Customer Reviews

The I Love to Cook Book: Rediscovering the Joy of Cooking for Family and Friends

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this wonderful cookbook about a month ago.

As the child of a single working mother family meals were rare. Later when I became a wife and mother of three sons I always longed to create memorable everyday meals, bake homemade breads and generally become a good cook. I spent a small fortune on cookbooks and cooking magazines trying to find a way to make my dream come true. I wanted to cook delicious meals my family liked to eat and find a system that would allow me to cook fresh food daily.

I visited Ms. Groveman's website after I read a quote from her in a magazine. I soon found myself swept up in her message. Finally here was someone who was saying all the things I wanted to hear; families need to eat together, it is vital! Creating a nurturing atmosphere through cooking for your family and friends benefits you and them in immeasurable ways! I had to know more so I purchased her book.

She is saying yes get in that kitchen! You can do it! This book and her website provide a perfect blueprint for anyone wanting to start cooking or for those who want a stellar recipe collection to add to their repertoire . I am a beginner yet I have found her cookbook to have it all; salads, special dishes, family style dishes and the best fancy and casual nibbles you will ever try!

I started with the pantry staples. These are mixes, spice blends and sauces that go along with many different recipes and they make cooking so delicious and incredibly easy! First I made the Scone/Biscuit mix, Pancake/Cake mix, Cornbread mix and the Muffin mix, then I made the spice blends.

Now making Baking Powder Biscuits or Skillet Cornbread on a weeknight is as easy if not easier than using a prepackaged mix, but the taste of these homemade mixes is unrivaled. I am already scraping the bottom of my biscuit mix ( I have three growing boys and a husband!). Oh, and the Banana Bread made with the muffin mix is sublime!

I first made the Buttermilk Pancakes and they looked exactly like the photo. I was hooked! I then made Perfect Roast Chicken (believe me it's perfect!;the recipe uses a spice blend) , Fajitas (also uses a spice blend), Pigs in A Quilt (with three boys I have already made this twice!). With each recipe I followed I was turning out incredible results. Not only did it taste great it also looked great! I couldn't believe it!

Then came the day I decided to make the Challah! Lauren suggests that this should be the first yeast bread you attempt. Well, when you see the photo of this beauty in the book you can see why I might be a bit intimidated-especially considering the fact that I had dozens of failed yeast bread attempts in the past. I read Lauren's bread notes (available on the website and in her first book) and set out to make the Challah. Well, on my first attempt I pulled the most beautiful loaf of bread out of the oven. I could not believe I made this! Armed with this success I then tried the Country White Bread- again success! Delicious! My kids helped me knead the dough for the country white. They did such a good job, we had a great time!
There is no fancy equipment needed to make bread with Lauren, no not even a yeast thermometer!

My children and husband are just lapping all of this attention and love up and I am feeling so great and it is not all about the food. It is about me providing the kind of home life I have always wanted to have. I want my children to know the stability that I never knew as a child and feeding them delicious meals at regular meal times has started to show my kids that life can be predictable and that they are worth every bit of effort it takes to produce great meals and pleasant meal times.

It has not been hard or terribly expensive to start this process. In fact I have taken more pleasure and joy in the past few weeks- with trips to the market and the store buying containers and a few bits and pieces for the kitchen-than I can ever remember. Now I have a mission! This cookbook and Ms. Groveman's website have been my guide. I feel I am starting to succeed in making my dreams come true and all of the guilt I used to have about meal times or lack thereof has dissipated. All of my new found success has not been limited to the kitchen. I now see my new found confidence and my family's contentedness spilling over into other areas of our lives!

As I write this review my kitchen is filled with vegetables and ingredients to make the Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken and Peas for lunch and the Loaded with Vegetables Lasagne for tomorrow night's dinner (with the Crusty Italian Bread from Lauren's first book, I had to get both!) I can only count the days until Spring when I can introduce my children to our farm stands and markets. I am already planning on finding the U-pick places and my husband is going to help me to grow fresh herbs! Life is so sweet!

This cookbook is fabulous! I am going to purchase a copy for my sister!

Very Highly Recommended!

This cookbook goes beyond great recipes -- really great, I should add: the scones are to die for, and the butternut squash soup the best I have tasted, and she even shows an easy way to make your own flour tortillas! -- with helpful tips and charming stories. Groveman's love of cooking is infectious. This is a book that you will use for everyday dinners as well as special occasions.

What a beautiful book! It is filled with an inspiring passion for cooking and sharing that passion with the people we love. A concept this world is sorely in need of these days. I have given this book as gifts to all of my friends and they love it. It is filled with great recipes and practical ideas as well as words of wisdom and inspiration. I have tried several of the recipes and gotten rave reviews. I have been cooking since I was ten years old and although I'm not professionally trained, anyone who knows me would say that cooking and loving is what I do best. It is a pleasure to have Lauren's book validate those qualities and encourage others to bring celebrations of warmth to those we love.

Please take note Bruce the Retiree who Cooks for Two--you seemed to have missed the point of the book. Cooking is an art--creative, warm, loving and meant to be shared. It is sad that you missed the point. It would have been ideal, for someone who is retired and has the time, to pass the beauty of cooking on to our younger generation. Lauren Groveman has been involved in getting a kitchen built in young women's prisons and has taken the time to teach and inspire the young women to cook and thus to care for their families. Her book reflects her kindness and sincere desire to share her talents with everyone. The book is a treasure--I highly recommend it and wish I could give it a double five stars.

As a single father, I occasionally enjoy taking time out of my hectic schedule to prepare a nutritious meal for my family. It seems once , there were long lasting meals that allowed you to become acquainted with your family at the end of the day. Times have changed and this does not happen as often as I would like but this book has reminded me what life and family should be about. I purchased Lauren Grovemans book to rekindle that family flame. This book has allowed me to take time out for myself and more importantly for my family,they range in age from 17 to 10 and they usually run from the table as fast as they can,but we made new rules if I am going to spend time preparing and cooking they are going to spend time enjoying the food,cleaning and most importantly being a family and communicating.With my daughter heading off to college next year for the first time,the value of family time seems that much more important. Besides the quality time we are also getting quality nutrition and my meals may not look like Mrs. Grovemans yet but they inspiring to me and greatly appreciated by my kids. Each child gets to pick a meal a week from the book.
The pictures of prepared food in Mrs. Groveman's book are only overshadowed by the beautiful family pictures.They really are inspiring I must say everything I have experienced in the short time since I have purchased this cookbook,makes me hard pressed to even refer to it as a cookbook,it is much more than that,and I hope Mrs. Groveman is proud of everything she has accomplished and I am glad to spread the word and the butter and the cream cheese and the mayo and the mustard,while she spreads the love.. Great Book 5 stars,*****

If I could only have one cookbook, this would make my short list for consideration. It's changed the way I look at food and my kitchen.
What I like most about it is the way the author talks about making food in a very holistic way - it's not just the food you end up with, it's also about what you need and should have on hand to make your kitchen functional.
I used to spend far too much time trying to figure out what I was going to make to eat. I can still do that if I want, but this book has taught me how to always have a certain supply of things on hand that I can easily turn into a variety of great meals - all without thinking.
It took me a couple of weeks to gather and make the staples that are suggested, and while I was working on this I did wonder if it would be worth it. It was. Since the initial work was done, it's really been very easy to keep my kitchen stocked.
The book also stand as a traditional cook book. There are some really great recipes - the vegetarian lasagne is incredible, for instance.
I love the I Love to Cook Book.

As an avid collector, The I Love to Cook Book is, to put it plainly, the most beautiful and most lovingly written cookbook I have ever seen! The complaint of this Bruce person just illustrates his lack of know-how and understanding of what real cooking (for a household) is all about. Anyone who knows anything about making stock knows that large pots yield more return on the same simmering time. Anyone can, if they choose, use a smaller pot but they'll just have to make stock that much more often (thus the point of using a bigger vessel, Bruce) To this man, Bruce, who wrote the review(whoever he is: This cookbook is clearly written to promote truly delicious home cooking and shared family-sized meals on a more regular basis. And, by the way (for those that don't have the room for those large "mixes" that Groveman gives in the first chapter (which are fantastic, by the way)she also gives, at the end of each and every recipe that requests them, the individual ingredients to achieve a single batch. So, yes there are hefty stews, hearty soups, artisan breads and loads of really enticing desserts but there is also an entire chapter on main dish salads and another featuring lots of inviting side dishes (that my children adore) And,if you look at the breakfast chapter, you'll see that almost all of the recipes are written for ONE! That's because Lauren had the sense and sensitivity to realize that mornings are frenetic and that it's better to feed one well than to cook for 4 (or 6 or 8, as Bruce accuses)and watch it all get ice cold. So far, all of those recipes seem to multiply perfectly, even the buttermilk pancakes which are truly the best pancakes I've ever had.

Personally, after being a real fan of Ms. Groveman's for years (her last book has been my cooking bible for an entire decade), I think the world would be a better place if more people were like her and adopted her loving, giving ways. This cookbook is a true treasure and anyone that knows anything about cooking, baking and feeding "real people" will agree. If the recipes you choose are all about the number of ingredients used, in my opinion, you are not cooking in the right spirit!

Very good condition. Great recipes! I found Lauren Groveman on public TV, and I love the way she cooks.This was an excellent price for this cookbook, and the shipping was fast.

Lauren's Cookbook is currently the greatest cookbook on the market. I am an avid cook. I live alone but love to have friends over for dinner parties. This book is a great introduction to my next dinner party!

Lauren Groveman has done it again! She has given us a book of rare quality loaded with the most fantasticly delicious recipes and practical cooking tips. Bravely revealing her personal journey to becoming a confident cook, she bolsters the courage of many a mom who will happily move beyond the basics with the right encouragement...and here it is!

I have been a colleague of Ms. Groveman at numerous culinary events and have marvelled at the quality of her cooking and baking for years. Many of the recipes I have enjoyed are in this very book. They are presented with great clarity, detail and simplicity. The butter-crunch toffee left me speechless. I can't wait to make the vegetable lasagne.

I pause to respond to Bruce the Retiree who Cooks for Two. In his lengthy "review" he seems to feel hostile about family cooking. Perhaps he never experienced it. His lust for exactitude is reminiscent of a government accountant. The paint by numbers approach to cooking which he espouses misses the point--a great cook has shared her experience, talent and recipes. Be thankful! Put on your apron, invite some friends over and cook!

I have given over two dozen copies of Ms. Groveman's first book as gifts. The recipients are grateful indeed and the choice of this gift has enhanced my business. I will continue the tradition with this second book, a celebration of great family cooking, richly laced with love and expertise.

The important thing about understanding this book from Lauren Groveman is to realize the significance of her subtitle `Rediscovering the Joy of Cooking for Family and Friends'. This book is very much about cooking for six to eight people when you have plenty of time to spend in the kitchen.

The first symptom that the book deals with seriously large scale cooking is in the stock recipes. They all recommend using a 16-quart stock pot. Most other recipes, even the fastidiously exact Alton Brown demonstrates stock making with only a 12-quart stockpot. All the stock recipes, including chicken, beef, veal, lamb, roasted vegetable, shrimp, and fish stocks are good. All the right gods have been satisfied, including the warning to cook fish stock for no more than 45 minutes (most authorities go for no more than 30 minutes). Some stocks even allow for cooking up to three days! I'm a little surprised Ms. Groveman doesn't pass on a tip for cooling down 8 to 12 quarts of stock from near boiling to below the danger zone of 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The next symptom of the books primary direction is to cook for large family groups is the battery of pantry recipes accompanying the stocks. This includes recipes for roasted peppers, pestos, bread crumbs, barbecue sauce, marinara sauce, teriyaki sauce, cinnamon sugar, seasoning and spice blends, buttermilk pancake mix, muffin mix, cornbread mix, baking powder biscuit mix, compound butters, sweet fruit butters, quick puff pastry and pate brisee. I have made every single one of these preparations at some time in the last year, and, as I am retired, I have all the time I need to make these things, but I do not and will not make most of them because since I cook for only two people most of the time, I cannot guarantee that most of these preparations will be used up before their shelf life expires. I do make breadcrumbs when I have day old crusty bread available, but that is about it. I simply do not have the space or the need to make a lot of pantry preparations.

The lesson here is not that this is a poor book. The lesson is that this book is simply much more useful for the large family or even small restaurant cook than it is for a small or even an average family of 4.2 Americans.

The first chapter also presents a taste of the author's hubris in applauding her own recipes by giving them titles such as `The Best Barbecue Sauce' and `Killer Marinara Sauce'. This attitude of claiming to be presenting exceptional recipes appears often in the book. It appears often enough to put me off a bit. In contrast, Martha Stewart's much touted arrogance about her person simply does not extend to her public presentations, where she commonly expresses her personal appreciation for recipes and ingredients and assumes the modest attitude that `If I can do it, you should have no problems'. Ms. Groveman's tone has no bearing on the quality of her recipes, but it does have a bearing on the quality of your experience in reading the book.

Even with the elaborate pantry preparations, I find most of the recipes still have large ingredient lists and long recipe procedures. In contrast, I recall recipes in several books of recipes from provincial France by Patricia Wells and others which have all the cachet that source entails with remarkably few ingredients and simple procedures. In Ms. Groveman's book, for example, I am looking at a recipe for stuffed mushrooms alla Bolognese which has 23 ingredients, ten (10) of which require some preparation even before starting the oversize page and a half procedure. I am certain the result is tasty in the extreme, but this gives you the idea that the recipes in this book are the opposite of simple. This sample also shows that the book is the opposite of low fat and low calorie, as this recipe adds both butter and cream to the healthy olive oil in the ingredients.

Ms. Groveman's air of certainty about the quality of her preparations turns hollow when I run across statements about cooking technique which are not only wrong, but are accepted as wrong by many authorities. One misstatement is the stricture against salting beans early in their soaking time. The source of the refutation of this principle is in a February, 1994 article by Russ Parsons in the Los Angles Times. This information has been repeated by nerd team members like John Thorne and Alton Brown, and by Food Network icon Sara Moulton. Another misstatement is the description of glass as a fast conductor of heat as used in pie pans, in preference to metal. Any recollection of high school science should bring up physics experiments that show that glass is a heat and electricity insulator, while metals are heat and electricity conductors. This is not to say that glass is not in fact a superior material for pie plates. It is probably superior in that it holds heat longer than metal so crusts will not be exposed to variations in oven heat as much as if they were in metal. Another thing I find annoying with Ms. Groveman's recipes is that it is one of the very, very few cookbooks that routinely use extra large eggs.

To be sure, there are many good things in this book such as the recipes for Challah and Matzos. The book also contains directions on how to make both hot dog and hamburger rolls, something you do not find in even comprehensive books on bread baking. All recipes appear sound, even if I have reasons to prefer recipes in other books.

This book gives many make ahead tips and tips for fast breakfasts and stressless entertaining but, ultimately, it is a book about cooking for six to eight on a regular basis. Recommended for people in that situation.