Customer Reviews

Feast: Food to Celebrate Life

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Nigella Lawson seems to be the kind of cookbook author who causes people to respond to *her* more than her recipes. I suppose some of that is inevitable, as she has the sort of sultry girl-next-door looks that make us ordinary women contemplate a pact with the devil. But the book is, after all, about the recipes and menu guidance she provides. And I think she does a very good job at that, indeed.

This isn't simply a "holiday recipes" book; Lawson takes the "feast" theme to heart, and gives recipes for all sorts of occasions in which you're apt to be called to the kitchen. Sure, that includes Thanksgiving and Christmas (which she lumps together), as well as Valentine's day and Rosh Hashanah. But it also includes "a Georgian feast" (whose menu includes green beans in herbed yogurt, walnut crescents, and a chicken stuffed with basmati, garlic, and sour cherries), several feasts for making with/for children (the Halloween recipes include a "slime soup" -- actually a pea and cheese soup), and even a set of dishes to cook for funerals and grieving friends. Not to mention feasts for oneself, such as things to cook at midnight.

As you may have gathered, these recipes are organized by the nature of the event, which could get tedious if you wanted to look for all the soup recipes. But isn't that the point?

The recipes -- let's get to the meat of the matter, so to speak. While I don't think I'm going to change all my traditional dishes, I'm guaranteed to be inspired by some of her suggestions. I certainly am looking forward to using up my Thanksgiving turkey leftovers in her "North American Salad" (wild rice, dried cranberries, cooked turkey, cranberry sauce, pecans and parsley). The "easy holiday trifle" -- which uses dried apricots, cardamom, and a panettone -- is likely to be my contribution to the Christmas buffet. And I'm planning to make the "stilton rarebit with walnut and bibb lettuce salad" this weekend. Hmm, maybe I'll do it _now_.

I own a lot of cookbooks that seem to have only one or two good recipes. This one clearly doesn't suffer from that affliction.

There is a mistake in the body of the recipe that may lead you to believe the cake contains butter. Supposedly, it does not, and this was a mistake on the part of the American publisher. I want future purchasers to know this so you won't have to spend an agonizing afternoon like I just did, second-guessing a recipe (and guessing wrong that butter does belong in the cake) the day before I planned to serve this cake at a party. (It's gluten free, great for your celiac friends.)

Now that I've got THAT off my chest ... I love this book! It made Christmas dinner a hit (the Brussels sprout recipe is divine!), and it is beautiful to look at and a pleasure to read, as are all of Nigella's books. Just mark that butter thing on the chocolate orange cake, and you'll be fine.

I can say, without embarrassment, that it took Nigella Lawson to get me to cook. Through her words, wisdom, and her book "Forever Summer" - with it's abundance of lamb, mint, and lemon - Nigella not only introduced me to the ease of cooking, but also to the mystery of spices and spice mixtures such as Sumac and Zatar. And perhaps, more importantly, Nigella and "Forever Summer" provided me with a healthy portion of reliable recipes to cook, eat, and enjoy with friends. "Feast," is like part two of my culinary education.

"Feast" is full of recipes for good food, cookable food, the kind of food you want to eat. The kind of food you want on your table when you celebrate, entertain family and friends, or when it's just dinner for two or even one. True to Lawson's style, nothing is to fussy or labor intensive. Whatever labor you put in you get back ten-fold in the results.

While Lawson does occasionally borrow from her earlier books like "How To Eat" and "Nigella Bites," it's only to offer up a different version of the dish, and it's often even better. And, it's refreshing that when Nigella uses a recipe found in another cookbook, she gives credit to the chef and the book. Then of course she twists and tweaks the recipe: making it even better.

"Feast" is my fall 2004 cooking bible.

Nigella Lawson's "Feast" is a fabulous cookbook for most people, not just those about to prepare a Thanksgiving Dinner (though it is great for them too).

"Feast" celebrates Lawson's unique take on cooking and on life. She is a strong proponent of being comfortable in your own kitchen and at your own party. She eschews "perfectionism" (e.g., perfect flowers as centerpieces, exquisite appetizers) for good, home cooked food and comfort.

Lawson's definition of a feast has breadth and depth. This book includes sections on the traditional Holidays both secular and non-secular (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Eid-Muslim, Halloween). However, she also has suggestions for a "One Person Feast" or a "Venetian Feast" (which would make for a great dinner party)and other such events. MOST notably, she includes a section on a feast for a funeral with thoughtful suggestions on food to bring to the home of the bereaved.

Lawson's cookbooks can be read as books. In fact, I recommend that's how you begin with "Feast": read it from cover to cover. Her prose is witty, sly and friendly. You feel as if she's standing there in the kitchen with you.

Finally, the recipes are terrific. You'll find great soups that you can use anywhere (you may want to rename the Halloween "slime soup" but you can serve it in the summer), wonderful suggestions for roasts (e.g., roiled loin of pork cinghiale, Georgian chicken), side dishes (brussel sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta), and desserts ( a flourless chocolate orange cake) that can be used any day and any time of year, feast or no feast.

I cannot recommend this book enough to lovers of food and cooking everywhere.

Nigella is my original muse, she single handedly got me back into the kitchen and cooking when the days of making cookies with my grandmother passed and I had to start doing it on my own. I have all of her books and honestly they are something one can actually cook from, my shelves are bending from the amount of cookbooks they house but only half are being used to make dinners and cakes, others I look at for inspiration and for pictures but Nigella's recipes are worth every penny one spends on a cookbook. I can't express my love and gratitude for this woman; she's intelligent, cheerful, honest a magnificent food writer who actually got me into writing as well, I even got my first KitchenAid mixer because she used her so much to make all of her delectable treats. So fear not, this and other books that she penned are not only gorgeous to look at but they can help anyone put something mouth watering on the table in no time. This one has pictures on almost every page and a short little bit of how this came to be or how she eats it before each recipe, probably my favorite part of the book.

This book is broken into occasions rather than seasons or ingredients - Thanksgiving & Christmas, New Year, Meatless Feasts, Valentine's Day, Easter, Passover, Breakfast, Kitchen Feasts, Kiddiefeast, Cut-out Cookies, Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame, A Georgian Feast, Eid, Ultimate Feasts, Hallowe'en, Rosh Hashanah, A Venetian Feast, Festival of Lights, Partytime, Midnight Feast, Wedding Feast, Funeral Feast ( somber I know but the food is actually very appropriate and having herself lose her mother, sister and first husband to cancer, Nigella is still living life and making the best of what she has) so no matter what one celebrates they can find something good in this super large volume. I have to admit that I use this daily and don't wait for special occasions.

Feast is probably her biggest ( thickest) book to date, and I made some good things from it. Let me tell you, the Pumpkin Cheesecake (on page 68 ) was my first cheesecake and no only was it ridiculously easy it turned out so good I was shocked I made it myself. There was a suggestion for Butterscotch sauce on the page to pour on top, I made it as well ( gotta love the pairing suggestions) and the combination was just divine. The sauce would also go well on something like an apple and macadamia nut crumble or anything thatis sweet.

Gingerbread muffins on page 91 were so warm and cozy I make them in cold weather to keep the chill of, the trouble is stopping at one. If you want your house to smell like a home, make this!

Roast Loin of pork with caraway, lemon and garlic - spicy fragrant, nothing ordinary about this simple to make dinner, makes great leftovers as the rub on top intensifies.

Chicken Pot Pie - I guarantee that after this one no one will be shopping for it in the frozen section of their supermarket, flaky dough, creamy hot center, lost of peas, ham and chicken in sauce, the only caution is not burning the tongue as it's hard not to gobble up.

There's even Muttar Paneer - an excellent Indian dish, makes me feel silly for ever thinking it was hard to make. Now I can control the ingredients and how much salt and fat goes into it, one can make a healthy lunch out of an exotic staple after all.

This book has everything, I don't know how this woman thinks it all up, but she makes these recipes and writes about them, she feeds them to her children and friends, real people are involved into bringing this book to life and it shows.

- Kasia S.

In "Feast", Nigella Lawson not only explores how food is used to celebrate life through a diverse range of cultures and traditions - she also reveals herself as one of the finest and most moving food writers since MFK Fisher. Her chapter and recipe introductions are frequently as absorbing (and mouth-watering) as the recipes themselves.

The recipes offer a good range from the simple (Ritzy Chicken Nuggets = chicken strips marinated in buttermilk and coated in Ritz cracker crumbs!) to the more complex (= fruited and brined turkey, which I look forward to trying this Thanksgiving). Her conversational style makes every recipe tempting and easy to follow, and most of them contain less than a dozen ingredients (usually considerably less than a dozen); I'm not really sure how anyone could be confused or intimidated by anything in this book.

As far as some of the other reviews here are concerned: I, too, was perplexed by the misprint regarding butter in the flourless chocolate orange cake recipe (which shouldn't keep anyone from trying to make it - it is otherwise as simple as it is exquisite). And those who have a problem with Nigella's remarks about Jewish food and culture should go back and read the book a little more closely: Nigella comes from a Jewish background, and her remarks are meant to illustrate that there is no such thing as a single "Jewish cuisine", but rather a range of culinary traditions (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, etc.) that often get lumped together.

All in all, one of the most treasured books in my 200+ cookbook collection, and one I look forward to turning to over and over again in the coming years.

Nigella Lawson's `Feast' is as much a feast for the mind as it is a resource for feasts of the body. Ms. Lawson loves to write about cooking and she does it very, very well. Even without knowing that she does weekly columns for the very well written New York Times, one can tell that unlike her equally famous Anglo culinarian Jamie Oliver, she does not dictate her books into a recorder to be transcribed by an editor.

I got Ms. Lawson's latest volume to both review it and to expect that it will provide a good resource for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, a resource which will survive more holiday winters than the molding stack of `Gourmet', `Bon Appetit', and `Martha Stewart Living' issues from holidays past. My slight hesitation based on a relatively poor opinion of her `Forever Summer' volume was overcome by Ms. Lawson's cheeky appearance on the David Letterman show where she upstaged Dave with a quip which I suspect will appear in best of collections for years to come.

Speaking of Ms. Stewart, many have been nominated as successors to Martha's mantle of domestic arbiter of taste, but I think Ms. Lawson should be considered clearly ahead of the pack as an improvement over Ms. Stewart's take on food and cooking. In lieu of a clever metaphor, I will simply state that while Martha Stewart and staff gives solid advice on the basics and are almost always sound on the facts, very little real personality and passion shines through the slightly make believe feeling one gets from Martha's persona. Nigella Lawson is both a very real, very genuine intellect who takes us beyond competence to really caring about making a good meal for friends and family.

Ms. Lawson's chatter and recipes for Thanksgiving are a perfect case in point. After noting that as a Brit, Thanksgiving is `not her party, but she is always happy to be invited'. And, to clearly justify her invitation, she states that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holiday meals are very much about tradition, and it would be foolish to deal with recipes that do not follow these traditions. So, she gives us two recipes for roasted turkey (one traditional and one with a brined bird), two recipes for turkey gravy, three recipes for poultry stuffing, a recipe for baked ham, a recipe for goose with a mashed potato stuffing, a `bohemian' roast goose, and a red cabbage recipe. The side dishes include pancetta wrapped sausages; maple roasted parsnips; perfect roast potatoes; sweet potatoes with marshmallows (oh my); Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, pancetta, and parsley; green bean and lemon casserole; bread sauce and cranberry sauce.

All this goodness would be wasted if the recipes are not good, and I believe they are very, very good. The attention to cooking details surpasses virtually all other works I have seen on this subject. About a year ago, a Sheila Lukins book, `Celebrate' with a very similar agenda was published with menus covering over thirty celebratory events with lots of recipes, drink recommendations, and listening recommendations, but the book was primarily a good, easy reference for people who simply wanted to get a few easy tips for fleshing out events for family and friends. The recipes were sound, but simply not very deep. Ms. Lawson, on the other hand, gives us turkey-roasting instructions which look like they were copied from a book by Thomas Keller. The procedure for Lawson's turkey is almost identical to Keller's instructions for roasting a chicken in his new book `Bouchon'. Similarly, her instructions for the `perfect roast potatoes' are both careful and distinctive, from the very specific instructions on parboiling the spuds to the method for cutting them to get the best crunchy outside and pillowy inside. The goose fat for the roasting is a nice touch too.

While Ms. Lawson only covers 22 occasions to Ms. Lukins' 35, Nigella pretty much covers just about every common event you can imagine. Joining Thanksgiving and Christmas are menus and recipes for New Year, Vegetarian celebrations, Valentine's Day, Easter, Passover, Breakfast celebrations, `Kitchen Feasts', `Kiddiefeast', celebratory cookies, chocolate birthday cakes, `A Georgian Feast', EID (Eid-ul-Fitr, a Muslim breaking of fasting feast), Ultimate Feasts (read `Last Supper'), Halloween, Rosh Hashanah, `A Venetian Feast', Festival of Lights, Partytime, Midnight Feast, and Funeral Feast. In addition to digging deeper into culinary wisdom than Ms. Lukins or Ms. Stewart, Lawson is much more ecumenical in covering Christian, Jewish, and Moslem celebrations not to mention coverage of menus from Russia and Venice.

I should also say that while Ms. Lawson makes no compromises with culinary excellence, her recipes require very few difficult or unusual methods or ingredients. Comparing her Georgian recipe for walnut crescents with a Rick Rodgers essay from Austrian coffee houses shows that Lawson gives us a much simpler method to reach a very similar result.

Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver share a passion for food and for communicating with food, which have few if any peers among us Yanks. Ms. Lawson says `I believe absolutely that the only way to live is to throw yourself right at it'. No holding back here, I'd say. She is a culinary Al Franken to Oliver's Robin Williams. Just as Franken is a very intellectual humorist, Ms. Lawson warms the scholar in my soul by giving full credit to those people from whom she has borrowed. Food talk is invariably a discussion and not a monologue. Ms. Lawson brings a very clear, warm, passionate voice to the party.

Very highly recommended as a foodie read AND a source of entertaining recipes for many different occasions.

I absolutely love Nigella's books, and this one is no exception. The layout is simple and sensual, and the varied recipes are easy to follow and relatively basic to make. Her work is an absolute joy to read; down-to-earth and comforting.

I particularly love the dense and moist chocolate honey cake, and infact, the entire chocolate cake hall of fame. The lamb shanks with fig and honey are also beautiful.

I highly recommend this work, as I would any of Nigella's books. Her prose and recipes are utterly enchanting.

In her fifth cookery book, "Feast", Nigella Lawson offers a collection of recipes and occasions to mark our lives. It is her experience that "food is the vital way we celebrate anything that matters" (vii). Before us, then, is a book replete with recipes new and familiar to mark occasions traditional (Christmas, New Year, Easter), foreign (at least from my ethnocentric perspective: Venetian, Eid, and Rosh Hashanah), and fun (Valentine's Day, Breakfast, and Midnight). A feast is not just a meal; it is a condition of an innate human need to mark an event or occasion with those to whom we have a close bond by augmenting it with food.

The inviting tone with which Nigella writes has remained in tact, in spite of the size of the tome and despite this being her fifth book. So, as always, one feels encouraged to make anything at any time due to the bolstering of confidence that Nigella inspires. The layout of "Feast" is very clear. Each section has its own title page and all recipes are preceded with a personal experience and/or a history/genesis/evolution. The numerous photographs are well composed and induce hunger.

Approximately ten previously published recipes are reproduced here, and another five are sufficiently reworked so as to be practically new recipes. This is nothing in a book that has over four hundred pages of recipes. In reference to Jewish cooking, Nigella quite clearly states that Jews are too dispersed to have developed one cooking style (176). Similarly, Jewish cultures are quite distinct even beyond the broad groupings of Ashkenazi and Sephardi. Nigella clearly recognizes this and thus offers a disclaimer so as not to offend anyone, even while demonstrating examples of both Middle Eastern and Eastern European Jewish cooking; furthermore, she is of Jewish descent herself.

Nigella implores the reader to pick and choose from, and/or combine the feasts for his/her own celebration of life. And there is indeed a bountiful amount from which to select, ranging from soul-warming to refreshing, light to decadent. This book is a great "quick reference" for themed ideas, if one is after something kitsch, to improve upon one's own traditions, or for inspiration. I love this book.

I love Nigella.
I love her books.
I love her style, and her heart.
She writes like an angel.
She's brave and she's good.
Her recipes work!

Of course, I bought this book. And there is plenty that is good in it. But I think it's important to at least be able to say that there are some things which are not so good - specifically, the layout is gratingly difficult to follow, there are not enough pictures ... and there's a really noticeable amount of recycling from her other books. (She identifies each repeat - so my issue isn't with Nigella's integrity. It's just that I'd rather have a somewhat smaller book with all new material.)

If you're buying your first Nigella book or looking for one to give as a gift, I would recommend her classic "Baking & The Art Of Comfort Cooking," - not "Feast."