In every way imaginable, this third Jamie Oliver cookbook proclaims that he has arrived as a celebrity chef, husband, father, and all around swell lad made good. His name on the cover is about three times the size of the book's title, `Happy Days with the Naked Chef', the book is dedicated to his two children, Little Henners and Jakey Bakey, and photos his nibs with his wife, Jools appear throughout the book. On top of all this, there is a much broader representation of international flavors in these recipes based on trips to the Orient, echoing the influence of Japan on the culinary thinking of Joel Robuchon.
At the risk of laying it on just a little too thick, I really believe Oliver shows the kind of passion about good food and cooking which I have seen in very few other TV culinary personalities. Stopping short of a comparison with Julia Child, as Saint Julia did say she couldn't quite understand him most of the time, I would compare his enthusiasm with that of Mario Batali and Jacques Pepin, although he does not have the depth of technique of Jaques or the extensive knowledge of local Italian cuisines as Mario.
Oliver does not simply dedicate to his children for schmaltz value as he devotes a sizable section of the book on the value and attitudes to use when cooking with your kids. These few pages alone are worth the price of the book. Emeril just published a whole book on techniques for cooking with your kids, and as good a job as he did in telling you how to do it, Jamie does a much better job of telling you why you do it and what benefits will arise from the effort. Jamie also gives a few insights into his cooking with Jools as well when he says that once upon a time, every little suggestion on Jools' cooking from world famous chef Jamie was taken as a criticism and tended to dampen her enthusiasm for doing something she did not especially enjoy anyway. The whole picture changed when Jamie simply praised everything Jools did in the kitchen. The quality of her cooking and her attitude improved dramatically. I can think of a few of my relatives I would love to feed the wisdom in this book.
In reviews of Oliver's other books, I have warned that while Jamie preaches simplicity, this is not the same as quick or easy. Jamie does lean a bit toward quicker and easier in some chapters in this book, keeping to the cooking with the kids theme. He has a chapter on `Quick Fixes' and `Comfort Grub' plus `More Simple Salads'. And, he leaves out any recipes for homemade pasta, with all pasta dishes being based on dried pasta, which he always says is not inferior to fresh, just different. There is also a very short chapter just after the introduction on using fresh herbs, which for the entire world sounds like a sermon from Pastor Oliver exhorting you to use fresh herbs. This homily is understandable if you recall that Jamie Oliver's writing and televising about food is all about lifestyle, not just how to cook. His lesson is that fresh herbs are necessary to good cooking.
As always, Oliver's most appealing recipes are for salads, pasta dishes, and seafood. I sometimes wish that all of his books would be reissued collecting all like chapters into individual volumes and I would buy the salad and pasta volumes simply to have all these recipes together. They are by far the most original of his dishes, although there is one pasta dish Jamie attributes to Mario Batali and there are a few in his books that are attributed to his experiences at the River Café.
Bread is one of my favorite culinary subjects and Jamie is one of the very few superstar chefs who gives special emphasis to bread baking. His basic bread recipe is a classic fast method he probably got from Gennaro, as Contaldo uses a very similar recipe in his book `Passione'. The recipe violates the recommendation from experts like Peter Reinhart who promote little yeast and long rise times, but I have made Jamie's bread and I find it just fine, especially as a medium for rolling in savory additions such as onions and salami. To atone for his fast yeast bread, Jamie adds a recipe for artisinal sourdough bread with natural yeast and a classic Italian bega. Read this recipe very carefully before starting, as it takes a FULL WEEK to complete. If you are serious about bread, check out books by Reinhart, Joe Ortiz, or Nancy Silverton, but you could do a lot worse than getting your first taste of bread baking from Sir Jamie.
When someone has an engaging TV personality, I fear their enthusiasm may not transfer to a skill with the written word, especially with Jamie, as I have heard him say he dictates all his books into a tape recorder, as he never really learned to write properly in school. Let me assure you here that even his chapters with low culinary interest such as his chapters on mixed drinks are a joy to read.
Jamie has a habit of labeling certain recipes as `the best ever'. Well, I have made his `best ever' recipes and I agree with him. They have all become standards in my repertoire. He continues to match or exceed the very high quality of recipes you will find from the River Café or even from Signoir Batali himself.
On the remote chance that Hyperion editors read this review for constructive criticism, I will point out that the layout of ingredient lists makes reading the recipes a bit annoying, as does the absence of ingredient lists from some of the simpler recipes.
If one wishes to get more out of their cooking, they could not do much better than to work their way through Jamie Oliver's cookbooks.
