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Summary: Ina's Right On Mark With Her Super Recipes!!
Review: Ina's new book is just wonderful, it is full of beautiful pictures and great easy recipes. I own her first book, so when I found out she had a new one out I just had to have it. Her recipes use fresh ingredients and the taste and results are just sublime!! The Lemon Cake recipe is divine as well as her Pasta, Peas and Pesto salad. The layout is easy to read, and she has little stories interweaved throughout so you feel like she is talking to you. I just love her books, I keep them on my kitchen counter along with other favorites. I hear she is hard at work on her next creation. You will not be disappointed with her cookbooks!!
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Summary: Finally! A cookbook for the rest of us!
Review: I love to cook and bake but I run screaming from complicated recipes. This cookbook contains simple recipes for really great-tasting food. It is uncomplicated and the adjoining photographs are simple and elegant. Never have I found a cookbook where page after page I have found recipes that I actually want to try.I made the ceasar salad the first day I bought the book, the sour cream coffee cake the second. Both turned out fantastic! Tomorrow I shall conquer the delicious-looking rugelach. The book is touted for parties but don't let that fool you. These are great recipes for simple family dinners as well as large parties. The book is also sprinkled with Ina Garten's advice and past experiences. I thank Ina Garten for this wonderful new cookbook - but moreover, my husband thanks her!
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Summary: Wonderful
Review: I loved her first book so when this one came out I had to get it. I was not disappointed. I've made the Herbed Grilled Shrimp with Mango Salsa a couple of times now and everyone loved it. The Garlic Roasted Potatoes were so easy and delicious. I even e-mailed Ina to tell her how much I enjoyed her books and 2 days later she replied to my e-mail. I highly recommend this book to those who entertain and go into "panic mode" when company's coming (like me). The last 2 times I've entertained I've used recipes from her books and I was so relaxed because I wasn't rushing around that I finally got to enjoy myself without having to excuse myself from my guests to finish food preparations.
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Summary: Barefoot and Carefree in the Kitchen...
Review: Have you ever noticed that when you go to a party where everyone is hanging out in the kitchen, those parties are the most fun? Well, Ina encourages guests to participate in the last minute food preparation. She puts on fun music and takes a more relaxed approach. Ina Garten decided she would rather cook because it was her true love and left her job as a budget analyst in the White House in 1978 to follow her dream of opening a specialty food store. She now owns The Barefoot Contessa in East Hampton, N.Y. Over the past 23 years, this has become a culinary destination. It is now a 3,000 square foot market where 20 cooks prepare the food and another 20 people help customers in the store. The scent of rosemary and fresh French bread dances in the air. They prepare fresh salads and dinners according to what's in season. In this book, you will find many of the good ideas and delicious foods that you can find in the store. After years of her customers asking for her recipes, she finally revealed some of her secrets in her first book: "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook." I was very impressed with Ina's first book and gave her book as gifts to friends. This book is equally beautiful and James Merrell has done a wonderful job photographing all the food styled by Rori Spinelli. When you open this cookbook, you will feel like you are entering Ina Garten's world. The lush color picture of her home with the door left open is so wonderful and you feel like you could just walk inside and smell freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and take one right off the plate! So, where will you find Ina when she is hosting a party? You might find her whipping up Tropical Smoothies (page 39) and chatting with a friend in the kitchen. Someone might be helping to cook the scrambled eggs with asparagus (page 34) while another guest is cutting the Sour Cream Coffee Cake (page 37). These are all recipes in the Sunday Breakfast section. Was I impressed by her new cookbook? Yes. She has organized it so well and I love the party themes by season. Each recipe has a refreshing header and sometimes gives a variation for the recipe. The parties are divided into Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. They include a Sunday Breakfast, Pizza Party, Jewish Holiday, Academy Awards, Canoe Trip, Lunch in the Garden, Happy Birthday, Outdoor Grill, Football Party, Autumn Dinner, NOT Thanksgiving, Afternoon Tea, New Year's day, Snow Day, Valentine's Dinner and Fireside Dinner Parties. The Index is also well organized. The book design is superb and is all a cookbook author could wish for. Except for a few recipes, the entire recipe is on one page and you don't have to turn the page to read the directions in most cases. The instructions are not numbered. A space between various instructions gives you the idea that you are onto a new step, so they are easy to follow. Her recipes are not difficult to make. Most of the dishes can be prepared in advance. I also love her writing style. When you read her notes, you feel as if she is talking to you and you are sitting out on the deck with a glass of lemonade. Each party begins with a page telling you something funny about a party. "I'll never forget the worst party I ever gave.".....pg. 33 Ina also shares her wisdom from years of catering and planning parties. Some of the things she writes in this book are just laugh out loud funny! She is so daring and has been catering parties professionally for more than twenty years. I mean, why not serve dinner in the study by the fireplace! I love her creativity. "Drag the table out on the porch and set big platters of cut melons, papayas and long stemmed strawberries down the middle. Put out baskets of fresh bread and coffeecake. Have hot coffee in thermoses out where people can help themselves. The food will be the decoration." - Ina Garten I can truly say that every recipe in this book looks just divine. I made the chicken chili recipe today, but in half the quantity. The ingredients included chicken breast that you bake while the onions, tomatoes and bell peppers simmer on the stove top. You just toss in the diced baked chicken and then in a few minutes, dinner is ready. You may use green bell peppers in place of the more expensive red and yellow bell peppers. I also used Mexican-style canned tomatoes since I had those on hand. You can also make the recipe even if you don't have a food processor. Just use a kitchen shears to cut up the tomatoes right in the cans. A 6-quart pot works well and someone might want to include more pan/pot sizes in a future printing, especially for new cooks. Now, I am thinking that to really have a real Barefoot Contessa Party, you might want to order her great coffee, the Contessa Blend. It was invented over twenty years ago and is a blend of coffee with cinnamon. While you are ordering the coffee from her site, I dare you to resist ordering some double-chocolate brownies. "Ever since Ina published her first book, people write, e-mail, and stop her on the street to say how much they love the food." -front book flap ...and, Ina writes them back! I was so impressed that she wrote to me to thank me for my comments on her first book and was even more delighted when she wrote to tell me of her second book. Now, that is class and I never will forget it. Ina's recipes are equally memorable!
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Summary: Excellent Book for Foolproof Entertaining
Review: Ina Garten has brought sanity and great food to entertaining at home. The great thing about this book is the style everything is served and prepared in, though it uses a bit more fat than I would cook with for everyday meals. She is a friend of Martha Stewart but her recipes are very un-Martha like in preparation. Ina does not have a staff of hundreds to make everything just perfect for that dinner party for the magazine. This lady runs a business on her culinary skill - she does what works with a minimum amount of fuss - it tastes wonderful AND looks great. I have received rave reviews for the Sour Cream Coffee Cake, the Happy Birthday! meal, and the Chocolate Ganache Cake. The Chocolate Cake went over big. It was so easy to make, it was an afterthought while putting together a meal for six at the very last minute. You will not be disappointed with this cookbook.
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Summary: A good read with some good recipes
Review: I will not say the recipes are not nice, they are. Most are very simple to prepare and ingrediets are easy to find which is nice. What makes this book is the authors willingness to share her experiences. After throwing a few parties myself, I to learned people enjoy themselves more when you join them and can actually take part in the evening as opposed to running back and forth from the kitchen. Ms. Garten has provided a well rounded selection of menus, recipes and party ideas. Along with this she has also added tips for planning and pulling off a sucsesful party. I highly recommend reading the introduction to the book and to each chapter, don't just thumb through the recipes you will miss out on the purpose for the book. I wish I had had a copy 10 years ago when I hosted my first production. I say production as opposed to party since like Ms. Garten's idea of omletes for everyone, I spent most the night in the kitchen and away from my friends who felt quilty because I was in the kitchen and to tired to enjoy their company.
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Summary: Easy, Excellent Entertaining
Review: Of the 50+ cookbooks I own, this book and the Barefoot Contessa are my favorites. The recipes are excellent and easy to prepare. I have not been dissapointed yet. This is a must for anyone who entertains. You will have a great time as well as great food at your own party. I have given these books several times as gifts and they are very well recieved. You will be a hero in your friends eyes if you prepare anything from these books. The pictures are fabulous too!
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Summary: you shouldn't believe your own success
Review: First off, yes, I like Ina Garten's books--and her cooking. Most of the recipes here are simple; the food, satisfying. But this book is too enamored with its own success. Most egregious are the listed recipes that are not found in the book, but are simply referenced to her first book. Savvy marketing, no doubt. It makes sure you buy both books. But irritating, nonetheless. And there's just so much rank sloppiness going on. The party for twenty? Look at the yield in the recipes--some are for 6 people, some are for 8, others, more. So what do you do if you're indeed having twenty over? Someone, I think, just slapped together a bunch of recipes and thought, well, we're already a success. Why sweat the details?
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Summary: This is now my 2nd favorite cookbook!
Review: It doesn't top her first book, but boy, it's close! My only complaint about the book is that it's a little hard to find the recipes by category (looking for an entree? you'll have to search under poultry, seafood, etc... in the index) so I give it 4 stars, not 5. However, there is no complaint about the recipes themselves! Just like in her first book, everything I've made from this has turned out beautifully. AND, as a bonus, that beautiful looking lemon cake pictured in the dessert trays from the first book, but sadly not listed as a recipe, is included in this book. Ina Garten is my hero! I only wish the Barefoot Contessa store wasn't on the other side of the country.
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Summary: Yup, She Did It Again!
Review: I received this book one day after it hit the streets, and have made several recipes so far. The Sour Cream Coffee Cake is great, and when my family sees me paging through either this or Ms. Garten's first cookbook, they anticipate a wonderful dinner. Definately try the Chinese Chicken Salad :) I live approximately 40 minutes from the Barefoot Contessa store, and will definately be checking it out very soon! Thank you Ina Garten!
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