The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook [Hardcover]

Deb Perelman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 30, 2012

Winner of the IACP First Book Award * Named one of Cooking Light magazine’s Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 Years

The long-awaited cookbook by Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen—home cook, photographer, and celebrated food blogger.

Deb Perelman loves to cook. She isn’t a chef or a restaurant owner—she’s never even waitressed. Cooking in her tiny Manhattan kitchen was, at least at first, for special occasions—and, too often, an unnecessarily daunting venture. Deb found herself overwhelmed by the number of recipes available to her. Have you ever searched for the perfect birthday cake on Google? You’ll get more than three million results. Where do you start? What if you pick a recipe that’s downright bad?

So Deb founded her award-winning blog, Smitten Kitchen, on the premise that cooking should be a pleasure, and that the results of your labor can—and should—be delicious . . .  every time. Deb is a firm believer that there are no bad cooks, just bad recipes. She has dedicated herself to creating and finding the best of the best and adapting the recipes for the everyday cook.

And now, with the same warmth, candor, and can-do spirit her blog is known for, Deb presents her first cookbook: more than 100 recipes—almost entirely new, plus a few favorites from the site—all gorgeously illustrated with hundreds of her beautiful color photographs.

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is all about approachable, uncompromised home cooking. Here you’ll find better uses for your favorite vegetables: asparagus blanketing a pizza; ratatouille dressing up a sandwich; cauliflower masquerading as pesto. These are recipes you’ll bookmark and use so often they become your own, recipes you’ll slip to a friend who wants to impress her new in-laws, and recipes with simple ingredients that yield amazing results in a minimum amount of time. Deb tells you her favorite summer cocktail; how to lose your fear of cooking for a crowd; and the essential items you need for your own kitchen. From salads and slaws that make perfect side dishes (or a full meal) to savory tarts and galettes; from Mushroom Bourguignon to Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cake, Deb knows just the thing for a Tuesday night, or your most special occasion.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Asks: Deb Perelman

Q. What's your elevator pitch for The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook? (Or what inspired you to fill this niche?)

A. My hope is that The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is filled with your new favorite things to cook--approachable recipes made with accessible ingredients that exceed your expectations.

Q. Which upcoming fall cookbooks are you most excited about?

A. I am ridiculously excited about Ottolenghi's new Jerusalem book, as I've loved everything he's made so far. I have already tried out a couple recipes from the Mile End Cookbook, and can tell it's going to be an obsession all winter. I just spied brown butter snickerdoodles in the new Baked Elements book; I am pretty sure that needs to happen immediately. And I've been cooking out of the Sprouted Kitchen cookbook and everything has been fresh, wholesome and stunning.

Q. What's on your nightstand? Your Kindle?

A. An Everlasting Meal (Tamar Adler), The Tenth Muse (Judith Jones), A Peace To End All Peace (David Fromkin) and I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen), all print. Can you guess which one my toddler left there?

Q. What’s your favorite restaurant—or the best place you’ve eaten recently?

A. My husband and I are the last people to get to The Breslin in the Ace Hotel, but it doesn't matter, we fell head over heels and have been back three times in three months. The crispy boiled peanuts, lamb burger, fresh, crunchy salads and their grapefruit gin-and-tonic are unforgettable.

Q. What's been your most memorable moment so far as an author (or blogger)?

A. The process of planning the book tour -- making the jump from someone who types things to strangers who might or might not be listening via her laptop to someone who is going to show up in various cities at specific times to hang out with these strangers -- is wild. I am not sure I've gotten my head around it yet, but I still can't wait to get on the road.

Q. What other talent would you most like to have (not including flight or invisibility)?

A. Well, I wish I could dance.

Q. What are you obsessed with now?

A. I've been on a running kick, although I'm really bad at it. No really: terrible. But strangely, that's my favorite part. Starting my day completely humbled by my inability to run half as long or fast as these people on the other treadmills (who can probably dance, too), well, the day only gets better from there. I'm hooked.

Q. What's next for you?

A. The moon! Just kidding. I really hope to just keep doing what I'm doing -- cooking, writing, having fun with my family and running around NYC like a tourist. My goals are less rooted in a desire for a designer kitchen (though, you know, if you have one lying around...) and balcony overlooking Central Park and more a hope that I'll keep having fun doing what I do, so that it feels as un-work-like as possible.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Wildly popular food blogger and self-proclaimed obsessive self-taught cook and photographer Perelman’s exhaustive research in her tiny NYC kitchen yields some—lucky for us!—spectacular results in beautiful full color. The chatty warmth of her voice in the friendly, blog-like entry that accompanies each recipe is matched only by her warming food: hearty veggie main dishes relying on seasonal ingredients (e.g., spaghetti-squash and black-bean tacos), carnivorous delights belying her former vegetarianism (e.g., pistachio masala lamb chops), and, testing one’s ability to sit through even the most delicious meals, some impressive desserts (e.g., peach dumplings with bourbon hard sauce). Perelman does her part to keep readers from ever resorting to—that dirty word—a mix and even includes an exceedingly approachable brioche in the form of a chocolate-chip pretzel. With an efficient approach to gourmandise and a giddily iconoclastic take on traditional recipes, such as replacing beef with mushrooms in a facile bourguignon and making a classic lemon cake with grapefruit instead, Perelman only includes the fussier versions of ingredients or techniques when she’s proven that they will make the end results that much better. --Annie Bostrom

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (October 30, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780307595652
• ISBN-13: 978-0307595652
• ASIN: 030759565X
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 1.1 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (351 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Vegetables & Vegetarian > Vegetables
  • #1 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Entertaining
  • #1 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Occasions > Seasonal

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

346 of 355 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars So far, so good! November 4, 2012

By Isabella1217

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

These recipes are like something you'd find in your grandmother's top-secret cookbook. They are made from scratch, with all-natural ingredients, no shortcuts, no pre-made mixes, etc. This doesn't make it a super light or particularly "healthy" cookbook, however. When making the apple cake, for instance, I was shocked that it called for two full cups and five tablespoons of sugar (eek)! Yes, I know it's a dessert and these usually have a lot of sugar in them, but I guess I was secretly hoping I could make everything in here and not worry about my kids eating too much of something. On that note, the author does list a few substitutions you can make in the beginning of the book to make the recipes healthier, as well as vegetarian variations throughout the book.

Here is a count of the recipes per category:

17 Breakfast items
11 Salads
13 Sandwiches, Tarts & Pizzas
13 Vegetarian Main Dishes
12 Seafood, Poultry & Meat dishes
8 Cookies
8 Pies and tarts
9 Cakes
5 Puddings and Candy
10 Party Snacks and Drinks

The PROS:
* Recipes are categorized very well.
* Ingredients needed are easy to find and usually inexpensive. They are also REAL ingredients, so you're pretty much making everything from scratch. Nothing with weird chemicals in the label.
* The author includes a clever/funny/witty/entertaining short story before each recipe that gives some history/insight into how she acquired the recipe or how she came up with it.
* Each recipe includes at LEAST one full-page, full-color photograph, and most also have photos of the ingredients or a few of the steps involved.

The CONS:
* The "stories", although enjoyable, are occasionally a bit lengthy....
* Recipe directions are in paragraph form, rather than numbered. This, of course, depends on personal preference. I like to see the steps numbered, which helps me keep track of where I am without having to waste time by re-reading the directions to find my place again.
* Pretty much all of the recipes are split between two pages. By this, I mean the recipe begins on, say, page 2 (on the right hand side), and you have to flip the page over to page 3 (on the left hand side) to see the rest of the directions. Again, this is not a HUGE deal, but it has become inconvenient for me when my hands are covered in flour or whatever and I have to flip the page back and forth. It would have been better if the recipes were each spread over two opposite-facing pages. This way, the book could just stay open the whole time I'm preparing the recipe.

BOTTOM LINE
Are these recipes good? Yes!
Are they easy? Yes, but maybe not for absolute beginners.
Are they quick? No, but that is part of their old-fashioned charm.
Am I glad I bought this and would I recommend it to a friend? Yes and YES! :) Read more ›

175 of 180 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Recipes, Awkward Format December 6, 2012

By Kristin

Format:Hardcover

I love the blog and had a great time seeing Deb Perelman on her book tour, where I was crazy enough to pay MORE than the list price for the book. There are some great-looking recipes in this book, most of which are not on the website, and I look forward to trying many of them, starting with the apple cider caramels. It is definitely not a 'basics' cookbook. The recipes, although fairly simple, are unusual. Personally I like this because I already have many cookbooks coving the basics. My so-so rating has more to do with the format of the book. As another reviewer noted, recipes run 3-4 pages of prose, so the actual steps to the recipe are hard to pick out, and most of the time they are not on the same page as the ingredients, so you have to flip back and forth as you cook. Also, a pet peeve of mine with cookbooks, there is no table of contents or index listing the recipes with page numbers, so while you can see in the beginning of the book that sweets start on p. 193, when you get to page 193 there is no indication of which page 'cakes' starts on. After you shuffle through 90 pages of sweets to find that cakes start on p. 238, you have to shuffle some more to find the recipe for 'chocolate hazelnut crepe cake' on p. 256. It would have been so simple to put a page number next to each recipe on the list. Also, the pictures aren't labeled and since they frequently aren't on the same page as the title of the recipe, you have to go back to see what you're looking at and whether that's the recipe you're looking for. More flipping around. I'm surprised, with her attention to detail and frequent reading of other cookbooks, that this book is so clunky.

104 of 116 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cancelling my preorder did cross my mind... October 31, 2012

By mamadealex

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The "frugal" side of me thinks, 'I can just Google for a good recipe online or check the Smitten Kitchen blog. Do I really need yet another book to add to my cramped one-bedroom apartment, and will I really find new recipes in it that appeal? Should I just wait to borrow it from the library?'

I'm glad that I didn't hit that cancel button because I got it and WOW. I have been waiting for a recipe book from Ms. Perelman and now I remember why. Her photos are stunning, the recipes I flipped through I haven't seen before, and her quick wit and humor translate beautifully in print. The blog, plus so much more in tangible form.

Some might be quick to comment that this is just her blog in print format. I would like to state that yes, there is some overlap, but not much from what I have seen. Plus, if you're a blogger and are producing a print copy, there is some expectation that there *will* be overlap and the more popular or highly clicked recipe posts will make it into the book. If you didn't, you'd hear it from your audience. You really can't please everyone, but I for one haven't been this excited about a cookbook in a long time. There are many recipes I haven't seen on her blog, (and I have been following her for at least 6 years now) AND I love that she includes Jacob in her stories and annotations of the recipes. I find the inspiration to cook simple, healthy, and tasty meals for my little man. I suspect that Jacob is her source of inspiration... AND if your son was as cute as that little future heart breaker, you'd be sure to put him in your cookbook. ** I'd like to also add that this is not a family album. What it is: A fantastic cookbook.