Recipes from Home [Hardcover]

David Page (Author), Barbara Shinn (Author), Calvin Trillin (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Home is "everything you could hope for in a quintessentially cozy Greenwich Village restaurant" (Food & Wine). With its "surprisingly fresh interpretations of Middle American dishes" (Christian Science Monitor), this "dreamy little all-American place" (New York) is, in fact, a home away from home.

New Yorkers line up outside for meals that have the power to rekindle food memories from childhood. Of course, with the deft hand of chef David Page, they now taste rather grown up. Tater Tots become cornmeal-crusted garlic potato cakes; picnic coleslaw made with celery and celery root accompanies spiced pork chops; blue cheese and apple transform a grilled cheese sandwich; and the ketchup is always homemade.

In this unabashed ode to American home cooking, you'll also find recipes for scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, roast chicken, homemade pickles, chocolate pudding, and cookies "that would make anyone's front porch a neighborhood Mecca" (Gourmet).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Recipes from Home, husband-and-wife cooking team David Page and Barbara Shinn invite readers to take a seat at their family table for a heaping serving of the reinterpreted American comfort food they've been popularizing at their tiny Greenwich Village restaurant, Home, since 1993. Taking a cue from the legendary James Beard's pronouncement that "American food is anything you eat at home," Page and Shinn pack their book with over 250 recipes for all-American family favorites that conjure up the nostalgia of Sunday dinners, holiday gatherings, Fourth of July picnics, county fairs, and weekends at the beach.

Chapters reach from "The Pantry" (where you'll discover the recipe for their signature Famous Tomato Ketchup) to "The Canning Shelf" (with recipes for Green Tomato-Apple Chutney, Pickled Peppers, and Raspberry Jam). Their Simply Roasted Chicken and Grilled Blue Cheese and Apple Sandwiches will have you running to the kitchen, and Steamer Clams with Local Ale and Lobster Rolls are destined to make an appearance at your next summer shindig. "Something Sweet" wraps things up with Frozen Lemon Icebox Cake with Strawberry Sauce, Chocolate Pudding, and their irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies.

Recipes from Home is sure to become a favorite on many kitchen bookshelves, and even armchair cooks will delight in wasting away a Saturday afternoon thumbing through the anecdotal recipe introductions and generation-spanning black-and-white family photographs featured throughout the book (they've even included a family tree). By the time you get to the recipe for Mom Page's Scalloped Potatoes, you'll feel like you're part of the family. Home sweet home, indeed. --Brad Thomas Parsons

From Publishers Weekly

In the spirit of James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher and Edna Lewis, this inspired work is at once a compendium of 255 recipes (including ancestral family recipes, accompanied by warm duotone family photos throughout) from the notebooks of Page, a major chef, and a lucid appeal for an American cooking tradition based on local products and the harvest calendar. Since opening their eponymous New York City restaurant in 1993, Page and Shinn have sought to give expression to Beard's famous pronouncement: "American food is anything you eat at home." Their cookbook abounds with beautifully simple, unpretentious dishes such as Sunflower Seed Pesto, Spring Mushroom and Sweet Pea Hash, and Toasted Angel Food Cake. Readers weary of recipes so elaborate they seem to require a sous-chef or conversely, tired supper-type cooking will appreciate Page's inventive yet straightforward approach. Although the chapters are arranged thematically, with sections devoted to such "basic" condiments as Apricot Ketchup and Maple-Bourbon Butter, they could just as well have been divided up by region. Tracing a path from their Midwestern childhood homes, where they were born into families of gifted amateur cooks, to the Bay Area kitchens of California and, finally, to their farm and vineyard on the North Fork of Long Island, the authors weave memories, thoughts on food and cooking, hints on technique and, of course, the recipes themselves into a seamless whole underscoring the point that superior home cooking calls for an awareness of the seasons and a relationship to the land. (May) Forecast: If Page and Shinn are as warm and appealing as their cookbook, their 13-city tour will inspire significant sales among home cooks looking to add a little zing to their meals.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Artisan; First Edition edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885183992
• ISBN-13: 978-1885183996
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 5.9 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can go Home again....and again!, May 20, 2001

By 

Eric Fry (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recipes from Home (Hardcover)

David Page and Barbara Shinn's book Recipes from Home is a wonderful culinary journey that takes the reader from the author's childhood memories in the Midwest through their time spent in California and now New York's Long Island. They share family recipes as well as many innovative translations of American Classics. I tried their Skillet Fried Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, and Chocolate Pudding and wowed my family and guests. While eating this fabulous meal we all perused the beautiful family photograghs scattered throughout the book. We love this book! Having myself grown up in Indiana, lived in California, and now on the East Coast, it is a pleasure to find a book that not only is an ode to the Midwest, California and New England, three of our most cherished culinary regions, but also provides a personnel glimpse into the author's lives.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! A REAL American Cookbook!, May 22, 2001

By 

George (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recipes from Home (Hardcover)

This is quite possibly the best cookbook I have ever used. While cooking some of the recipes I felt like I was alongside the authors in my own kitchen. The humble simplicity of the recipes has made for hours of enjoyment in both reading the text and trying the recipes. I won't be eating out for a while!!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Feeling at Home, June 3, 2001

By 

Alicia (Toledo, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recipes from Home (Hardcover)

This book is a great compilation of recipes, pictures, and many many memories. Not only did this couple bring together both of their families, but they bring the readers into their family as well. This cookbook is not a traditional cookbook, this book is filled with recipes that have been in the family and recipes made up by the couple. In addition, their own family photos serve as enterainment. This book is great. There is nothing like good ol' home cookin'. It makes me feel right at home!