20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Second Helping, October 2, 2004
This review is from: Kitchen Life: Real Food For Real Families -- Even Yours! (Paperback)
I already have Art's first book, "Back to the Table." I was expecting this one to be another outstanding cook book and I wasn't disappointed. I found the recipes to be easy to make, inexpensive to shop for and delicious for the entire family.
Some of my favorites were the Asian Pork and theSausage Potato Soup. The idea of having a "workhorse Recipe" and using that main ingredient in several other meals was ingenious.
Owing this book is the next best thing to having Art as my Personal Chef!
C.T
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29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Handbook for Kitchen Newbies. Highly Recommended, December 8, 2004
This review is from: Kitchen Life: Real Food For Real Families -- Even Yours! (Paperback)
`Kitchen Life' is personal chef Art Smith's second book, having won a James Beard award for his first, `Back to the Table'. The most important feature of this book is that it is about much more than just recipes. It would not be at all inappropriate to call this `Knowing Your Kitchen for Dummies', as it touches a bit on just about every aspect of ingredients, kitchen management, cooking equipment, pantries, techniques, and recipes. An experienced cook may easily find much in this book a little too basic, but for the average person who wants to improve their return their investment in refrigerator, oven, range, sink, and tableware in their kitchen, this is the book for them!
A paragraph on this book in a `New York Times' article on new cookbooks attracted me to the work in that it said the author wrote that you really don't need dumbed down recipes for cooking with kids. I had just finished reviewing some books on cooking with kids where I was put off by the cutsey tone adapted to appeal to kids. So, I suspected that Art Smith had something to say to me.
It turns out that people with a lot of culinary experience will probably find little that is new in this book, but a newbie in the kitchen will find a whole lot to orient them to what is essential and what is fluff. I can find no statements in this book with which I would argue; although there are several small differences in opinion which should have no impact on the value of the book to its best audience. For example, Smith does the novice a great service by providing a lot of very useful top five lists for pantry items. A symptom of how good these lists are is the fact that I have almost all these items in my pantry. Their biggest weakness is that his lists violate one of his best principles, which is to always shop with a shopping list based on recipes you will actually cook that week. For small households, there is a lot of potential waste in stocking up on things like bell peppers, fresh thyme, frozen shrimp, sweet potatoes, chocolate chips, and ice cream. Bell peppers are a really common ingredient but if they languish for a week in the crisper, you may end up with slime. I really find the cost of fresh thyme to be not worth the money, as dried thyme is an excellent product with a very long shelf life. As I buy a new bottle of dried thyme every three months, I have no problems with the herb's loosing its potency. And so on with the rest of these ingredients. Smith is not suggesting we run out and buy all these ingredients, but he is not warning against it either.
On kitchen equipment, the same rule should apply. Don't buy anything, no matter how strongly recommended, unless you actually plan to use the stuff. To those who will benefit from this book, I would amend Smith's recommendations with the recommendation to get BIG pots and pans. It is less of a problem to have a cook pot that is too big than to have one which is too small. Where Smith recommends both a skillet and a saute pan, I would trade in the skillet for an 8-quart Dutch oven and use sure to get the 10 or 12 inch saute pan. Get an 8-inch saute pan only if you definitely plan to make omelets or crepes.
On almost every point, I believe Smith is on the side of the angels. He warns against buying sets of pans, recommends washing prewashed produce, and makes excellent suggestions on when to use and when not to use the microwave oven. If I were to suggest any one thing he should be including would be a primer on knife skills. I believe good knife skills and a $100 premium quality knife will outperform a $300 food processor for every operation that uses a knife. And, it is so incredibly easier to clean a knife than to clean a food processor.
Smith's very best and most unusual suggestion is to keep a journal for menus, recipes, running shopping lists, and references to interesting cooking tidbits. While most of the audience for this book may be hard pressed to just bring their family together for a meal, let alone have the time to write things down, I really think this is a good idea, especially if it can be done on a laptop. Tying this into access to recipes from Internet sources creates a great synergy. The local newspaper simply cannot compete with the 50,000 recipes available from web sites such as foodnetwork.com and epicurious.com. Another good but uncommon suggestion is to simply label one's pantry shelves, so it is easier to see what you need and where your bottles and cans go when you get home from the grocery.
Until I saw the blurb in the `New York Times', I avoided Smith's books for the same reason I avoid books by Patty LaBelle, Al Roker, and Pat Conroy. I am sure these folks are all devoted foodies, but I prefer getting my expert advice from people who are culinary experts, not literary or TV celebrities. The fact is that Art Smith is a culinary expert who is actually paid to cook well and he has been doing it for quite a long time. So, there should be no surprise that he has a lot of very good ideas for a successful life in the kitchen.
This book does not cover everything, but it is the very best kitchen orientation I have seen for those who would like a basic roadmap for what to do in the kitchen.
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