I've had this cookbook for about a year now, and like many cookbooks, I was content to pull it off the shelf on occasion for casual perusal. Somehow reading about all the good, cooked from scratch, whole foods type things I could be eating made me feel more positive about my health. As for actual cooking, well, the soup section alone made me realize that perhaps I was in over my head. Not only are there four different stock recipes, but the soups made from these stocks have many more ingredients, often a special sauce or something that goes with the soup. Wow! My idea of soup is opening up a can. If it's a complicated soup, I have to add water. Moreover, most of the time I cook "from scratch" I use prepared soup mixes. As you might have realized, I'm not a gourmand and definitely not a gourmet cook.

In the introduction to this book, Myra Kornfeld, who trained in part at the Natural Gourmet Cookery School, talks briefly about nurturing your soul and how food plays a part in that. Standard fare for many cookbooks, at least the whole foods, vegetarian ones I've read. She doesn't go into depth about the chi, or the yin and yang of various foodstuffs and how they need to be balanced in order not to cause emotional upset. When she speaks of balance, it's more about balancing the meals. Cooking is one of the most basic forms of nurturing--a deeply grounding experience, an active, meditative immersion in nature. Like any art, it takes practice to achieve that meditative state, I'm sure. After trying several of the recipes in this book, I have a long road to travel but it will be worth the journey.

The recipes here are designed to feel rich, decadent... voluptuous!. It was the voluptuous aspect that caused me to initially look this book, and I bought it because it sounded like I could make recipes that were not necessarily analogues of popular meat and dairy creations. So far from what I've cooked, that seems to be true. As Myra explains it: the keystone of this book is the whole meal: carefully designed, balanced meals that include a variety of sauces, side dishes, salads, garnishes, swirls and splashes. But she goes onto to say that there is beauty in simplicity, and there are plenty of simple things here. Some of the side dishes are just basic vegetables more flavorfully prepared (garlic braised broccoli or swiss chard in olive sauce which is quite delicious), and many of the recipes can be mixed and matched, or eaten by themselves.

After the short introduction, there is a chapter on ingredients, which explains the different kinds of fats, grains, beans, greens and how they are best used and prepared. Then comes a chapter on equipment and cutting techniques, complete with drawings of different kinds of cuts. After that come the stock and soup recipes. The author claims that the stocks are easy to prepare, and can be done any time you are in the kitchen doing something else. The vegetables are rough cut and simmer in the pot for 45 minutes, yielding 6 cups of stock. It can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen. I've never tried making stock, however, because I've had a hard time getting over the hurdle of cutting up 6 to 10 different vegetables just to make stock-the basic vegetable calls for leeks, onion, chard, carrots, celery, zucchini and garlic. I guess by now I've made it pretty clear that I am a novice cook, but fortunately only about half of the soup recipes require a stock, and the authors (Greg Minot is a co-author) do say that bouillon cubes can work in a pinch. There are 23 different soup recipes, with savory sounding names such as smoky chestnut and sweet potato, onion sonata, masala root, asparagus potage with garlic "cream", and creamy chickpea soup with moroccan spice oil. There are also some standards such as hot and sour soup (with dumplings), french lentil and miso.

The next chapter is main course menus. There is an explanation of the menu as well as a section of cook's notes, that give preparation and serving hints. All of the menus seem to serve 4 or 5, although the Thanksgiving themed one serves 6 to 8. What's nice is that sometimes she mentions which recipes she might leave out. For example, one menu includes: Curried Chickpea Tart with Fennel-Cauliflower sauce, herbed coconut chutney, wilted spinach, cucumber raita, roasted chickpea nuts, cardamom-spiced basmati rice. I actually decided to attempt the chickpea tart and even the sauce for it (which was the more complicated of the two). I honestly didn't pay any attention to the rest of the recipes. Coconut chutney sounds interesting, but not something I'd even remotely attempt at this point as it is really just a condiment. Especially given that instructions are included for selecting and grating a good coconut, it's way too labor intensive for me. Kornfeld says that she only makes the rice, spinach, chutney and tart when pressed for time, leaving out the sauce, raita and chickpea nuts. But the best way to serve this is to put some rice on the plate, then spinach with the tart, sauce and chutney on that bed, and chickpea nuts sprinkled over top. The chickpea nuts are good just as a crunchy snack, with a light gingery flavor. I have not yet tried the tart as I couldn't find the chickpea flour at my local health food store, and I need to buy a tart pan.

The one main course that I have tried so far is the Chili and Corn-Biscuit Casserole. The entire menu includes that as well as Spaghetti Squash with sofrito, guacasalsa (a homeade salsa with avocado chunks) and garlic-braised broccoli. The broccoli is a pretty simple presentation, but I ate my serving of the casserole sprinkled with diced tomatoes, and accompanied by a simple salad of broccoli sprouts over cabbage. As Kornfeld says in the introduction, some of the recipes may be elaborate, but are not difficult. This is pretty much true. I will admit that I had a problem with the food processor which was required for grinding the seitan. I ended up slicing my finger on the blade, bleeding into the seitan and then damaging the plastic cover of the processor because the blade wasn't quite in the right position. Technically, I don't think a recipe can be considered vegan if there is human blood in it, but no matter, I was only making it for myself. I didn't have all the ingredients quite right, so I substituted where I had to, like using brandy instead of dry sherry. The chili was easy to prepare, and can be eaten on its own, or with cornbread stuffing from another menu. I found I loved it baked into the corn biscuit, especially after the flavors had blended a bit.

The recipes in the main course section comprise a variety of ethnic dishes. The Thanksgiving menu includes amaranth studded cornbread, cranberry relish with apples and pears (I made this last year), Sweet dumpling squash with chestnut stuffing and lima bean gravy (the vegan turkey part of dinner), sauteed haricots verts with horseradish (fresh ground, of course) and feenel, orange and pomegranate salad. There are also recipes for things like paella, Indonesian Sambal, herbed ravioli with porcini pesto and tofu "ricotta", seitan pot pie and collard greens, moussaka, arepas, tamales and Oden stew. And the list goes on and one as there are over 30 complete menus.

The next chapter is desserts, and it begins with an explanation of ingredients and techniques specifically related to dessert items. The authors explain the difference between vegetable based thickener and gelling agents like agar-agar, kudzu and arrowroot, as well as touching on the topic of flour, and sweeteners used in vegan cooking. There are approximately 26 recipes in this section, including simple things like pie crust and fruit kantens, which are a gelatin like fruit dessert. There are also nut ice creams and more complicated things such as poached pear and pecan strudel, mousse cakes, and chocolate coconut cake with chocolate fudge frosting. I tried the apple pie recipe as my daughter has lately been urging me to make a pie so she could help in the process. The apples were prepared without any fat, but the crust called for a 1/2 cup of canola oil. Now as it turns out, I didn't follow her instructions for using pastry flour as I didn't have any on hand. I used a combination of bread and whole wheat flour, and my crust definitely came out pretty thick and bread like. There is sugar and baking soda in the crust, which added to that affect. Turns out that I really like it this way; I actually want to eat the crust as it doesn't feel greasy, plus it gives an apple dumpling affect to the dessert. But the cider vinegar and lemon zest really give a lot of flavor to the apple mixture, and the whole thing is delicious.

The dessert section winds up the recipe portion of the book, but there is still a glossary, list of mail order sources, index and a conversion charts page.

The menus and recipes are nicely laid out, and easy to follow. There are very few illustrations other than the simple drawings which show how to roll ravioli or prepare tamales. There can be a lot of steps to follow in certain recipes, which might put some beginners off, but there doesn't seem to be anything overly complicated in the techniques. I'm actually tempted to try the tamales next as the recipe seems pretty simple. The most notable lack other than glossy photos would probably be nutritional information; some of the cooking magazines and basic cookbooks I have include that information, but since most cookbooks don't, I don't miss it. The recipes here are not low in fat, but sugar, salt, fat and spice all seem to be used to their maximum potential and are not overused. All the recipes are meatless, eggless, dairy and honey free. So whether you are vegan, vegetarian, omnivorous, a gourmand or an ascetic eater, there should be something that appeals to you in this book.



Recommended: Yes