Love veggies? Get this book. Hate veggies? REALLY get this book.
As a culinary professional, I didn't, well, still don't have much use for vegetarianism (and I won't talk about the Hezbollah-like splinter faction of veganism*); I own a few veg cookbooks but they're all humdrum variations on the theme of making entrees out of traditional European side dishes...I don't really need a cookbook to tell me how to make haricots verts aux amandes into a terrine. Then I came across Amanda Cohen. She's an immensely talented vegetarian chef who kicked around NYC for a bit before opening dirtcandy, an all-vegetable Michelin recommended restaurant. She consciously rejects the Western roots of vegetarianism, instead taking a few cues from more traditional, for moral or practical reasons, vegetarian cuisines ("that are older, richer, and more fun than our conflicted, crabby history of 'health food'"
while adding a huge dose of innovation and imagination into the art. It ain't healthy at all but it's fuggin' delicious - in her words, "Taste it. Find the flavor. Now add more. Double it! Triple it! More salt! More butter!...for vegetables, you need to go big or go home."
I've had this book for a while and it's revolutionized how I cook vegetables, not only alone but with meats. I have eaten at dirtcandy several times, enough that I'm a regular and have the privilege of knowing Amanda a bit - I'll tell you what, I'm as dedicated a carnivore as comes and I would happily eat anything that she puts in front of me. This is an essential book for vegetarians (or vegans - there's instructions for making most of the recipes vegan if you wish) but even more important for meat addicts...it will change your life.
Plus she's an incredibly salty, jaded, angry, antisocial line cook and expounds at length on the trials of the job and the idiocy of customers. Oh, and did I mention it's a COMIC BOOK? Seriously. Buy it here - Every copy is signed by Amanda Cohen (and Ryan, if we can find him) and it's $1 cheaper than retail price. You're losing money if you're NOT ordering your copy now!
* - Anthony Bourdain said it, not me.
= new reply since forum marked as read
This is definitely different.
I ordered it.
Cher
Thanks for posting. 