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Book Reviews

22
Jul 2013
Book Reviews Recipes Side Dishes

Tasting Jerusalem: With Naama’s Fattoush, It’s All About the Details

naama's fattoush jerusalem| dailywaffle
A couple of weeks ago on the Splendid Table, LA Times Food Editor Russ Parsons wrote, “The thing that's really great about this book is that he takes what might seem familiar and just throws a twist on it. When you cook it, it's an act of exploration because you're doing things that you know, the ingredients are fairly familiar, the techniques are fairly familiar, and then boom, there's this very new and exciting result that really makes you want to cook more into it.” He was talking about < Ottolenghi's Plenty, but he hit it on the head for Jerusalem,too.  It’s the twists that set these recipes apart.  And it's never more true than with Naama’s Fattoush, the marquee recipe for this month's salad theme for Tasting Jerusalem.
17
Jul 2013
Book Reviews Salads Side Dishes

Tasting Jerusalem: Not the Same Ol’ Cucumber Tomato Onion Salad

spiced chickpeas and fresh vegetables jerusalem |dailywaffle
Greek salad is one of those of dishes about which it seems there’s nothing left to learn.  The cucumber-tomato-red onion combo is so common, even my regular ol' grocery store usually has a big bowl of it swimming in dressing in the deli department. While it's not exclusively Greek and appears in multiple countries across the Middle East and Mediterranean, the variations are usually minor, some include olives, feta cheese, red bell peppers, even a little romaine, maybe a little parsley, usually with a lemon or red wine vinaigrette. Eat one, and you’ve eaten them all, right? In the summer, Greek salad is a default around here, beating out even basic green. So for all those reasons, I was ready to skip right over the recipe for Spiced Chickpeas with Fresh Vegetables in Jerusalem. How could it possibly be anything special? Don’t make that mistake.
14
Jul 2013
Book Reviews Restaurants Travel

Tom Douglas’ Culinary Summer Camp – Part 1

Tom Douglas Culinary Camp Tastes

What do you eat after Tom Douglas' Culinary Camp, a five-day eating extravaganza that started with foie gras and caviar and ended with Chinese barbecued pork, chicken and sausage? On Friday, my total consumption was: coffee, half a peach, a graham cracker with peanut butter, a package of Top Ramen, a small kale salad and a corn tortilla quesadilla. It was a far cry from the previous day, which started with an array of Bavarian meats, soft pretzels and beer.
13
May 2013
Baking Book Reviews Recipes

Tasting Jerusalem: Hot Cross Buns in Cookie Form

  My love for hot cross buns is well documented in the pages of this blog. But I only ever seem to think of them around Easter, when really, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be enjoying sweetened yeast buns with just a hint of spice, currants and candied fruit any ol’ time.  Which is what made these Spice Cookies my first choice for this month’s baking theme for Tasting Jerusalem. You get the flavors of hot cross buns, the spice, the currants, the citrus in cookie form. And while it may seem slightly odd to be making spice cookies in the spring, because the truth is they do taste like the holidays, I couldn’t resist.
26
Feb 2013
Baking Book Reviews Recipes

Dahlia Bakery English Muffins

  When I heard Tom Douglas was going to be at Costco signing copies of the Dahlia Bakery Cookbooka couple of months ago, I expected organized chaos a la Giada de Laurentiis’ signing. I rolled in about 30 minutes before it was slated to start and Tom was already there. No need to pre-purchase a book, get in line outside and have a handler scribble your name on a post-it for the inscription.  I walked right up, got a book (one for me, and one for my mom), had a chance to have a little chat with Tom and then was on my merry way for the rest of my Costco shop.
15
Jan 2013
Book Reviews

Tasting Jerusalem: Barley Risotto w/ Marinated Feta

jerusalem barley risotto |dailywaffle
Look at your cookbook shelves. How many of those books do you cook from and how many do you just skim now and again? There’s no crime in cookbook as lookbook, but I have to believe most authors are hoping you’ll actually make the recipes. With Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s Jerusalem, the photos are gorgeous. It would be easy to let it just be a lookbook. But you'd be missing out. To get us cooking, not just looking, Beth of omgyummy and her friend Sarene have created a virtual cooking community centered around Jerusalem, where we’ll be cooking from the book, sharing our results and talking ingredients. Ahead of official kick-off, on Sunday I made the Barley Risotto with Marinated Feta.