Customer Reviews

Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you've ever cooked anything from Melissa's famed Good Appetite column in the NYTimes, you know that her recipes work. They are also delicious and practical for the home cook. This book is her kitchen diary for a year - what she actually cooked for herself and her family. The book is structured seasonally, month by month, making it really easy for those getting into seasonally inspired cooking to follow the book along. Having cooked many recipes from the book already, I can tell you it's a lovely addition to my shelf. So much so that I keep it within arm's reach for inspiration for what to make for tonight's dinner. In fact, tonight we'll be making roasted cauliflower from her book - a delicious, easy, terrific side dish. Andrew Scrivani (who is amazing) photographed this book - and each picture is mouthwateringly delicious. This will be a book you'll love forever.

This book keeps moving from the kitchen counter to my bedside reading table....the writing as well as the food is warm and comforting. I have made the mallomars- awesome and so easy! Also made the vietnamese grilled steak and cabbage which will be in a regular rotation at our house-it was light, flavorful and took just minutes to prepare. I will definitely use this book on a regular basis , along with her previous book. The recipes all work- I would not hesitate to make any recipe without trying it first for a dinner party.

This is a terrific book with recipes that will go directly into your arsenal. The recipes are organized by month of the year, which is actually a really engaging and sensible way of putting them together. You don't have to read through 30 chicken recipes, half of which you can't make that day anyway. I gave it to a friend who told me she kept telling her husband "Just let me read one more month!" before going to sleep. There are recipes in here for every day, recipes that are sophisticated enough for foodie company and yet you won't spend all day making them, and there's a recipe for mallomars which I made and is a revelation. Every recipe has options and suggestions for switching things up, adding or taking away ingredients, and pairing. I highly recommend it for anyone or for any gift giving.

I bought this cookbook after hearing raves for it on NPR and have mixed feelings about it. The book has some interesting new twists on preparing greens with new flavor combinations such as Mustard Greens with Anchovy Croutons and Gruyere Cheese (be warned; anchovies appear in quite a few recipes) and Cabbage Salad with Peanuts, Mint, and Chilies. I liked the Cumin Seed Roasted Cauliflower with Salted Yogurt and Pomegranate Seeds which was faster and easier to make than it sounds. Each recipe is followed by a "What Else" section with suggestions for versions of the basic recipe. This was important for me because I could not find ingredients like oyster mushrooms, unsweetened coconut flakes, orange blossom water, or preserved lemons, so I needed substitutions. Another plus is that the recipes range widely in flavor from India-inspired to Mediterranean to East-West Fusion cuisine. Lots of the recipes are genuinely original, such as Creme Brulee French Toast with Orange Blossom Water. I substituted diluted orange extract with a bit of agave syrup in it for the orange blossom water and it came out just fine. On the downside, the book is oddly plain; page after page of plain text feels at odds with the vibrant nature of the recipes. The book features only 16 color pictures in 386 pages. More pictures, please! A beautiful photo of a dish often inspires me to try the recipe. Despite the lack of photos the commentary and advice that accompany the recipes is excellent and you get the author's spontaneous joy and creativity as she experiments with the dishes. You feel like it would be fun to know the author Melissa Clark and spend time in her kitchen. She is very down-to-earth in her advice for busy cooks and while these recipes are probably not for newbie cooks, they are not hard to put together to great effect if you understand basic techniques for braising, grilling, roasting, etc. My husband loved the Braised Leg of Lamb with Garlicky Root Vegetable Puree; just a lovely and fragrant dish to make a Friday night at home special. I hope that in the next edition of this book there will be more pictures and suggestions for wine pairings too.

If your are the kind of person who wants a picture of each dish of doesn't like it when an author puts little bits about their family into the intro to a recipe, this book might not seem like it is for you. I don't fall into that category but with around 400 cookbooks I always think, "what will this add?". My answer on this one... a go-to book for really good fairly easy dishes that always seem to work with what you have in the kitchen NOW, if you cook a fair bit and buy what is in season/looks good at the market. I've made a bunch of the recipes and so far my comments in my copy range from "Delicious" to "Stupidly Good". And some of the simplest things ("coconut rice") you may have never thought of may become staples in your house. Thanks Melissa Clark, another winner!

I've been an avid reader of Melissa Clark's NYTimes column for ages. I've always been a fan of her straightforward and savvy approach to home cooking, and as a fellow New Yorker, I love that her inspirations and impulses are so firmly grounded in her hometown. The scope of her recipes is wide, democratic, and inclusive, just like New York City itself. Flavors from her travels, from dining out in our many restaurants, and from keeping abreast of cool current food trends inform her writing just as much as her family traditions and the seasonal offerings at the greenmarket. Melissa Clark has both her feet on the ground, in her city and in her kitchen.

What I love about this book is that it isn't a compilation of some of her best columns...all the recipes in "Cook This Now" are original and unique to the book itself and it's a really good read. It's organized organically, by season and by month, based on what's best to cook at any given time of the year. The recipes are punctuated with both fun and warm biographical notes (about what her family likes to eat, about cooking for a friend who had a bad bike accident, etc) and luscious but direct "food prose" that naturally leads to the recipe itself. These "intros" give her food a context, allowing the reader to understand the dish in a truly refreshing way. She turns the "limits" of seasonal availability into opportunities. And she's forthright about mistakes and mishaps, which not only makes me trust her advice, but inspires me to be more fearless and experimental in my own kitchen.

I have Clark's first cookbook, In The Kitchen With A Good Appetite and while I enjoyed her beautiful prose, found the recipes too decadent for weeknight cooking. I enjoyed everything I made, but I try to stay in the healthier arena on M-F. Anyway, since I bought this book last month, I've made perhaps 8-10 recipes and every one of them has been fantastic. Namely, her seafood recipes (like Buttery Spicy Garlicky Calamari With Israeli Couscous)and vegetable recipes (Sauteed Brussels Sprouts With Pancetta and Caraway). The recipes in this book consider the cook who has just worked eight hours or the student who is coming back from a 4 hour graduate seminar-they're not heavy in prep, yet they don't rely on processed food or lackluster flavor. Another unique element is the organization of this book. There are a lot of seasonal cookbooks coming out right now, which is great (books divided by Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall). But Clark's book is arranged by month, which is really interesting. Each recipe has a What Else? section, which lists ingredients you can substitute or add and tips for preparing ahead or adapting. Clark's writing is so sincere without being over the top, to the point that you'll want to curl up and read the book for pleasure, dog-earing pages as you go. Her recipes are so adaptable and unique that they encourage you to cook on your own and not be a slave to the recipe-I actually have used some of her recipes as a base to my own creations and had equally impressive results-she's very inspiring. I cannot recommend this book enough, and also to read her NY Times column and follow her on twitter (@goodappetite)-she's just as kind as she is talented.

Cook This Now is fast becoming one of my go-to sources for recipes. So far I have cooked three recipes (shredded brussel sprouts, kale salad and butternut squash risotto) out of this book, and all of them are winners. Melissa Clark's recipes are simple and straight forward, but they're never boring; often she combines flavors in a fresh, surprising way that I would not have thought of myself. I also love her chatty introductions to each recipe and the "What else?" commentary at the end. This cookbook would be good for both less experienced cooks and seasoned chefs who are looking for some new ideas for what to cook, especially anyone who already loves her column in the New York Times.

In "Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make," Melissa Clark, best known as a New York Times dining section columnist, shares some of her favorite seasonal recipes. The recipes are divided by months and seasons, with a separate section dedicated to Bonus Recipes. Each section starts with the author's re-collection of her cooking habits for this particular season, and then continues on with the actual recipes.

After each recipe, Clark includes a section titled "What else" where she shares her cooking techniques (possible substitutions, additional information about the ingredients, tips on cooking) pertinent to the recipe described. I thought the inclusion of this section following each recipe particularly lets this cookbook stand out, as each recipe is not just listed but discussed in depth.

The recipes themselves are mixed in terms of the difficulty level: both sophisticated recipes (for well experienced cooks) and more basic recipes (for beginning cooks) are included. Pictures of some of the recipes are included in the two centerfolds of the book; below each picture is the page number of the corresponding recipe.

Here is a sample of some of the seasonal recipes that I bookmarked: Winter: Whatever Greens You've Got Salad, Mallobars, Double Coconut Granola, and Fragrant Lentil Soup With Spinach and Crispy Onions. Spring: Pasta With Garlic Scapes Pesto, Sugar Snap Peas, and Ricotta; Whole Wheat Pizza with The Very First Cherry Tomatoes, Olives, And Tuna (my personal favorite recipe so far), and Buckwheat Pancakes With Sliced Peaches And Cardamom Cream Syrup. Summer: Maple Blueberry Tea Cake With Maple Glaze, Fresh Buttermilk Peach Ice Cream, and Creamed Caramelized Corn. Autumn: Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes And Garlic, Cornmeal Blini With Salmon Caviar, and Spicy coconut Eggnog. I can already tell that this will likely be one of my favorite cookbooks. Highly recommended for all the cooking enthusiasts.

When we are intrigued by a cookbook we get it at the library, try it and decide whether to buy it. We review a lot of cookbooks during the year! We got this book as a gift and have been using it nonstop. Delicious, simple, healthy and economical with clever combos of ingredients! We are giving this book as a gift to many this season.