Customer Reviews

The Food You Want to Eat: 100 Smart, Simple Recipes

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm kinda new at cooking, and I don't have a lot of time to do it, so I really appreciate cookbooks with recipes that aren't too difficult. At the same time, especially when I'm having friends (or dates!) to dinner, I want to serve food that's interesting and real--the microwave is fine, but not for company! I've tried the prime rib, one of the pizzas, the salmon with tomato vinaigrette, and the creme brulee so far, and everything has come out AMAZING!

With 3 small children it is often hard to find simple yet delicious meals to cook that satisfy everyone. This book offers both easy and delicious meals to choose from. I would recommend it to everyone of all ages.

Designed to be `Smart, cool, easy food' recipes.

I had the privilege of meeting this author during a special dinner at the Joseph Ambler Inn in Pennsylvania. Besides being a very down-to-earth man, he also has put together a book of 100 recipes that really are very simple. Though I wasn't a fan of the small typestyle used for this book, the contrast in colors between the ingredients and the directions, made it a little easier to see. Every section had some facts or history to tell you what was coming up and each recipe had a personal story or reason for that recipe. Throughout the book, I could not find any ingredient that wasn't readily available at every grocery store. I also liked that many areas had a little `more information'. Sections like `How to buy fresh fish' or `what is organic food' or even `the trouble with buying scallops'. These areas help the beginner, and sometime the more seasoned cook learn something new for their kitchen. The book did not break my cardinal-rule, and keep all recipes on one or opposite pages. The evening I met Mr. Allen, I also had the opportunity to try several recipes from his book including Fennel Salad with Shrimp & Baby Arugula Fresh Orange Vinaigrette, the Halibut Braised with White Wine & Mushrooms, and the Red Wine Braised Short Ribs. The fennel in the salad was light in flavor but added a refreshing taste to the salad that was filled with the arugula, red onions, olives and blood oranges and perfectly cooked shrimp. The finishing flavors offered a nice peppery after-taste. The halibut was very tender that separated with my fork but I didn't think the sauce had a lot of flavor. The Braised short ribs were incredibly tender with meat that just fell apart with flavors that burst on my taste buds and lingered in my mouth. Other recipes in the book include Saucepan Macaroni and Cheese, Rosemary Marinated Olives, Tuna Tartare that kicks, Spicy Asian Slaw with Sesame and Sweet Red Pepper, Warm Spinach Salad with Bacon and Figs, Sesame-Peanut Noodles, Rosemary Grilled Leg of Lamb with Honeyed Yogurt, Pan-roasted Salmon with Sweet Tomato Vinaigrette, Cauliflower Puree, Warm Spiced Apple Tart and a variety of mixed drinks too.

I'm proud to have this book on my shelf and use it.

If you are a great cook, and you've cooked for 20 years and can whip up a gourmet meal with your eyes closed in the middle of a tornado with only one spatula and a rabbit ...this is not the book for you.
It is, however, a GREAT book for a beginner cook--like my son who will graduate from college this year and probably starve for not knowing how to cook the kinds of meals he gets at home.
Allen does not try to impress or intimidate: he tries to make it easy. He tries to make it taste good. This is not Betty Crocker-dull basics, this is the next step up.
Yep, this will be a graduation gift for sure.

From the steak 101 section to the veggie stuff, I've loved everything I've cooked out of this book so far! But I'm especially psyched about the suggested wine pairings for every dish--that is such a great way for a new cook to get into the (not neccessarily) scary world of wine. And there's a salmon recipe that Ted made on the Today Show that has totally won over my non-fish-loving household, so that makes him heroic in my book!

`The Food You Want to Eat (100 Smart, Simple Recipes) by foodie `Queer Eye', Ted Allen fits the mold of several other `celebrity non-chef' cookbooks where fame rests more on culinary journalism or TV presence or both. Never having seen a `Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' all the way through, my best exposure to Mr. Allen's culinary acumen has been as a judge on the Food Network's `Iron Chef America', and Mr. Allen gives much thanks to his fellow judge, Jeffrey Steingarten, Iron Chefs Bobby Flay and Mario Batali, and culinary commentator extraordinare, Alton Brown. Flay, Batali, and Brown have returned the favor by providing laudatory blurbs to adorn the cover of this book.

Speaking of covers, this book has the distinction of sporting a clear vinyl protective cover over its usual trade paperback. This gimmick encourages us to think of the book as less pervious to foody smudges on the book's pages as we make the luscious recipes contained herein. I'm sorry to say I believe the effort may be wasted, as it makes it more difficult to have the book lay flat, open to a particular page, which is a far more useful physical attribute of a cookbook. Well, the thought was there. At least it does seem as if the paper on which the pages are printed are just a bit more robust than your average trade paperback meant for nothing more strenuous than reading.

The titles of the book sets us up to expect a book of recipes for comfort food, trendy food, and easy to make food. My hero Alton's blurb offers the opinion that Mr. Allen has succeeded in both offering recipes for desirable dishes and in telling us the proper way to make these recipes. To a great extent, I have to agree with AB, with the comment that while Alton Brown gives us some of the ultimate foodie books, Allen's book is specifically NOT a foodie book. In that regard, it is much closer to what I understand his role on the `Queer Eye' show, where he and his colleagues give advice on living to people who are neither foodies, fashionistas, or any other flavor of obsessive / compulsive behavior.

I am happy to say that in fact, Ted Allen's book is better than several recent efforts by Food Network faves such as Giada De Laurentiis or Dave Lieberman. I agree completely with Alton in that these are indeed the kinds of recipes the average person will like to make on Saturday or Sunday or a holiday on the grill. He opens with a few `top ten' recipes for macaroni and cheese, roast chicken, grilled steak, braised short ribs, fried chicken, and caramel brownie sundaes. His procedures for these and all his other recipes are thoughtful and not necessarily `quick' versions, but then he didn't promise us fast, he only promised simple. For example, the fried chicken recipe calls for an overnight marinade in buttermilk. This is a step used by all the best southern cookery writers I've read, so he is off to a very good start. He also recommends frying in shallow oil rather than deep oil, exactly as recommended by our mutual mentor, Herr Brown.

Allen's next chapter is on antipasto. The recipes come almost entirely from the Italian cuisine, and I am certain Allen is betting on the fact that you don't already own a good Italian cookbook (I told you this wasn't a foodie book). The very best thing about this chapter is the recipe for four seasonal and very respectable 100% made at home pizzas. Allen seems to make no mistakes and even gets the amount of yeast right, plus good advice on adjusting the amount of yeast and instructions on kneading the dough. The pizza recipes alone are worth the price of the book.

The chapter on drinks is a bit less impressive in that he provides recipes for both old standards and `new' drinks. If the drink recipes are `new', how do we know we really want these? I would have been happier with all old standards.

The third chapter is on pasta and rice. Very nice. The fourth chapter is on grilling. This will save your buying a 500 page Steve Raichlen `bible'. The fifth chapter has a few seafood recipes, but true to the book's title, they are all, like crab cakes, high on the hit parade. The sixth chapter is on poultry and has one of the more interesting sidebar sections on how to buy chicken. This chapter ends with one duck [...] and one turkey [...]. Both items are nearly as common as chicken nowadays. The meat chapter stays true to form with recipes for meat loaf, rack of lamb, chili, and osso buco. The chili recipe is typical in that while it is a very common dish, the procedure is better than average in calling for diced rather than ground beef. A+ on that one Ted. The vegetable chapter has a very nice range of techniques, including my favorite style of veggie dish, the potato gratin. The last chapter offers extra points I always give for a general recipe book that includes breakfast dishes. These recipes are excellent, except that they simplify the omelet just a bit too much and they make us go out and buy challah for French toast, when the whole object of French toast is to use up things we already have. Tsk, Tsk.

One thing the book does share with Giada's weaker book is that we get a slew of pics of luscious Mr. Allen rather than his luscious dishes. I don't think these were aimed at the straight guys.

Overall, this is an excellent first or only cookbook for the occasional cook. The recipes are easy to understand, the sidebars are all useful, and the choice of recipes fits the book's objective. Well done, Ted.

I bought this book for my son and he has really enjoyed it. The recipes not the usual hamburger and mac/cheese. These are good recipes for people who like more sophisticated food but can get intimidated by long recipes.

First off, I should say I had no idea who Allen was before I purchased this cookbook a few months ago. I bought it based on two recipes of Ted Allen's I saw in Food & Wine Magazine, both of which were quite good, and both of which appear in this cookbook.

Allen's approach to cooking is a bit fussier than I normally like, and I don't know if you could call it "simple". For example, when salting both sides of meat, Allen suggests putting parchment paper down on a large cookie sheet, placing the meat on the paper, mixing up salt and pepper in a small bowl, and then sprinkling that mixture over both sides of the meat. That's just unnecessarily complicated. After trying several recipes I streamlined the directions beforehand, and it worked great on the Pasta en Brodo recipe.

Many recipes are more complicated than what I usually cook for a weeknight dinner. My personal guideline on a "simple" recipe is that anything which takes more than 30 minutes to prep and finish (not including cooking time) is not simple. Since many recipes in the book take a bit of skill, I don't know why there were so many beginner basics included, such as explaining how to cook certain meats. The tips were easy to understand and helpful, but they seemed out of place compared to the recipes themselves.

Also, a few of Allen's recipes just haven't turned out well for me. The two vinaigrettes I attempted were completely inedible. A couple of the recipes were more a list of ideas than recipes, especially in the salad section.

My final nitpicky complaint is that I wish there had been conversions for dried herbs. The recipes all use fresh herbs, which is nice when you can get them, but as you know that's not always possible.

Despite all that, the book gets some major props from me for several reasons. First is the plastic cover and the thicker, coated pages. Most of my cookbooks have covers that don't stand up to use in the kitchen, but this one will, and I love that. Second is the vegetable section, which has a lot more thought and care put into it than many other cookbooks where veggies are treated like an afterthought. The variations on recipes is a great touch as well, and I do like the focus on foods that are just a bit different than what you find in other cookbooks. Also, as superficial as this is, I love the color scheme.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who is looking for variety in their current cookbook collection.

Ted Allen, one of the Fab Five from "Queer Eye" on Bravo, specializes in food and wine. He's released a cookbook of delicious recipes that aren't impossible to reproduce. I'm basically the worst cook ever, but my husband and I successfully navigated through recipes for burgers, parmesan crisps, and new age floats. Ted includes social tips as well. At a cocktail party, put food and drinks on opposite sides of the party to encourage movement. I love this cookbook!

I discovered this book while waiting for my car to be washed. The local full service has a select few titles and I picked this up. My wife and I own 38 cookbooks and have/do subscribe to 3 cooking magazines. We have three close friends who also cook and with whom we go out to eat often. During hurricane Ike I decided to try a recipe from this book and all of us were amazed by the complexity of exquisite flavors derived from a basically straight forward recipe.

We have not gone out to eat for a month as I have made it my mission to try every recipe in this book. So far I have tried 48 of the more than 100 recipes with our same core group of friends and have not been disappointed by any of them. Every recipe is worth the effort. If you want, start with the lamb burgers followed by the spatchcocked chicken as we did. Or simply close your eyes and pick. This is by far the best cookbook I have ever owned.

If you want pictures, buy a magazine. If you want a textbook, buy the CIA's cookbook. If you really want great flavors married together in ways you have likely never done at home, buy this book. Sure, somethings are not explained well; there is no revealing of the total prep/cook time, and some of the recipes are involved, but my friends have each bought this book now and agree that we have not had a bad meal yet. And I'm writing this review before I send a copy of it to my brother.

This cookbook is manageable and well designed. My wife and I also own Cooking Illustrated's Best Recipes. Many of Ted Allen's techniques are consistent with what they have tested and found to be the best. This book is truly a masterpiece and you will not be dissappointed.