Family Table: Favorite Staff Meals from Our Restaurants to Your Home

Family Table: Favorite Staff Meals from Our Restaurants to Your Home

Authors: Michael Romano and Karen Stabiner

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)

Few diners ever see beyond the swinging doors of their favourite restaurants into the back of the house. Doing so means entering a whole new world – a hot, frantic yet perfectly orchestrated society of cooks, waitstaff, dishwashers and hosts, all who do their jobs almost invisibly, without seeking fame or attention from the clients they serve. It’s unusual to think about those hardworking men and women as diners as well – and with the pace of the job it’s often only in a few stolen moments that a meal can be wolfed down. Many establishments, especially the nicer table service ones, go out of their way to take care of their “family” of employees with the offer of a group meal before or after service. Staff often take turns cooking for their comrades to spread the workload and everyone sits together – without any reservations or “class” divisions of cook and waiter. Danny Meyer’s restaurants (Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and others) are some such establishments, and can no doubt attribute part of their success to the fact that the employees are well fed physically and mentally as a result. As an homage to the meals around the “family table”, Michael Romano, chef and partner of Meyer’s, penned Family Table: Favorite Staff Meals from Our Restaurants to Your Home.

Family Table is a compilation of recipes, stories and informative vignettes from the world behind the kitchen door. Each recipe has a short foreword describing a key ingredient or method, and peppered throughout the full-colour photograph pages are personal recollections of or from staff members, adding a true “homey” touch to this hardcover work. The dishes themselves run from soup and salad to pasta, meat and fish, with sides, breads and even a few quick and easy sweet staff favourites. Many of the recipes that sound complex and too haute cuisine for home cooks (let alone rushed staff pre-dinner), but thankfully upon reading they mellow to a doable, if fancier than usual, weeknight meal. Not every recipe is quick to prepare, but those that take time can be made on a weekend and leftovers served mid-week or frozen for later.

Given that this is a book written by restaurateurs, however, the reader should expect a certain level of “coffee table” ambience in Family Table. The dishes are definitely adult-oriented, and usually serve 4-6, which while useful for dinner parties and the occasional birthday will likely fall by the wayside in a conventional household. If cost control is an issue, some recipes will be unapproachable as well (due to ingredients like Parmigiano-Reggiano and specialty ethnic items), though things like homemade Fresh Pasta Dough (p. 108) and Brisket with Red-Eye Gravy (p. 190) cost more time than pennies. Relatively inexpensive and quick recipes can be found in the mix, though, with most of the egg chapter and a Patty Melt (p. 172) looking like a safe bet in that regard.

Generally, Family Table is an international mix of meals, from Japanese Soba Salad with Miso Dressing (p. 84) to Moroccan Lamb Meatballs with Yogurt Sauce (p. 204), French Basic Brioche (p. 262) and Italian Mama Romano’s Lasagna (p. 105). More “American” items stud the pages as well, ensuring that there is something for everyone. Desserts smack of the homemade treats your mother may have made when you were a child, albeit a more refined version, and the stories from and about the pastry and bakery chefs ring of that “homey” passion and family bonds that tie the restaurants together.

I don’t think that Family Table will become an everyday cookbook for most people, being a little too fussy for the weeknight schedules we all have. That said, it is a great read for those looking for the personalities behind the brightly lit signs of the local restaurant, and for Sunday night dinners and the occasional family get together at the holidays, the recipes are a solid twist on home cooking. Family Table: Favorite Staff Meals from Our Restaurants to Your Home enlightened and tempted me, and with luck one day I’ll have cause to serve up one of Romano’s colleagues’ meals in my own kitchen.

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The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden-Fresh Cookbook

The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden-Fresh Cookbook
Compiler: Heidi Stonehill
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2011)

Most of us have a few reference books that we can turn to reliably for information on happenings around us. Garden planners, cookbooks, star charts – all these are well and good, but there is no book that comprises gardening, weather, health, cooking, astrology, astronomy, fishing and just general life skills quite like The Old Farmer’s Almanac. A book many grandmothers swear by for it’s reliable, practical information, the Almanac has become a calendar, a children’s version, an e-book, a garden guide and even a jigsaw puzzle.  In The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden-Fresh Cookbook, the best pieces of gardening and culinary wisdom combine into an easy to read, reliable resource that is a welcome addition to any homeowner’s bookshelf.

Along with over 340 recipes in its full-colour, attractively illustrated pages, Garden-Fresh Cookbook is also filled with information on growing your own key ingredients. Guides on fresh herbs, edible flowers, berries and even beginning a vegetable garden have their own special sections, while a “Reference” chapter is packed with information on frost dates, hardiness zones, health and food safety, ripeness indicators, preserving, measurements and pan sizing and even ingredient substitution. For those wishing to get a jump-start on their growing season, the book includes a page of sources for mail order seeds and gardening supplies as well.

Roasted Lemon-Balm Chicken (p. 175)

The recipes in Garden-Fresh Cookbook are categorized into 14 sections: Breakfast and Brunch; Appetizers, Dips and Spreads; Soups; Salads; Vegetable Dishes; Canning and Preserving; Poultry; Meats; Fish and Seafood; Pasta and Rice; Sauces and Condiments; Breads; Desserts; and Beverages. Offerings in each range from the classics (Tabbouli Salad (p. 87) or Shepherd’s Pie (p. 201)) to new twists on old favourites (Black Bean Soup with Grapefruit (p. 45) and Roasted Lemon-Balm Chicken (p. 175)) and completely new ideas for your homegrown produce (Chicken with Avocado and Almonds (p. 174) and Sweet Onion Watermelon Salsa (p. 238)). Almost anybody’s tastes will be satisfied by the selections in Garden-Fresh Cookbook, be they vegetarian, low-calorie, carnivore or old-school comforts. Recipes with a key ingredient often have a “tip box” where information as to growing, harvesting or shopping for that produce is shared. Something I appreciated in this book was the listing of each chapter’s recipes at the beginning of their respective sections, as well as a complete cross-referenced index at the back.

Blueberry Butter (p. 166)

I thoroughly enjoyed cooking from Garden-Fresh Cookbook – the recipes are complete, easy to follow and approachable by even the most novice cooks. Crafting a meal from one or more of this book’s offerings is akin to being back in Mom’s or Grandma’s kitchen, if they had a full garden in the backyard and a pantry of wholesome foods that would become dinner every night without fail. A fresh organic bird (although a supermarket hen would suffice as well), coupled with backyard herbs and rich butter became Roasted Lemon-Balm Chicken (p. 175), only enhanced by a quartered lemon in the cavity. The resulting chicken was devoured by our family of five, including my skeptical stepbrother who always claims poultry is too dry. While some may balk at the large amount of butter called for (¼ cup per 4-lb chicken), the majority of it renders out, and if you opt to remove the skin as well it is a filling and relatively lean option for a Sunday dinner. The remaining bones – in the spirit of The Old Farmer’s Almanac philosophy – made a stock that Grandma would be proud of. 

Pear Butter (p. 166)

A simple slice of toast or bowl of oatmeal was elevated by one of the long-cooking but incredibly easy to make fruit “butters” I made from the “Canning and Preserving” chapter. Blueberry Butter (p. 166) scaled down beautifully to use the amount of ingredients I had, and the combination of allspice and nutmeg with the tart blueberries and my (accidental) use of vanilla-infused sugar instead of standard granulated was nothing short of divine. Pear Butter (p. 166) was completely sugar free, although the caramel hue, rich sweetness and “just enough” spicing would never give it away. Both of these spreads take well to canning, although they are so delicious that we finished them in about a week.

While the food in this book is not designated “light” or “diet” in any way, the ingredients are natural and whole, and  the recipes are healthful in the sense that they can be enjoyed and relished without needing gargantuan portions or extra condiments. For anybody wishing to regain the spirit of the family dinner, just learning to cook, or is the proud owner of either a new or well-established garden, this is a valuable resource to have at your disposal. Helpful, informative and in no way pretentious, The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden-Fresh Cookbook is one that I will keep on my shelf for a long time and cook from often.

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As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto

Editor: Joan Reardon

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2010)

The art of writing is a dwindling one these days. Memos, newspapers, family updates and even wedding invitations have become electronic – fragments of data firing at light speed across the globe to any number of recipients... all of whom can reply just as fast. Pen pals in the traditional sense are a rare breed now, almost like mankind has forgotten how to put pen to paper unless it’s to endorse or write a cheque. I’m proud to say that I do, for the most part, handwrite my notes in class, jot rough drafts of papers on good old Hilroy lined sheets, and physically mail my Christmas cards. I also have a conventional pen pal out in England, and let me tell you, nothing beats the excitement of opening the mailbox to find a triple-stamped air mail envelope from her. I can only imagine the elation Julia Child must have felt during her correspondence with Avis DeVoto as an American ex-pat. Readers can get an inkling, however, by paging through the anthology As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto compiled by biographer and editor Joan Reardon.

The beginnings of this story of the two women’s correspondence will be known to anyone who has read My Life in France or seen the film Julie & Julia – an accidental fall of fortune to be sure. But what readers of As Always will gain that is impossible to glean from the words of other authors is the unbridled emotion and connection exhibited by the personal words of the women. The book spans the creation of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, right from Child’s initial writing in France (where she opines on her “moral obligation” to the small publisher Ives Washburn and the possibility of recipe stealing, p. 18). Fascinating, too, as an aspiring cookbook author myself, was DeVoto’s original take on the book’s wording and general style as both a literary agent and, most importantly, an American home cook (p. 24). This little diatribe included notes from both Avis herself and the author Dorothy Canfield Fisher (via DeVoto) and provides a type of “inside peek” at the world of publishing. Imbedded in the letters, too, are bits of fascinating trivia about the art of cooking as a whole – that aluminum in the cooking liquid can cause eggs to turn green just as much as too much iron can, that frozen elk can be thawed and re-frozen without incident, and even a list of the “basic” fish to be included in a true Bouillabaisse (p. 99). Avis DeVoto even supplies Child with a recipe herself, for a five-hour-long pasta sauce concoction originally from John Ciardi (p. 61). The only shock came from the early history of their letters, where Julia defends the use of canned soup in cooking – a very un-French (and un-Julia!) notation.

When not cooking, it was obvious that the woman known to most as the Queen of the Kitchen still adored food, from shopping for it to dining out in the many countries the Childs moved to. After Paul Child was finished in France (known for lavish and well-executed meals) they were relocated to Germany, Norway and finally “home” to the United States, where Julia explored both the native cuisine and some of the more “outlandish” fare such as fledgling Chinese fare in Berlin.

It is clear that the letters in As Always were written by not only food lovers, but food writers. The subtle, yet distinct flair the two use in their language and understanding of each other rings of the exacting standards of classic English teachers... and not just due to the era of their penning. The style of their writing, however, does make for a book that is rather “chewy”. While filled with good information and certainly not lacking in emotion, the book is also packed with anachronistic political talk and sayings which often warrant a footnote for explanation. It is more confusing for those readers who did not grow up in the 1950’s and never “caught up” on the general gossip of the time, especially if they do not hail from the U.S. Admittedly, that confusion coupled with the sheer length of each letter (admitted in passing by both of them to be excessive!) does lead to dryness in As Always, and most readers will find their attention straying out of boredom. Granted, the letters were picked out of what must have been an extensive array for their content, but the “food-minded” audience this book would appeal to will find the political satire lost on them.

It is a shame that Avis DeVoto’s story and true gifts to the concoction of Mastering the Art of French Cooking are not widely known. Had she been in France at the beginning of the Trois Gourmandes, the trio would have undoubtedly been a foursome. DeVoto was an excellent cook and writer in her own right, and easily could have written an “American cook’s” cookbook even before her introduction to the world of Julia Child’s cuisine. However, Julia Child is Julia Child, and her infectious personality and energy even in the depths of misery (following the Houghton Mifflin rejection) is one of the driving forces of the compilation. In As Always, Julia, the combination of the two women create a recipe for letter writing as wonderfully emulsified as a perfect Caesar dressing – it’s just tart enough, full of zip and goes down easy.

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