Canal House Cooking Volume No. 3: Winter & Spring [Paperback]

Christopher Hirsheimer (Author), Melissa Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2011

Canal House Cooking Volume No. 3, Winter and Spring is a collection of our favorite winter and spring recipes, ones we cook for ourselves, our friends, and our families all during the cold winter months and straight through the exciting arrival of spring.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Halfway between a cookbook and a food magazine, Canal House Cooking, a gorgeous, unpretentious new periodical, arrives every four months filled with just enough irresistible seasonal recipes to keep you cooking until the next issue turns up.”—O, The Oprah Magazine

“This is just the kind of cooking that will inspire you, satisfy you, and compel you into the kitchen time and again.”—Denise Mickelsen, Fine Cooking

“I want to cook almost every recipe they print, and the books themselves are so inviting, so elegant but easygoing in tone, that

I sort of want to carry one around with me everywhere, just to keep the good feeling going.”—Molly Wizenberg, Orangette.com

“Ever been in the kitchen cooking with a friend and thought, if only I did this for a living? Food-world vets Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer live that dream.”—The Editors, Glamour

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

About the Author

Canal House is more than just Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton's studio--it's their workshop, dining room, office, kitchen, lair, lab, and atelier devoted to good ideas and good work relating to the world of food. The duo writes, photographs, designs, and paints, but in their hearts, they both think of themselves as cooks first.

And every day they cook. In the middle of the day they stop their work, set the table simply with paper napkins, and have lunch. So it came naturally to write down what they cooked, thus bringing about the Canal House Cooking series.

This cookbook is a seasonal collection of Christopher and Melissa's favorite recipes--home cooking by home cooks for home cooks. With a few exceptions, they use ingredients that are readily available and found in most markets in most towns throughout the United States. All the recipes are easy to prepare, all completely doable for the novice and experienced cook alike. These two women believe the everyday practice of simple cooking and the enjoyment of eating are two of the greatest pleasures in life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: Canal House; Original edition (October 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615340709
• ISBN-13: 978-0615340708
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like a visit from an old friend --- welcome, life-affirming and.. delicious, March 11, 2010

By 

Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canal House Cooking Volume No. 3: Winter & Spring (Paperback)

Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 3 arrived the other day, and we greeted it like a visit from an old friend who shows up just as you're starting to miss her.

Two years ago, when we first encountered Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 1, we had no idea that we were entering a relationship. Oh, we loved the book --- how could you not? For one thing, it was short: just 60 recipes, presented in a well-bound paperback. These recipes offered the unique tastes of the authors' "signature" dishes. Best of all, they were easy to make. Very quickly, this became our summer cookbook, the one culinary guide we took to the beach house we rented that was not in the Hamptons.

Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 2 arrived in November, 2009. It was, true to the Canal House mantra, a seasonal book. This time around, Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer defined winter as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Neither is a favorite holiday in this house --- our families don't gather, they disperse --- but we found many recipes that sustained us through the cold and the bleak.

By then, we were grooved --- we'll be grabbing these publications as long as Hirsheimer and Hamilton put them out. Because, three issues in, you could see this is a collaboration on the order of Lennon/McCartney --- they're completely complementary talents. Hirsheimer's photographs are food porn of the highest order; on the side of her photography career, she was executive editor of Saveur and co-authored four cookbooks. Hamilton co-founded our favorite restaurant in Lambertville, New Jersey, and worked with Martha Stewart and Cook's Illustrated. In 2007, they acquired a red brick studio overlooking a canal in Lambertville, New Jersey --- just across the river from the artist-and-tourist colony of New Hope, Pennsylvania --- and became missionaries for a special brand of cookbook: "home cooking, by home cooks for home cooks."

"Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 3" is a hymn to Spring. We're just starting to cook our way through it, but already it feels like the best edition so far. Hirsheimer's photographs leap off the page; you feel if you squeezed her shot of an orange, you'd get juice. Their range has expanded. They've always been fans of a drink at the end of the workday; now, in additional to cocktail recipes, they've had eight chefs and wine experts suggest wines that are overlooked and affordable.

As ever, they're into Real Food, generously offered. (Chicken Liver Pāté: "Don't hold back on the butter.") The Orange Marmalade looks addictive. The French Onion Soup "tastes like it has been simmered for days." Roasted Root Vegetable Stew just might get me off meat/fish/chicken one night a week. Rise E Bisi --- fresh peas, short rice, parmesan and chicken stock --- is an easier-to-prepare risotto. The lamb shanks recipe better be doubled; it's that simple, that good.

Chicken Poached with Ham and Oxtails will replace the chicken soup that got us through the winter. Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder and Beef Stew are modest twists on classic recipes, and that's the good news --- who wanted them re-invented? How about Butternut Squash and Candied Bacon as a first course? And Roasted Rhubarb as a dessert?

Off to the kitchen....