Description:
There are 185 recipes in Sheryl and Mel London's Gourmet Garage Cookbook, a text that runs close to 500 pages. This should tell you that the authors have a lot to say between recipes. And what they write about is food, from both the cook's and the food shopper's perspective. New York City's Gourmet Garage, offering at bargain prices food products of a kind and quality only found in the best restaurant kitchens, is their inspiration. The Londons organize their book as though they are pushing a shopping cart down one aisle of Gourmet Garage and then up another. First to appear is garlic, then onions, leeks, shallots, scallions, and ramps. Last to appear is bread. In between you'll find chapters devoted to leafy greens, root vegetables, mushrooms, squash, tomatoes, salad, dried beans, pasta, shellfish, meat, apples, berries, nuts, cheese, caviar, and smoked fish. Each chapter opens with brief notes about the product at hand. In the chapter "Demystifying the Unfamiliar Vegetables," for example, the authors include notes about jicama, salsify, sunchokes, cardoon, okra, and burdock root. These notes not only explain a little of the natural history of each plant, but also how to prep and cook them. In the Shop Smart sections the authors explain what to look for and how to buy the best representatives of any product. And then the recipes. In the case of the "Unfamiliar Vegetables" chapter, there are seven recipes that range from Jicama Salad with Blood Oranges and Mizuna to Beef with Burdock and Shiitake Mushrooms, Japanese Style. Obviously, you won't find a Gourmet Garage everywhere you go. But it hardly matters. An exciting variety of food products can be found in markets throughout the U.S. The Gourmet Garage Cookbook is a road atlas to the best of what's available. More than a cookbook, it's a cook's resource. --Schuyler Ingle
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