
I could also get into some Mexican. PATI JINICH quarter would be fit the bill.
Or we could do MARCELA VALLADOLID quarter (I have Fresh Mexico, but also two others, including the newish Familia).
I could do MAANGCHI quarter. Since that last COTM, she came out with her Big Book of Korean Cooking, which would be fun to explore.
Summer is a great time to do a vegetable book, so I’ll throw some out these two possibilities
STEVEN SATTERFIELD QUARTER - would include the new Vegetable Revelations and the older Root to Leaf, as well as his book on peanuts if anyone wants to go there.
VEG-TABLE by Nik Sharma
I’d still like to do I AM FROM HERE by Vishwesh Bhatt (Southern US/Indian ).
Two oldies that have withstood the test to of time are The Millennium Cookbooks and The Artful Vegan, which could comprise an ERIC TUCKER quarter, definitely in the project category.
This three month format would be good for a book like THIS WILL MAKE IT TASTE GOOD, by Vivian Howard. It is focused on “flavor heros” - preserved items or condiments that you make, then recipes that use them.
VEGAN VIETNAMESE by Helen Le remains one I’d like to explore.
Two vegan Chinese books that came out in '22 would be fun to do as a pair: THE VEGAN CHINESE KITCHEN & CHINESE HOMESTYLE, by Hannah Che and Maggie Zhu, respectively.
PATI JINICH The books and the website
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Along with the others I mentioned Id love to spend more time with MAANGCHI, found these recipies I tried pretty easy
I saw that Tenderheart won a James Beard award. And that comes at the same time I notice that I’m the only one who has cooked from the book this quarter. So I’m curious… for those of you who have passed on Tenderheart (all of you), why? The recipes are mostly very easy, weeknight stuff. While it is a vegetable book, it isn’t heavily dependent on seasonal or farmers’ market produce, and a lot of recipes rely on pantry ingredients, besides the featured vegetable. The recipes work. The recipes are creative and not the same ones we see everywhere else. I feel like it ticks all the boxes for a very successful COTM, and yet it has been the least successful. What am I missing?
I was excited to check out Tenderheart after hearing interviews with the author on different platforms, but looking through the book several months ago and now reading recipe reviews left me fairly uninterested. So many recipes seemed to be composed of two (three?) otherwise-related mini-recipes that were then served next to each other and called a dish. I didn’t find many spice/seasoning combinations or flavor shortcuts that I hadn’t seen before.
That said, I recently received a bookstore gift certificate and thought I would take another in-person look at the book. The same goes for Bakesmart, which sounded great but seemed “meh” in-person. That author, however, gave me a great tip during one of her interviews that I’ll use forever, so I feel that buying her book would be a repayment.
I feel like we haven’t looked at the same book. I would say very few of the dishes in the book are like that. Not everything is a one-dish meal, but most of the dishes are not composed as multi-part, but single, cohesive dishes, many of which are hearty enough to be a meal. I think the ones I’ve reported on are a representative sample, and you could only possibly categorize two of 15 I’ve made that way.
Asian cuisine in general is not my jam. I’m not opposed to a vegetarian book. I bought Verdura.
I haven’t been interested in buying new cookbooks for like the past year. I have my eye on a pickling one and also an ice cream one but I haven’t purchased either. I also haven’t been to the local library in forever. Nothing has inspired me enough to do so.
I hope we can figure out a way to save COTM/COTQ. I’ve enjoyed it for years.
I hope we can save it too, but that’s kind of why I’m asking this question. I feel like if this book can’t get any traction, can anything? It’s not an Asian book, btw. There are a fair number of Asian recipes, but there are also pasta dishes, middle eastern dishes, and tonight I’m making an enchilada casserole from the book.
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I ordered Israeli Soul for this quarter. I made the hummus recipe from it and didn’t like it. So, I didn’t make too much more from it. I say all this because now I am wanting to get Tenderheart and try a recipe from there. I just can’t focus on more than one thing at a time and many times that one thing falls by the wayside lately. When I get it, I will cook from it.
I tried to explain a while back why I have dropped out of participating. My family situation has not improved since then. There have been multiple service provider failures for our adult son and other stresses have accumulated.
I can’t participate now. While I hope for the future, that’s a dream.
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From when it was nominated for Sep 2023:
I don’t know this one, but I’d be up for combining it with Andrea Nguyen’s
EVER-GREEN VIETNAMESE
I love the ease and accessibility of her recipes, and her books are usually available at the library, with many recipes online as well.
Or we could do
ANDREA NGUYEN QUARTER
to provide more breadth — there are a lot of things that would appeal over the summer, given use of fresh produce, grilling, sandwiches and salads, and so on.
Or if it’s too many books (she has 7), then I’d propose her 4 Vietnamese cookbooks.
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