Seattle LawDawg Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 Along with scoring a couple Shun knives, I received John Besh's new cookbook "My New Orleans". I don't believe I have ever cooked straight from any written recipe, but I'm a bit of a cookbook whore. I love reading 5 or 6 recipes for any given dish, trying to figure out what people are doing, why they're doing different things, etc and then combine what I feel are the necessary parts and the best variances into something else. With Besh's cookbook, I may prepare some of the dishes straight from the recipe. There are a lot of the basic, traditional New Orleans dishes which everyone has their own twist on and recipes are never needed (gumbo, creole, etouffee, etc.). Besh offers a solid recipe for each but goes well beyond those. All in all, the book is over 350 pages. If I had to estimate, I'd say that about half of the book is recipes and the other half is what I think has been accurately described as a love letter from John Besh to New Orleans. Quite a bit on the culture and people of the area, the effect Katrina had on supplies of different local ingredients and the people who harvest them, farm-to-fork techniques with an underlying theme of sustainability (resources and traditions) throughout the book. I can't think of another cookbook that I just sat down and read cover-to-cover. Had I received it a few days earlier, the shrimp creole and red beans & rice that I made for my family earlier in the week would have been a little different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bier Meister Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 from the reality shows, i have become a big fan of his. find myself rooting for him in virtually every competition he has been in. i do not do a lot of cajun/creole. just got a gift cert for borders.... think i need a new addition to my collection i may be going to NO for jazzfest... one of his restaurants will be high on my list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundaynfl Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 Used my Shun's the last few days! Love them so far! I found a drawer set of 10 on Woot and had to pull the trigger... wife didn't appreciate it when I aske dher to wrap them for Christmas and "I will act surprised!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kid Cid Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Congrats on the knives boys! I got two books this year for the holidays, Alton Brown's Good Eats the Early Years and Mexico One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless. I'm really looking forward to picking apart the Rick Bayless stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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