Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

It's hard to imagine that spending any length of time in the kitchen would be enjoyable. But then we purchased Ellen Wright's Around the Table: Easy Menus for Cozy Entertaing at Home. Not only do we have wonderful meals ready with not a lot of fuss, we've actually returned to having friends over for dinner because we can entertain and cook at the same time. Cooking used to be a thankless job and we could never leave the kitchen to enjoy the company of friends. And now people are calling us to see what we are planning for dinner! Bring back some fun into your home. Ellen Wright has done a marvelous job at making us look like we know what we are doing! We can't wait for her next book to broaden our menus!

Having just started a cookbook collection, I was thrilled to add "Around the Table" to my set. It is a wonderful compilation of family comfort food, with easy to follow recipes and simple instructions for the beginner cook/entertainer. Its recipes have been a tremendous hit with family and friends and unlike cookbooks that focus on the "cuisine of the moment", "Around the Table" highlights the wonderful family fare that never goes out of style. Highly recommended - I can't wait to pick up her next book!

WOW-These are great recipes for at home entertaining. My husband even loves the cookbook. It is refreshing to have a cookbook for entertaining that is easy to follow and with great hints. Thank you Ellen Wright !!!!!!

I must admit - I didn't buy Ellen's first book. I saw her two weeks ago on the Today show and she seemed so at ease and confident with preparing difficult dishes. So I bought it and now understand. The glazed pork with mustard and brown sugar is amazing - and easy! Even for me. And the Super Bowl Supper of margaritas(a contest), gaucamole, nuggets and chili made my World Series dinner table - sooo much fun. I'm going to buy both books now and send them to my sisters who also suffer from kitchen fright. Thanks, Ellen.

In her first book, Bridgehampton Weekends, Ellen combined her " be brave in the kitchen and don't worry style" with really interesting menus for all occasions. It was really great for me to try new and exciting dishes in the kitchen and, never before, with guests! Now, she's done it again. I was waiting for this new(and beautiful) book because I've tryed all ( yes,all ) of the ones in the first and never made a mistake! And the pictures are again beautiful. They make the book really fun to read, even when I'm not in the kitchen. Thank you Ellen, I've already bought a dozen to give as Xmas gifts.

Ellen Wright brings good cooking and entertaining together in this wonderful addition to my kitchen. I never knew it was be so easier to make such wonderful dishes. Each recipe is not only easy to understand, but if you follow all the steps, your end result will be perfect. Ellen Wright found the secret to publishing a great cook book -- everyone who doesn't like to cook will end up being a gourmet chef. And even the best the kitchen will learn from this wonderful volume.

This is a decent cookbook, nothing too fancy, nothing too difficult. But (uh-oh) it is not as good as her first. I know it needs to be judged on it's own, but I think my expectations were just too high. Ellen is a warm writer, with wonderful, helpful "Ellen's Tips" on each page, but there seems to be something missing, almost lazy about these recipes. If you like to bake bread, don't look here, the author does not bake bread.I will use it, and gave it 3 stars because 3 stars to me means good, not very good, and that's good enough for me. Happy cooking to everyone who uses it.