I am a long-time fan of Jenny Park and Teri Lyn Fisher’s blog ‘Spoon Fork Bacon’, and thus, was immediately interested to read their new egg-themed cookbook. I love the simple beauty of their recipe choices, how they lovingly present the ingredients to their blog (and now book) readers, and how the recipes are diverse enough for the beginner or expert chef. I was so excited to see this new cookbook available here on Blogging for Books and, once I had the hard-covered volume in my hands, I was glad to discover I was not disappointed.
I went through the cookbook and flagged some of the recipes I was most interested to try – or, more correctly, would talk my husband into preparing for me. My top five (5) are:
♦ Egg Clouds (pages 38-39)
♦ Quiche (pages 44-45)
♦ Tea Eggs (pages 70-71)
♦ Avgolemono Soup – described by the ladies as a lemon-scented egg drop soup (pages 92-93)
♦ Poached Yolk-Stuffed Ravioli (pages 114-115)
There were, of course, many other recipes of interest – varietal deviled eggs and egg salads, as well as hollandaise sauce and other like egg-based sauces – but these five are the ones highest on my INTERN (I need to eat right now) List. While I could handle preparing the simple Tea Eggs on my own, I would probably leave the much more difficult Poached Yolk-Stuffed Ravioli preparations to my more experienced husband.
Salon Summary
RECOMMENDABILITY: 5 {out of 5} stars | ★★★★★
REPETITIVE READABILITY: 4 {out of 5} stars | ★★★★★
RATING: 5 {out of 5} stars | ★★★★★
HerLiterarySalon.com received this book as a gift from Blogging for Books|The Crown Publishing Group.
Confession #813: I doodle. I doodle everywhere; in notebooks, on napkins, in day planners, on post-its, on white boards – if I have a pen and some paper I will fill it up with circles and hearts, lightening bolts and flowers, explosions and arrows. But, I do not doodle people. When I was offered the chance to receive a copy of ‘Monstrously Funny Cartoons’ by Christopher Hart, I thought it would be interesting to try my hand at doodling people – or in this book’s case cartoon-like people and monsters including Zombies, Vampires, Aliens, and Mummies.
Two days before Christmas, I received a rather large package from Random House. Since so much of my holiday shopping is completed online, I assumed the package must contain a gift for one of my nearest and dearest. Upon opening the box, I yelled out, ‘Oh, it’s a gift for me!’ and pulled out Mimi Thorisson’s rather large/heavy and beautifully printed cookbook, ‘A Kitchen in France.’
My one lone orange tab is marking the recipe on page 139/Summer – Strawberries in Wine with Mascarpone Cream. Everything about this recipe sounds perfectly wonderful. I love wine, I love cheese, I love strawberries, and I love dessert. Plus, the recipe sounds incredibly oops-proof and I was sold after reading Thorisson’s testimonial, ‘Truthfully, this is really just an upgraded version of the unbeatable combination of strawberries and whipped cream, but adding wine and mascarpone gives the traditional duo zing and a touch of grown-up elegance.’
I was never able to really get into Frances Mayes’ earlier tomes, namely, ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ and ‘Bella Tuscany’. While I do admit to having a love/hate relationship with Diana Lanes’s cinematic Frances, I can honestly say, the literary Frances wasn’t able to spark any sort of feeling in me whatsoever. I never even made it past the first chapter.