`Fresh Every Day, More Great Recipes from Foster's Market' is Sara Foster's second book in about three years, with a new co-author, Carolynn Carreno, a co-author of the very good New York City bistro / bakery book, `Once Upon a Tart'. Whether it is from the change in collaborator or some other reason, Ms. Foster has succeeded in giving us a book which is not only better than her first, but it is better than books from her nearest competitors, Paula Deen and fellow Martha Stewart alum, Ina Garten. While Deen gives us very good renditions of classic Southern dishes, Ms. Foster and her allies have done a `fusion Southern' cuisine which has all the charm of the original models with maybe just a little less fat and a little more flavor. Compared to fellow caterer, Ms. Garten of Long Island, Ms. Foster gives us much more bang for our $35. I have always thought Ms. Garten's books are just a tad overpriced for their content. Sara Foster has delivered a lot more content, and more interesting content, for the same price.
While it took a fair amount of careful reading before I gave Sara's first book my five stars, my visceral pleasure with this book kicked in almost immediately, which is a sure sign that this is a quality cookbook. Very good and very bad books usually show their colors in the first few pages. When you have to look for the good stuff, it is surely an average book.
The book has just a slightly different focus than the first book, in that it covers a lot of things Ms. Foster cooks at home for her family and dishes she demonstrates when she is doing book tours and cooking classes.
For starters, I always give high marks to books with good breakfast recipes. For every decent book on breakfast dishes, there are fifty or more on desserts, so, we are always in need of more and better breakfast dishes. None of the recipes are really unusual, but that isn't what you want from a rural milieu caterer. You can get the fancy breakfasts from The Plaza and the Hiltons. The scrambled egg recipe(s) are a fine sample of what Ms. Foster and company do so well in this book. She gives the basic technique that is effective, but simple. No James Beard water bath cooking for 40 minutes here. Then, she gives us six different variations plus the courage to throw in most different kinds of odds and ends leftovers from the fridge.
I thought the following page with breakfast tortilla recipes goes a long way to showing how far Mexican cuisine has influenced our cooking in that Ms. Foster uses the terms chipotle, burrito, quesadilla, and enchilada with no explanation of what they mean and really assumes the reader will have no problems following an instruction to `fold it like a burrito'. Later in this chapter, chipotle finds its way into several different recipes. The chapter also covers such essential subjects as grits, smoothies, biscuits, muffins, and granola.
The next chapter is `Simple Soups' which opens with a sidebar on soup making which has almost as many spiffy soup suggestions as several soup books I have reviewed. Like the breakfast dishes, most soups are pretty standard and pretty hearty, with a heavy emphasis on roasted ingredients and pureed preparations. There are some interesting surprises such as the golden gazpacho soup, but the big value is in teaching us to use soup toppings and garnishes.
The third chapter is on `seasonal salads and salad meals'. The content which impressed me most was the number of different vinaigrette recipes, including summer herb, sweet basil, balsamic, blue cheese, tarragon, sweet and spicy, sesame ginger, red wine with chives, tangy Italian, black olive, and pad thai vinaigrettes. And that just the vinaigrettes!
The fourth chapter is `seasonal sides' with lots of stuff on using fruits and root vegetables. The most interesting section is the general suggestion plus several recipes on mashing vegetables OTHER than potatoes. This notion, plus the variations on doing corn on the cob are worth the price of the chapter.
The fifth chapter is `quick and tasty meat main dishes' which throws lots of Southern, Italian, Greek, and Mexican ideas into a pot and comes up with great nouveau Carolina cuisine. The featured sidebar is on grilling. The best `extras' are recipes for `fridge pickles and pan seared duck breasts.
The sixth chapter is `fast and fresh fish, pasta, and risotto meals'. This chapter is heavy on the shrimp and scallops plus halibut, snapper, sea bass, and lots of condiments such as lemon chive oil, Cajun aioli, and green goddess dressing. The sidebar on fish cookery is excellent.
The seventh chapter is `meals that cook themselves' which, of course, is not literally true. It is a collection of recipes that cook for a long time with little or no fuss or attention. Lots of classics appear here, many with the addition of Sara's favorite ingredient, chipotle.
The last chapter is `a little something sweet' which tend to be quick assemblies rather than elaborate cakes and pies, although there is a pretty standard recipe for a piecrust and a blueberry pie. The recipe uses all vegetable shortening, and I am partial to pastry crusts done with butter. I don't thing Sara will mind if you use a classic French pate brisee in place of `Judy's Flaky PieCrust. Her sidebar on making piecrusts may not have every little detail, but it's very good if this is the only book you have.
Ms. Foster's pair of books is the perfect example for those of you who don't want a lot of cookbooks, but you want interesting recipes. Getting these two books will give you great value with no risk of recipe overlap. I certainly recommend these over books from Ms. Deen and Ms. Garten, although both of these ladies have done some very nice volumes.
Highly recommended!
