Lucinda Scala Quinn

In her new Mad Hungry book, the author aims to support kitchen beginners who just want to get food on the table with a meat-heavy offering. To that end, the recipes here are not exactly earth-shattering, but, with a few small missteps, the author succeeds in supporting cooks with very little know how. In addition to good explanations of exactly what to do and, more importantly, why to do it, the user gets information on pairing main dishes & sides, a handful of ingredient substitutions, and useful riffs & options off the "official" recipes that can stretch the applicability of the skills encountered. A little less than two-thirds of the recipes have accompanying images and the images themselves are reassuringly homey. These dishes don't look like works of art with plates wiped down by a sous-sous-chef; instead, they look delicious but appropriately casual. It would have been nice to see some more vegetarian-friendly substitution options and there were a few terms here & there that could have used explanation -- what does deglaze mean? what's the difference between a glug and a slug? How does a user know when the oil is shimmering? On the whole, however, this is the rare cookbook that is worth scanning all the way through, particularly for folks with limited cooking experience who are stumped as to how to make meals happen every evening. Unless you're running a very small library for a very vegetarian crowd, this is a good investment for your library's cookbook collection.… (mehr)