Around the Table: Easy Menus for Cozy Entertaining at Home (Non) [Hardcover]

Ellen Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2003 | Series: Non

Easy and stylish menus for cozy entertaining at home.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wright admits she's neither a restaurant chef nor a professional party-thrower, but she's been cooking and entertaining for over 40 years. She wrote this book for other culinary non-professionals who agree that "when it comes to really enjoying a meal, there's no place like home." Filled with 24 amusingly themed menus, divided into cold weather and warm weather categories, this volume is decidedly accessible. The recipe for Perfect Lemon Cake with Fresh Lemon Glaze might sound intimidating, but it calls for simple cake mix and lemon-flavored instant pudding, and comes with a sanity-saving tip: "If the cake breaks while you are unmolding it, take the pieces out and place them in their rightful positions. When you glaze, the break won't show." Entertaining at home is not about impressing guests, says Wright; it's about making them comfortable. Pop culture references, such as a Valentine's Day dinner menu entitled "Six and the City" and a TV tray menu to accompany viewing of The Sopranos might date this book, but the recipes-simple, classic and, above all, easy-will always be crowd-pleasers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Ellen Wright has been cooking and entertaining for more than forty years. Before writing cookbooks, she served as an assistant and recipe tester to James Beard and hosted his 75th birthday party, where he declared, “Ellen, I don't know anyone who is better at bringing people together, making them feel at home, and serving a damn good meal.” Wright studied painting and drawing in college before she applied her artistic talent to the kitchen. In addition to working with Beard, Wright has also studied under Madhur Jaffrey, Lydie Marshall, and Julia Child. She has authored one previous cookbook, Bridgehampton Weekends (William Morrow). Though a regional cookbook, it garnered national media attention from newspapers, magazines, the Today show, and Larry King Live. The New York Times said of Wright, “It took Martha Stewart a dozen years, a slew of books, and a lifetime of self-promotion to get the kind of attention Ellen Wright has been showered with since her first book hit stores last month.” She is also an interior designer whose clients include CBS Sports, Citicorp, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Brokaw, and Jane Pauley. Currently Wright divides her time between an apartment overlooking the East River in New York City and a renovated farmhouse in Bridgehampton, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press (August 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558322523
• ISBN-13: 978-1558322523
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.8 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,359,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Pass the Swedish Meatballs... March 5, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I was expecting a sophisticated collection of easy recipes, more in the vein of the Barefoot Contessa books, but this is merely a rehash of 70's suburban-housewife buffet food. Do we really need a recipe for franks and beans? And scrambled eggs with Velveeta? Also surprised that the apparently talented photographer took on this book...some of the food looks truly unappetizing, for instance the creamed spinach on page 121. Very disappointing book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Warm Book of Good Recipes in Helpful Menus for Home February 10, 2004

By B. Marold HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

This book on entertaining menus and recipes by the interior designer Ellen Wright provides almost exactly what you would expect, but nothing more. It gives us thirteen (13) menus for cold weather situations and eleven (11) menus for warm weather situations.

Most of the menus are tailored to fit a particular situation. Cold weather menus fit situations like TV viewing, a small Thanksgiving gathering, Christmas, `home with a cold', New Years Eve, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine's day, and a hearty breakfast. Warm weather menus fit a Bridge party, and engagement dinner, the Fourth of July, a teenage date dinner, a dinner outside on the grill, and a menu suitable for preparation by an inexperienced cook (the daughter?!).

Reflection on this lineup leads me to think that the book may not be as useful to the frequent entertainer as it may appear on first blush. Most of the menus are more appropriate to very specific functions and not to general entertaining. This book is much more specialized in it's audience than, for example, Martha Stewart's famous first book `Entertaining'. The audience most interested in this book may not be the frequent entertainer of friends and business colleagues as the person with an active family life around the home.

There are two sure signs that the best audience is the large home centered family. First, there are few alcoholic beverage recommendations. If this book were oriented toward adult guests, this is a serious oversight, especially in the matter of wine. I have no knowledge or serious interest in wine and food pairings, but I do know that this is an important dimension to dining and entertaining. The author doesn't even mention the subject of wine. The few mentions of alcoholic beverages I found were recipes for Pimm's Cup, Bloody Marys, and Margaritas. Second, most of the recipes are relatively simple with a generous use of prepared ingredients from the supermarket's freezer case and cake mix aisle. A much more valuable use of space in this book would have been to remove the mixed drinks recipes and add recommendations for wines and simple references to mixed drink names.

Since the book presents recipes in menus, where most menus have a salad and a dessert course, you are getting more salad and dessert recipes than you would in the more conventionally organized book. For this imbalance, you are getting important information on putting together interesting menus.

I am not overly impressed by the distribution of ingredients by warm weather and cold weather menu. It is more accurate to say that the recipies are selected to fit the occasion than the season. Otherwise, the selection of recipes is fairly broad, covering classic American fare such as franks and beans and chili, to imported classics such as pasta Puttanesca and Gaspacho. None of the recipes violate any major culinary practices and the sidebar tips help you to make the best of your ingredients, but there is little there which an experienced cook does not already know.

The photographs in the book are all very good. The irony is that the photographs do as good or better job of highlighting the author's day job of decorator than they do of featuring the food. Serving plates, table decorations, and tablecloths get as much attention as the food. A perfect example of this is one photo which features not one wit of edible material. In the place of the food is a recent `New Yorker' cartoon flanked by elegant serving ware, napkins, and tablecloth.

I am always interested in influences on the author and I am pleased to find this writer refer more than once to the solo work of Simone Beck rather than Ms. Beck's more famous colaborator, Julia Child. Ms. Wright also refers with reverence to an association with James Beard. All this indicates that Ms. Wright is a very talented person for which home entertaining (and this book) is a sidelight, for which she has taken one or more short classes with old school culinary celebrities such as Beard, Child, and Madhur Jaffrey.

If you do a lot of entertaining and are an only modestly skilled cook, this is a worthwhile book. It gives good ideas and it will not take you into deep culinary waters.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious and accessible! October 27, 2003

By Joe

Format:Hardcover

I am usually lost in the kitchen, but love to eat. These recipes are really easy to follow. I impressed myself and my date. This book is fantastic!