Customer Reviews

TASSAJARA RECIPE BOOK

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful collection of vegetarian recipes presented in an easy-to-follow format. I recently lived at Tassajara for several years, and spent much of that time on the kitchen crew. I am delighted that this new edition includes so many recipes that I forgot to copy down when I left! Vegetarian cooking in this country has graduated its early dependency on dairy and carbo-laden meals to an incredible variety of healthy and satisfying dishes. Ed's new edition keeps the best of the original Tassajara recipes and adds some of the latest community favorites to the mix. And the most important flavor of all, that of the Tassajara community, can still be savored in Ed's poems and anecdotes about Zen practice and daily living in the valley monastery which inspired this book and continues to inspire so many people today.

Every single recipe in this book is amazing-- they are all wonderfully balanced and do not call for hard-to-find ingredients.

The collection features a good blend of exotic, gourmet, health, and American-traditional dishes (with a touch of flair, of course!) Check the index under sample pages for listings.

Instructions are straight-forward and easy to follow, however there are no pictures or diagrams to help (but for most people, the written instructions will be sufficient.) The book helps you develop a sense of intuition with cooking, sometimes the techniques are open-ended.

This is among the best and unique recipe books I have.

The Tassajara Recipe Book is a great cookbook for families moving to a vegetarian diet(like mine). The recipes are delicious, simple to follow and use common ingredients available at the grocery store.

Edward Espe Brown's commentaries, descriptions and poems are thoughtful and full of humor.

I'm surprised that there aren't more reviews for this wonderful book. I am a new vegetarian and my husband and I have been less than impressed with a lot of the veg cookbooks we've tried so far. This one really does deliver great flavor and wide variety without getting too wrapped up in exotic or hard to find ingredients. My picky hubby gets *filled up* on these meals and even gobbles up the leftovers! The other thing I like is that the recipes are well-explained with simple down-to-earth instructions and there's a nice smattering of Mr. Brown's sense of humor and Zen observations throughout. Even if you never try a single recipe, it's a pleasant read.

So why 4 stars instead of 5? I have two minor complaints about the book.

Firstly, it's apparent that many recipes are conversions from much larger portions. After all, the original recipes were meant to feed a whole retreat's worth of folks. Sometimes the amounts in the ingredients lists are a bit off - nothing that destroys the recipe, but they do take a bit of tweaking to make right. Not all the recipes have this problem. On the upside, most of the recipes are very flexible so you can change the ingredients quite a bit to suit your taste or whatever veggies you have on hand. (He gives many suggestions of substitutions if you're not feeling daring enough to try your own.)

Secondly, he must really like "sour" as a flavor. There is a lot of vinegar usage in this book, many vinaigrettes, and several recipes that can best be described as pungent. If that's your thing, you will be very happy with this book! If not, don't automatically dismiss it. For one, there are other recipes here that are more than worth the cost of the book and secondly, you might just surprise yourself! We tried both the "Cumin Cheese and Onion Tart" and "Mustard Butter Pasta with Broccoli" and went into both meals with a LOT of skepticism - but they're awesome! They're both now regular favorites.

Even if you aren't a vegetarian, I highly recommend this book. It will add great flavor and variety to your cooking repertoire. :-)

I love this book. . . it is relaxing, funny and the recipes are so awesomely simple that even my son can do it.

It's small so I take it with me when at an appointment hoping I have a to wait long enough to make my grocery list. Nothing strange in the ingredients either.

I hope you like it as much as I do.

We are enjoying the recipes, and love the philosophy re using natural products, wasting as little as posible. Learned more about varioius grains, greens.

I bought this book as I had heard of Tassajara and was interested in the idea of cooking from a "Zen" perspective. I love the little meditations sprinkled throughout, and the straightforward, unfussy recipes and instructions. Everything I've made so far has been excellent, from the rye bread and blueberry muffins to the Yellow Pea Soup and Tofu Cabbage. Even my non-vegetarian family members found the meals delicious and satisfying.

When I moved to Berkeley,got married and learned to cook Brown was experimenting with these recipes. In learning from him I came to see food preparation and eating as meditative acts, chances to feel joy in the moment, to stay present - and to see how lettuce salads don't have to be prosaic - they could have unexpected extra items - from fruits to flower blossoms. The carrot soup is part of our annual pot luck tradition. So much of the trends in food have connections back to this classic book for me. Reading Geneen Roth's new book i see an echo of being present pinging off this theme, which might make Brown smile as he, too, saw that the belly is a place we turn to for comfort and to hide from other emotions - but we do not have to.

This is a book you too may use with some frequency and give away as a wedding or home-warming gift.Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

What was once mocked and made fun of is now mainstream - healthy vegetarians consider this a "bible" of simple, tasty and healthy cooking.

In a time of "google" I buy very few cookbooks. I am very happy I found this one though because it has recipes for things that I wouldn't think of looking up on the internet. Plus, just the way that it is written makes me happy.