Aroma : The Magic of Essential Oils in Foods and Fragrance

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Summary: Groundbreaking Work
Review: At last, someone has combined my two loves- food and natural essences.I have been interested in combining essential oils and food for some time, and this book is full of terrific creative ideas for doing just that. And as a dabbler in homemade body care products, I love the pairing of the food receipes with the body care recipes.

The food recipes are well within the skill level of the average cook. Some of the ingredients are a bit exotic and might be hard to find for some readers (e.g. shiso and saffron absolute- I finally found the saffron absolute at Liberty Natural). Otherwise most of the ingredients are readily available at your basic supermarket. The essences themselves can be ordered at a number of sites on the internet.

Chef Patterson's recipes are creative and provacative combinations that "go outside the box". Seared Scallops With Tarragon Sabayon combines tarragon essential oil with a sabayon sauce normally associated with desserts, but modified here to work in a savory dish. Wild Salmon With Marinated Cucumbers utilizes a cucumber hydrosol in the vinaigrette and the unusual technique of slow-cooking the salmon so that it is completely cooked through yet moist and delicate.

The "In the Everyday Kitchen" vignettes in each chapter offer quick and simple suggestions for using the essences in food. For example, "Mix a little lime essential oil with lime juice, simple syrup...and sparkling mineral water..." The lime EO adds a kick to the drink that it wouldn't have with lime juice alone.

Ms. Aftel's fragrances and body care recipes are glorious and most are relatively simple to do. The novice will need a little practice handling some of the more viscous essences, such as peru balsam and labdanum absolute in the Jasmine Liquid Perfume. I was quite surprised and delighted that Ms. Aftel chose to share with us the recipes for some of her own perfumes that she sells on her website and in retail stores. Parfum de Maroc and Cepes and Tuberose are two favorites. It is exceptionally generous considering that most perfumers keep their formulations under lock and key for obvious reasons.

I also want to add that the photography and food styling in this book is mouth-watering and drop-dead gorgeous. I almost wanted to eat the book! (Almost.)

Three cheers for Mandy Aftel, Daniel Patterson, and their creative team for giving us this beautiful work!

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Summary: With a special focus on 27 concentrated aromas
Review: Mandy Aftel is the owner of Aftelier Perfumes and custom designs one-of-a-kind blends for individuals and formulates fragrances for private labels. Daniel Patterson is a professional chef and the owner of Frisson in San Francisco. In Aroma: The Magic Of Essential Oils In Food & Fragrance, Aftel and Patterson effectively collaborate to reveal how aromatics play a critically important role in the perception of flavor in cooking. With a special focus on 27 concentrated aromas, recipes are crafted around the fragrant quality of a single ingredient providing such illustrative examples as enhancing a white peach sorbet jasmine, or augmenting asparagus soup a mint-infusion. Kitchen cooks are shown how to incorporate concentrated oils in their homemade dishes such as adding a bit of oil drizzled into the dressing to invigorate a salad, or sprinkling several drops into a batter to add an additional note to a dessert. The combination of basic information with aromatically enhanced recipes makes Aroma a highly recommended addition to any personal or professional cookbook collection.