Scratch That: Seasonal Menus & Perfect Pairings
Author: Connie Fairbanks
SEASONAL INGREDIENTS, RECIPES THAT TAKE YOU FROM FANCY ENTERTAINING TO DOWN-HOME PICNICS ARE COMBINED WITH ANECDOTAL TRAVEL STORIES AND BREATHTAKING PHOTOGRAPHS FOR THE BEST COOKBOOK EVER FOR THE HOME CHEF
Scratch That™ Seasonal Menus and Perfect Pairings is a new cookbook for the home chef, the first by Connie Fairbanks in which she shares recipes for family favorites with advice on how to make the preparation easy and the results mouthwatering. Connie's Notes accompany each recipe with tips on shopping for seasonal ingredients, explanations of cooking terms, suggestions for table decor and even appropriate wine and beer pairings. Dozens of recipes are accompanied by mouthwatering photographs.
Scratch That™ Seasonal Menus and Perfect Pairings uses popular, familiar ingredients to the home chef, but with a twist. A brunch of parmesan, arugula and quince skewers with Prosecco is inspired by her travels in European cities. Connie's recipe for barbeque harkens back to family gatherings in Kansas where she grew up but she livens it up with
a spicy red pepper dip from Spain followed by chilled cantaloupe soup served ice cold in four-inch shot glasses tucked into a tiny bucket of crushed ice. A colorful and light summer menu brings together the best that summer has to offer. It starts with a spicy gazpacho, which is followed by grilled swordfish, highlighted with oregano and pancetta
and then ends on a sweet note with a rustic fruit pie. To please the most adventurous, Connie offers a raclette with cornichons and picked onions in the fall/winter menus.
The book is divided into six chapters, with two chapters of 18 menus devoted to each season of the year. Eachrecipe is included in a menu with instructions on what to do the day before, how to shop and suggestions for imaginative presentation that the home chef will appreciate. Cooking terms and ethnic ingredients have definitions and phonetic spellings highlighted on the same page.
All Connie's menus are balanced with seasonal ingredients, tastes, ease of preparation and variety. Wines and beers are suggested for each menu to take the guesswork out of what to serve and tips on pairing food and wine.
Because cooking rests in part on choosing the right equipment, one of the books four non-menu chapters is on Kitchen Essentials, broken down into must-have and nice-to-have equipment. A second chapter addresses The Basics, recipes that you use all the time in one place, basics about salt and spices, the perfect cup of coffee and how to load the dishwasher properly. On Wine and Beer, the book offers a cheat sheet for phonetic spellings of wine, wine pairings and toasts around the world. Finally, because Connie Fairbanks knows that sometimes you just want to go out to dinner, a chapter entitled, "When You Go Out to Eat," explains how to make the reservation, tipping and etiquette in the restaurant.
Midwest Book Review
In "Scratch That: Seasonal Menus & Perfect Pairings", Connie Fairbanks draws upon a lifetime's experience in the kitchen (she began when she was five years old) to compile and wonderfully illustrate truly exquisite dishes suitable for any and all dining occasions. "Scratch That" begins with chapters devoted to 'Kitchen Essentials'; 'Basic Recipes and other Kitchen Know-How'. this is then followed by recipes organized around specific dining occasions in the spring and summer with menus such as the Weekend Brunch; First Barbecue on the Deck; Picnic Anytime; Working Lunch; and more. Dining occasions for the fall and winter are clustered around menus devoted to the Salmon Soiree; Thursday Nights Supper; World Series Party; Romantic Dinner for Two; and more. There are even chapters devoted to wine and beer; and 'When You go Out to Dinner'. Beautifully illustrated throughout with color photography, the recipes range from Banana Tea Bread; French Breakfast Radishes with Butter and Kosher Salt; Sauteed Mushrooms on Toasts; and Fresh Peach Cobbler; to Roasted Salmon and Vegetable Bundles; Garlic and Sun-Dried Tomato Dip; Rack of Lamb with Rosemary and Wine Sauce; and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. "Scratch That" is especially and enthusiastically recommended for the cookbook collection of the novice family chef, and has wonderful culinary ideas for even the more experienced kitchen cook.
Books about: The Pause or The Fussy Eaters Recipe Book
Cornbread Nation 4: The Best of Southern Food Writing
Author: Dale Volberg Reed
This New Collection in the Southern Foodways Alliance's popular series serves up a fifty-three-course celebration of Southern foods, Southern cooking, and the people and traditions behind them. Editors Dale Volberg Reed and John Shelton Reed have combed magazines, newspapers, books, and journals to gather some of the best food writing by such authors as Edna Lewis, Rick Bragg, Hal Crowther, and R. W. Apple Jr. Cornbread Nation 4 is certain to satisfy everyone from omnivorous chowhounds to the most discerning students of regional foodways.
Pop Matters
Cornbread Nation 4 is a vivid, heart-felt, often lyrical look at some of the most iconic food of the South-- from the commercial to the home-cooked to the most seasonal of delicacies, gathered in the wild ... You'll wish you could stop by and meet these legends-- along with many of the authors and characters in Cornbread Nation 4-- for yer'self.
Theresa Curry - The Daily News Record
Anyone who has ever split a fresh biscuit or held a steaming cup of Brunswick stew during a chilly outdoor event will appreciate 'Cornbread Nation 4' ... It's wonderfully varied church supper of Southern food, Southern cooking, and Southern people ... a compilation that will make even a Yankee's mouth water.
Erin Rossiter - The Athens Banner-Herald
The stories, most of which have no recipes at all, promise to stuff the soul if not the stomach.
Rosemarie Lewis - Library Journal
Unlike the two previous collections, the fourth in the series, edited by the coauthors of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South, rejects a binding theme, instead meandering throughout the South in eight structured sections. The selections are solid, and standouts include a haunting photo-essay on the Apalachicola oyster industry by Amy Evans, Rick Bragg's stubbornly worded "This Isn't the Last Dance," Rick Brooks's report on the effort local cooks have taken to recapture recipes that were lost to Katrina, Brett Anderson's fascinating transcript of a conversation on the life and career of Paul Prudhomme, and Audrey Petty's sweet reminiscences of eating chitlins with her mother. Among the 53 selections are many recipes, not found in previous compilations, which greatly enhance the book. For regional cookery and Southern studies collections.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1Spring Edna Lewis 5
Louisiana and the Gulf Coast: Before
Tabasco: Edmund McIlhenny and the Birth of a Louisiana Pepper Sauce Shane K. Bernard 13
Boudin and Beyond Mary Tutwiler 20
First You Make a Roux Terri Pischoff Wuerthner 26
A Lunchtime Institution Overstuffs Its Last Po' Boy R. W. Apple Jr. 32
Apalachicola Amy Evans 37
The Natural Brett Anderson 53
Louisiana and the Gulf Coast: After
This Isn't the Last Dance Rick Bragg 69
Letter from New Orleans Lolis Eric Elie 71
From the Crescent City to the Bayou City Peggy Grodinsky 78
A Meal to Remember Judy Walker 83
Comforting Food: Recapturing Recipes Katrina Took Away Rick Brooks 88
Willie Mae's Scotch House Jim Auchmutey 93
Crab Man Robb Walsh 97
Interlude: The Lowcountry
Lowcountry Lowdown Jack Hitt 109
Carolina Comfort, out of Africa Matt Lee Ted Lee 115
Sweet Things
Sugar: Savior orSatan? Molly O'Neill 121
Molasses-Colored Glasses Frederick Douglass Opie 130
The Genie in the Bottle of Red Food Coloring Beth Ann Fennelly 139
Corndog Nation
Store Lunch Jerry Leath Mills 145
The South's Love Affair with Soft Drinks Tom Hanchett 147
The Moon Pie: A Southern Journey William Ferris 153
Mountain Dogs Fred Sauceman 160
Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked: Fifty Years of the Waffle House Candice Dyer 166
Let Us Now Praise Fabulous Cooks John T. Edge 172
Downhome Food
Molly Mooching on Bradley Mountain Mary Hufford 181
Deep Roots Wendell Brock 189
Tough Enough: The Muscadine Grape Simone Wilson 194
Making a Mess of Poke Dan Huntley 196
Green Party Julia Reed 201
Something Special Carroll Leggett 206
Cornbread in Buttermilk Michael McFee 211
Salt Michael McFee 212
Pork Skins Michael McFee 214
Rinds Fred Thompson 216
Late-Night Chitlins with Momma Audrey Petty 218
No Bones about It Carol Penn-Romine 222
The Way of All Flesh Hal Crowther 224
By the Silvery Shine of the Moon Jim Myers 228
Downhome Places
Is There a Difference between Southern and Soul? Shaun Chavis 237
Movement Food Bernard Lafayette 245
Ricky Parker David Leite 252
Home away from Home Cookin' Deb Barshafsky 256
The Cypress Grill T. Edward Nickens 261
Compare and Contrast
Roll Over, Escoffier Jim Ferguson 267
Wie Geht's, Y'all? German Influences in Southern Cooking Fred R. Reenstjerna 270
Living North/Eating South Jessica B. Harris 273
Why Jews Don't Get Quail Marcie Cohen Ferris 275
Southern by the Grits of God Timothy C. Davis 279
Ziti vs. Kentucky Cindy Lamb 282
Dennis Water Cress Christopher Lang 285
Frank Stitt Pat Conroy 288
Benediction The Reverend Will D. Campbell 293
Contributors 299
Acknowledgments 303
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