Customer Reviews

The Good, the Bad, and the Yummy: Food that Suits Your Mood

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This delightful book will live front and center on my bookshelf. The recipes are both innovative and simple. Ms. Steiman has nailed it for all of us who find ourselves craving fruits and vegetables on some days and gooey chocolate on others - or all of the above in the space of a few hours. I love the way she whips up comforts and luxuries into a luscious blend. This is a great gift book for friends - for a birthday or "because I'm thinking about you."

This cookbook has everything to suit any palate, any mood and any occasion. The recipes are easy to follow, do not require a ridiculous amount of hard-to-find ingredients and are stunningly simple in their execution. I love the witty introductions, thoughtful asides and the sheer variety of tastes, textures and themes. Sure to please both the food connoisseur and amateur alike. Thanks Adina!

I am still starting out flexing my cooking and baking muscles, but I have the luxury of a mom with a long history of dabbling in culinary affairs to help guide me. As such, I was drawn to Adina Steiman's cookbook for its cute style and interesting concept of balancing two waves of food.

The book is divided up into the standards - breakfast, lunch, dinner, comfort foods, party foods, and foods given as gifts, but then split up again to reflect whether you feel like eating good (healthy) or bad (decadent). At the start of each section there is a cute little diagnostic quiz as to what division you should be checking out, and Steiman packages each group together quite nicely to give you plenty of options for everything from drinks to entrees to desserts.

I think one of my favourite sections of the book is the party suggestions - divided up into 'spa retreat' (good) and 'southern style bbq' (bad). Not only does Steiman provide a wide variety of options for the casual or the more formal affair, she throws in lots of ideas for really adding to the atmosphere of your event, from music to types of spa water.

The strengths in this book are many - one of my fave features is the fact it isn't just a recipe book but really a lifestyle book. Ideas for little things like flavoured butters, alcoholic hot beverages, and combinations at the salad bar make it easy to integrate Steiman's suggestions into every nook and cranny of your cooking lifestyle.

I also love that the book is designed for busy women whose lifestyles might not accomodate many hot hours over the stove, but need it to keep their energy up. Even the 'bad' foods are somewhat designed to improve on already bad foods by adding extra protein so you avoid excess snacking. There are many references to energy boosting and essential nutrients, and suggestions for time-savers, using leftovers, and what can be made earlier for later use.

There are just two weaknesses in the book that gave it this four-star rating (although trust me I'm very much a 4.5 star fan of this book). One is some of the directions were kind of vague...even just reading over some recipes that I haven't tried yet I felt like I had too many questions that might dissuade me from actually tackling the recipe in the future. The second is sometimes the bad feels TOO bad, and the good is packed with somewhat selective ingredients, as in they won't appeal quite as universally. Which is unfortunate because a lot of the recipes that appealed to me were in the bad section...but sometimes the way Steiman writes about them I'm wondering if I should even dare, making the guilt of eating poorly set in prematurely rather than encouraging me to balance between the good and bad sections.

A couple of other notes - Steiman is a big fan of garnishes, many of which are unnecessary in my opinion, although perhaps not so much in the case of the healthy dishes to give them added flavour. Cilantro is used in virtually every recipe it seems, even though I'm not a fan. The book is actually relatively vegetarian friendly - quite a few recipes are for simple, meatless dishes, others include tofu. There are certainly enough meaty dishes that you may want to pass this one over if you are a vegetarian though.

Overally I'm very satisfied with my purchase of this book...although a slightly more accessible guide to cooking would be my reccomendation for novice kitchen users, Steiman lays out cooking and baking in such a way to not only make it sound fun, but simple and versatile as well.

"The Good, the Bad, the Yummy" is the best type of cookbook--the kind that you want to read not just use for recipies. It is witty and funny and the recipies are easy, fresh, delicious. Adina is the kind of cook that knows her food and knows her audience too. A perfect book for summer cooking

I bought this book after seeing it on someones book list. It has far exceeded my expectations! I have made three of the recipes in two days and LOVED them all! Not only were they delicious and healthy but easy!! This book is chock full of interesting and modern ideas on both the "good" and "bad" side. I love that Adina added in little touches such as music selections for a brunch or a list of great chocolates. If you are not afraid to look at your food in new ways, this is a great book for you!