Alvah’s Books

Pure Simple Cooking: Effortless Meals Every Day
By Diana Henry, photography by Jonathan Lovekin
Ten Speed Press, 2007
192 pages
$21.95 

Yes, the cookbook reviews are back and with one little treasure that we discovered at our local library: Diana Henry’s Pure Simple Cooking! 

The title says it all. There’s no doubt that you will love how easy the recipes are to prepare, how tasty they are, and how beautiful the finished meal looks.

After testing out four recipes, I knew that this book was a keeper and I had to get my very own. So off I went to Amazon, bought it and I’m expecting my copy to arrive in the mail any day now. In the meantime, I am hoarding the library’s copy.

What’s to like about Pure Simple Cooking? Is it Jonathan Lovekin’s photography? Oh yes, and everything I made looks just like his photographs! This is a great feat for me because whenever I make something from a recipe it tastes good, but it always lacks the pretty factor.

For those not familiar with Diana Henry she is the food columnist for Britain’s Sunday Telegraph and the author of five cookbooks. In addition she co-hosts a popular UK television show and was also named Cookery Writer of the Year in 2007. Not too shabby, eh?

Pure Simple Cooking consists of 13 chapters that cover chicken, chops, sausages, leg of lamb, fish, pasta, greens and herbs and a good variety of the seasonal fruits and vegetables.  For the most part, it appears that Ms. Henry’s palate is inspired by cuisines of the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Levant and that is fine here at chez moi since we do have a predilection to those types of recipes.

If you like sausage, specifically Spanish chorizo, then you’re in luck. Ms. Henry section on sausages has a handful of recipes that include this savory and smoky sausage. The one recipe that I we tried Spanish Sweet Pototato with Chorizo, Peppers and Fried Egg.  This was the perfect meal for a coldish night and because we had so much of it leftover, I discovered that it’s just as good for breakfast as it is for dinner.

Our actual first venture was an evening that we really wanted something light, but savory and healthy. I’m a big zucchini fan and so we decided that Zucchini with Ricotta, Mint and Basil would be the perfect dish. The mild flavor of the zucchini along with ricotta salata were perfectly combined along with a drizzle of olive oil and the juice of a lemon. Paired with some crusty bread the meal left you feeling more than satisfied. 

We’re big pasta eaters and so far we’ve repeated one dish: Trofie with Shrimp, Feta, Parsley and Lemon. Trofie is essentially gemilli—tight and thinner corkscrew pasta. The pairing of the shrimp and feta make a great combination and play off each other in a delightful way. There’s also enough garlic in the recipe to give it some bite, but it doesn’t overwhelm or upstage the feta’s flavor.

As someone with a notorious sweet tooth and a penchant for brûlée, I couldn’t resist the Summer Berry Brûlé. Easy as pie to make this dessert only required cream, Greek yogurt, berries and sugar. Combining the yogurt with the cream gave the dessert a wonderful consistency and cut down (a tad) the richness of the two ingredients. To get the sugary sheet that all brûlées share the only thing you need to do is to carmelize the sugar. One thing to note: make sure your broiler is very hot; if it isn’t you’ll have cream/yogurt soup.

As we wait for our copy to arrive, we’re already checking off what we want to try next. I’m already eyeing the Roast Lamb with Prosciutto and Garlic while my husband is making noises about Lamb Stuffed with Goat Cheese, Tomatoes, and Basil.

Tonight’s menu is the leftover Trofie, but maybe tomorrow’s dinner will be one of the lamb dishes.

The Sartorialist
By Scott Schuman
Penguin Books
512 pages
$25.00

Reviewed by Randall Radic

 “The clothes make the man.”  An old, old adage, which, depending upon the amount of chemical-electrical activity in your prefrontal cortex, might be true.  For beautiful clothes, or a beautiful person caparisoned in beautiful clothes, reflect achievement and affluence.  Yet withal, clothing is highly personal, thus it also reflects taste. 

Beautiful clothes have an indirect impact upon physical beauty.  Clothing serves to enhance and influence beauty.  And the bizarre thing is this:  clothing evokes feelings of beauty rather than defining or pointing to beauty.  That is, beautiful clothing arouses feelings of beauty both in the observed and the observer.  Or try putting it this way:  beautiful clothes give action to beauty, which means that for many simply being beautiful is not enough — for beauty, in and of itself  is quite static, from some perspectives.  Thus beauty, in its erotic pursuit of esteem, seeks to place itself in evidence, i.e., give itself action, for esteem is awarded only on the basis of evidence.  In this sense, then, the artful display of beauty is an achievement — an achievement which itself is a form of beauty. 

What we’re talking about then is the beautiful display of the beautiful.  Beauty within beauty — beauty surrounded by beautiful taste and beautiful fashion — all presented beautifully.

Texture, color and light.  These elements aid beauty in acquiring status.  To that end, St. Thomas Aquinas asserted that beauty abides in the realm of the transcendental; and that beauty is “good” because it affects that perfervid ambience that mankind has designated ‘the soul.’  Indeed, St. Thomas went so far as to actually define beauty:  “Beauty is the splendour of form shining on the proportioned parts of matter.”  Saint Augustine said of beauty, “unity is the form of all beauty …. If beauty delights the mind, it is because beauty is essentially a certain excellence or perfection in the proportion of things.”  In other words, to these acknowledged men of holiness, we enjoy beauty because we like and admire unity, order, and brightness or clarity of color.  St. Thomas listed four qualities of beauty:

1.  perfection of proportion.
2.  integrity, and unity of form.
3.  brightness and clarity in color.
4.  degree of splendour — something luminous in itself.

And according to St. Thomas, deciding that an image or a person is beautiful has its provenance in judgment, not in intuition, and involves “a dialogue” with beauty.  Beauty, then, is what pleases when it is seen.  And to touch beauty is apotheotic, an ascension to God.  For the truly beautiful is ‘whole,’ or ‘complete’ in all its parts and proportions.

The French have termed this ‘completeness’ elegance — that which is gracefully refined and luxuriously attired.  And the term includes, but is not limited to:  line, grace in movement, and a harmony between person, costume and environment.

In other words, the dialogue between beauty and mankind is found in clothing.

Scott Schuman’s book – The Sartorialist – presents in photographs what the reviewer has attempted to present in the above paragraphs – the action that beautiful clothes give to beauty.  Some of the photos depict clothing of the most bizarre and disparate type, but the effect when viewed as a whole is wonderful and may truly be designated as “sartorial elegance.” 

The photos were taken in locations all over the world.  And they demonstrate the distinctiveness of nationality and ethnic taste.  In the end, though, as one flips through the pages, the reader is led to a singular conclusion:  sartorial beauty is a universal concept.  No one person or ethnic group or nation has a monopoly on elegance.  In fact, the photos prove that elegance has many faces:  conservative, outlandish, somber, and colorful.  And many times elegance is most pronounced when displayed with unabashed extravagance. 

When perusing The Sartorialist, do yourself and favor and pay particular attention to the shoes being worn.  The evidence is obvious to even the most myopic – shoes can make or break one’s fashion statement.  As can hats, scarves, and handkerchiefs.  

The Sartorialist is a gem of a book.  It is without peer.  For it provides a glimpse of just how important clothes are in human interactions.  Wearing just the right dress, a woman can shout, “Here I am!” without even opening her mouth.  And for a man, the perfect hat can speak volumes about his masculinity, his personality.

On the Lookyloo-O-Meter, which ranges from 1 star (squint in pain) to 5 stars (gaze in rapture), The Sartorialist beholds 5 elegant stars.  Don’t miss this one.  Simply having it on your coffee table will let everyone know how elegant you really are.

It’s been a long time that I’ve written a review for my own site. Shame on me for not being the dutiful book reviewer, but truth be told I’ve been overwhelmed by my reading piles. In previous posts I wrote that I would no longer request books until I’ve completed the ones I have in my numerous to-be-read stacks, and I’m happy to report that I’ve been good on my word. However, there is the library and I’ve found several books that I had to read.

So what’s the problem you might want to know. As much as I love to read, it sometimes becomes a chore, especially writing the review. Writing is not an easy task for me. It takes me time to clearly articulate what I want to say. I ruminate about what I’ve read and sometimes it takes me a long time to say whether I liked a certain book or film. The problem,in this case, was once I finished one book, I started another one and that went on for a while, which left me with little time to contemplate the previous book and write a review. After a half dozen books read–all that needed their reviews–I realized that I managed to unintentionally overwhelm myself by doing too much (let’s not forget that I also write for a living too, have deadlines to meet, and I’m working on a novel).

After this long period of silence, I will get back to my regular reviewing schedule this week. Upcoming is Frank Bruni’s Born Round. For Steig Larsson fans, I will review the final book of the Millennium trilogy The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.

Stay tuned….