A Jewish Baker's Pastry Secrets

This book should come with a warning label: May Cause Drooling and/or Hunger Pangs.

I will be the first to admit I have a problem passing up pastries. So it is my own fault I found it hard to put this book down. I grew up with a grandmother who baked and I miss her cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, Christmas bread, and pastries. Discovering this book is like wandering into her kitchen while she was in the throws of kneading the dough or forming the rolls. What a treasure!

If you haven't baked pastries or been around others who do, one thing that you may find surprising about this book is that several different creations can be made from each "master dough". The main difference in results comes from the fillings and the way the dough is formed or shaped.

Greenstein, and his off-spring who helped compile this book following his death, offers readers detailed instructions not only on each recipe, but also on things such as why measuring is most important in baking and how to "read" your oven and adapt your baking to maximize what's going on in your particular kitchen. (I found this insight most helpful!)

Two drawbacks I discovered while enjoying this book: 1) I began to feel sorry for myself for not having a stand mixer (this would make the job of producing yeast bread doughs infinitely easier!) and 2) I found myself hating the fact I live in the middle of Iowa in a place devoid of a bakery (other than what you can find at the local grocery store. Which is better than nothing, I know.) I found myself ruminating on what it must be like to live in New York or another metropolis where neighborhood bakeries abound, and you come to know what day the baker is going to have your favorite pastries fresh in the display case just waiting for you to stop in and pick one up. A girl can dream, can't she?

If you have the slightest interest in learning to bake, you NEED this book! It'd be crazy to pass on the lifetime of insights a professional baker is offering you! Many of the treats are of Eastern European or German descent, which is a plus in my book since that is a big part of my own heritage. I am going to pass this free copy (which I received from Blogging For Books for this review) on to my daughter (who does have a stand mixer and a love of baking!) in hopes she will bake me something, ANYTHING from it!

From the Publisher . . .

This follow-up to the author’s James Beard award-winning Secrets of a Jewish Baker is a charming collection of European-style bakery classics, such as coffee cake and strudel.

George Greenstein had a gift for teaching home bakers to think, work, and bake like the pros with his evocative and tactile descriptions of baking. In A Jewish Baker’s Pastry Secrets, he crafts master dough recipes for Jewish holiday baking and European classics, creating a comprehensive set of building blocks for both beginners and baking enthusiasts. Greenstein’s expert guidance for making doughs like bundt, babka, strudel, gugelhopf, stollen, pressburger, puff pastry, and Danish create a jumping-off point for more than 200 variations of classic pastries, including napoleons, coffee cakes, and sweet buns. The book also offers an in-depth guide to ingredients and equipment, including both professional and home ovens, as well as basic recipes for fillings, icings, and glazes. With Greenstein’s steady guidance and familiar voice, home bakers and professionals alike will be encouraged to turn out flawless pastry creations for any occasion.

About the Author . . .

GEORGE GREENSTEIN is a third-generation professional baker, now retired. For twenty years he owned and operated a Jewish bakery, The Cheesecake King, on Long Island. He lives in Monroe Township, New Jersey. This is his second book.

Dinner's On, Hipsters!

"This is a cookbook by Chris Taylor, a musician, and Ithai Schori, a photographer. They are also cooks. One trained at home, the other trained in restaurants. They believe that great food is just what happens when you do simple things well. They believe that great meals are as much about the people you cook for and with as they are about the food. They believe that cooking can be a lazy, beautiful thing, and they want to show you why."

This gem of a description for Twenty Dinners is tucked away neatly inside the back cover of this beautifully printed and bound book from Clarkson Potter Publishers.

The book is a collection of dinner party menus this dynamic cooking duo has put together. It's arranged according to seasons of the year, which is brilliant because it allows you to make the most of what's in season at the local farmers market, produce stall and market. I loved this aspect of the book because I am learning to eat more local foods which definitely change according to the time of year.

Don't let the description of "dinner party menus" fool you. This isn't fussy food that will take three days to prepare in order to serve a crowd. The book and the recipes have a very intimate feel designed to get everyone involved in the kitchen/cooking space together. Throughout the book there are suggestions for getting even the most inept-feeling friends involved in the fun of truly sharing a meal. (Surely your friend with two left thumbs can at least open a bottle a wine and pour, no?)

Speaking of wine, I also really loved the fact that each of the dinners includes suggestions for wine and/or cocktails that will pair well with the food. There are even brief sections on wine, cocktails, and making coffee included which most other cookbooks I've read skip right over. You will love it! (I myself will be googling where to get a Chemex!)

Schori and Taylor suggest up front that your kitchen and your taste buds are different from their own. "We want you to tear this book apart--write in the margins, cross things out, change this around. ...it's cool to tailor a dish or menu to your taste." They'd like this book to be an inspiration, not a slave-master. So feel free to take inspiration and follow your own instincts!

Young, fresh, and vibrant are the words that jump out at me in the end to describe Twenty Dinners. It's hip. Period. I am thrilled to add this cookbook to my collection and I urge you to run out and get a copy pronto!

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

From the Publisher . . .

A photographer (who happens to be an ex-restaurant cook) and an indie rock star (who happens to be an avid home cook) show you how to slow down your life by cooking beautiful, straightforward, but sophisticated, food for–and with–friends.

When he’s on tour with his band, Grizzly Bear, what Chris Taylor misses most about home is the kitchen and the company. With his friend Ithai Schori, he cooks dinner parties for four to forty, using skills Chris learned from his mom and Ithai picked up working at high-end restaurants. Their food is full of smart techniques that make everything taste just a little better than you thought possible–like toasting nuts in browned butter or charring apples for a complex applesauce–but their style is laid-back and unhurried. This is about cooking not just for, but with, your friends, and so the authors enlisted their favorite pastry chef, mixologist, sommelier, and baristas to write detailed material on wine, desserts, stocking a home bar, mixing drinks, and buying and brewing fantastic coffee. Through more than 100 seasonally arranged recipes and gorgeous, evocative photographs of their gatherings you fall into their world, where you and your friends have all day to put food on the table, and where there’s always time for another cocktail in a mason jar before dinner.

A Bowl of Olives

This evocative little book lead me down a fragrant memory lane even as Midda shares her own journey of food-induced memories. What a pleasant stroll! Each page a feast for the eye, A Bowl of Olives by Sara Midda is a cornucopia of lovely little watercolor illustrations, photos, quotes, prose, and recipes.

Food, for many people, is the currency of relationships--the thing around which we gather with family and friends to make memories, celebrate milestones, or dive deeply into the present moment. Simply smelling the fragrance of a remembered dish can unleash an avalanche of images, feelings, tastes, and more from a time long past. Cookies or bread baking in the oven trigger memories of my childhood. A whiff of chicken frying will bring to mind summer picnics. Squash recalls me to fall dinners served which gathered a busy household together if only for an all-too-brief moment at the table.

A Bowl of Olives is my first exposure to Sara Midda's work. What a delight all her petite, delicate watercolor illustrations are! I love the feel of the pages. The color, the layouts provide such pleasure!

Because the book centers on the illustrations, it is a very quick read at only 128 pages. Seasoned with a smattering of quotes, Midda's memories, and recipes (some of them are just the bare bones!) . . . readers will find themselves savoring not only Midda's offerings, but the reflections of meals and dishes past too. I highly recommend this book to all who love food, visual arts, great paper, and books in general!

I am so thankful for the opportunity to review Sara Midda's latest offering, A Bowl of Olives, and thankful to Shelf Awareness for the complimentary copy!

From the publisher...

From the author of the international bestseller In and Out of the Garden and the wondrous sketchbook Sara Midda’s South of France comes a long-awaited treasure of a book. Drawn from the artist’s wealth of impressions and memories, it is a book for lovers of food and art and fine gift books—a book for anyone who, upon arriving in a new town, seeks first the local market, or who believes the best thing to do on a given night is to share a table with friends.

Sara Midda is a watercolorist whose delicate and beautiful paintings shine like jewels, evoking the sweet purple taste of a summer raspberry or the silvery greens and gnarled burnt umber of an olive grove. And she is also a collagist, weaving together photographs, line drawings, her personal swatches—all the hues of a spice cabinet, or the sensations of a picnic, the colors of the breeze, sunshine, laughter, the cooling grass. And a poet, in love with words that sing, like podding and wicker, nettle and snug.

By turns reverent and playful, A Bowl of Olives is a work of pure enchantment, celebrating food—of the seasons, of family, of travel and memory. It is as richly layered as a favorite meal.

The book is cloth-bound, jacketed, and printed on uncoated stock to convey the feeling of an artist’s sketchbook.

About the author...

Sara Midda is an artist who lives in West Sussex, England, and previously lived in the south of France. Her most recent book is Artisan’s children’s activity book How to Build an A.