Customer Reviews

The Heaven on Seven Cookbook: Where It's Mardi Gras All the Time!

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

 

 

This is a very good cookbook. I own, or have read, most of the New Orleans cookbooks. This is one of the best, with creative thoughts on how to make some of the dishes lighter and more attractive. Great taste.

The Heaven On Seven Cookbook is a must have for any lover of Cajun/Creole cooking. Jimmy Bannos puts together a very interesting list of recipes matching traditional New Orleans fare with elements from other parts of the U. S. and the world. The recipes themselves are not too complex (but are somewhat time intensive), and the ingredient lists are very lengthy at times. Bannos is big on spices, so tamer palettes may need to modify some recipes. All in all a great cookbook though, and a good addition to any kitchen library.

After discovering a mutual love for cajun food, some Chicago natives recommended checking out Heaven On Seven whenever we got to Chicago - and we did. I had the Shrimp Voodoo, and remember loving it! The same friends later gifted us a signed version of this cookbook. We've tried a number of the recipes - even when often faced with daunting lists of hard to find ingredients like nectars. Almost anything we've tried is far too sweet and tastes nothing like the food we experienced at the resturant. Overall - this is a disappointment.

I married a girl from Chicago and she took me to eat at the second of the Hon7 restaurants. Best I recall the meal was good and the ambiance enjoyable. Years later I picked up this cookbook for a few dollars from a used book merchant here on Amazon, but from the first glance at a few recipes when it arrived, I could tell it wasn't going to be interesting or a reference I turn to. Worthless it's not, but there are simply much better options out there and it's definitely not for casual cooks who may not be able to distill the essential flavors and components of the recipes, where he certainly did not.

I rather enjoyed the foreword in which the author talks about the some personal history and how this restaurants came into existence. I took away from that portion of the book his passion and excitement for the cuisine, his customers and work.

Overall though the recipes give one the sense that he simply scaled down his restaurant formulas and went to print, lacking any professional food editor or the time to really think the project through. The number of ingredients most recipes list, often in minuscule measures, immediately put me off from taking the book seriously. A concrete example, pulled randomly as I write this review, is for the "Crawfish and Spinach in Phyllo" ; it lists at least 31 ingredients, two of which are separate concoctions requiring preparation in bulk form. You're requested to add 1/2 teaspoon each of light brown sugar, dark brown sugar and molasses. Is there really such a difference at those proportions that it would matter what your specific sweetening agent was? It also lists 1/4 teaspoon of his own cajun seasoning named "Angel Dust", which if you were to follow the recipe faithfully means mixing up eleven other spices and herbs separately! The idiocy of even calling for 1/4 teaspoon of dust is that the majority of spices in the mixture are called for independently within this recipe. For the filling, you'll need TWO whole teaspoons of roasted garlic puree, which takes a cup of peeled garlic cloves and a bunch of olive oil, not to mention an hour roasting in the oven. That's crazy. (I happen to have a jar of Rick Bayless' recipe for Mojo de Ajo in the fridge, but I wouldn't waste the time otherwise...) Sure, he may have a couple quarts of this stuff on hand in the restaurant at all times, along with shredded smoked pork butt so it's easy to toss a spoonful into your pot of whatever, but that's not how you develop recipes for home use. It's unfair to ask the reader to do so much work when he obviously wasn't willing to do it on his end in recreating the recipes for the target audience.

It's hardly worth mentioning given the other problems with the book, but the typical presentation of listing recipe ingredients in the order the method/preparation uses them is completely ignored here.

I cannot recommend this cookbook to anyone unless the author signs it personally and it comes with a free bowl of shrimp & andouille gumbo. Save your money, use it at his restaurants. On the other hand, I'd want to be friends with anyone who has owns as many different bottles of hot sauce as Jimmy Bannos!

Don't waste your time nor your money. The recipes are WAY too complicated requiring items and time that surely no household has. Buying this book was a mistake.

Why Chef Jimmy is so generous in sharing the actual recipes from his fantastic restaurant, I'll never know, but I'm not complaining. Used to eat at Heaven on 7 all the time while living in Chicago and now I can make some of my favorites at home far, far away. His honey-jalapeno dressing alone (good on salads, coleslaw, cornbread, crabcakes...heck, anything) is worth the price of the book. Buy it for yourself and as a gift for any cook/foodie friends.

Years ago the Chicago Trib did an article on this place and I clipped it and hung it on my frig. I made several of the dishes and was intriged enough to visit NOLA.

After visiting NOLA I had to visit this place. Wonderful.

The book is GREAT. And the recipes are very easy to follow. Also you don't have to have HARD TO FIND spices..

Years ago the Chicago Trib did an article on this place and I clipped it and hung it on my frig. I made several of the dishes and was intriged enough to visit NOLA.

After visiting NOLA I had to visit this place. Wonderful.

The book is GREAT. And the recipes are very easy to follow. Also you don't have to have HARD TO FIND spices..

Chef Bannos has some of the best Cajun/ Creole cooking in the country and most of his greatest hits are featured in this book. Unlike "traditional" Cajun cookbooks, Bannos does not restrict himself to Louisiana. Jamaican, Italian and Greek influences are fused effortlessly with Cajun Creole foundations. A perfect example of this, and my favorite recipe in the book is Bannos' jerktoufee, a wild and wonderful blending of Jamaican jerk and Cajun etoufee.
Do yourself a favor and buy this book.

This cookbook is not for those familiar with Louisiana cooking. Instead of complex layering of flavors, this Chicago cookbook opts for hot in everything. You won't find delicacy in the recipes, you will find lots of cayenne.

Evidently, Bannos is not that familiar with true Louisiana cuisine, and the food at his restaurants confirms this.

Now, being from New Orleans, I have the disadvantage of expecting what Bannos calls "jambalaya" to taste like what I know as "jambalaya". As such, instead of judging his dish on its own merits, I am comparing it to the traditional dishes.

Check out Paul Prudhomme if you want authentic Cajun and Creole.