Gourmet Today: More than 1000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen [Hardcover]

Ruth Reichl (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Product Description
In no other period of our country's history has the food scene changed so rapidly. Exciting new ingredients are available everywhere, expanding our culinary horizons. Even casual meals have globe-trotting flavors. We want memorable dishes, and we want them to be healthy for our families and our planet. And with our busy schedules, we want them on the table faster than ever. A new culinary world calls for a new cookbook. Gourmet Today responds to our changing foodscape with more vegetarian recipes, more recipes for popular dishes from every corner of the world, more recipes for stunning meals ready in 30 minutes or less, more simple ways to prepare all the vegetables in the farmers' market, advice on choosing sustainable fish, chicken, and beef, tips on throwing an easy cocktail party, more recipes for flavorful techniques like grilling, and more recipes for the new ingredients flooding our market.

Each of the over 1,000 recipes was selected by editor in chief Ruth Reichl, a best-selling author in her own right, who wrote the introductions to each chapter. Every recipe has been tested and cross-tested in the Gourmet test kitchen so every cook, whether a first-timer or a veteran, gets impeccable results. With menus for holidays and other seasonal occasions, an authoritative glossary of ingredients (plus mail-order sources), and hundreds of sidebars on ingredients and handy techniques from the test kitchen, Gourmet Today is the indispensable book for today's cook.

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Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Ruth Reichl

Dear Amazon Reader,

These days you hear a lot of gloom and doom about the state of American food. It's certainly true that if you want to focus on the negative, there's a lot to despair about.

On the other hand, the opposite is also true. I wrote my first cookbook in 1971, and when I see the difference between what was available then and the food that now fills my supermarket, it makes me want to go dancing down the aisles.

Back then things were so different that my editor insisted that I call for ground beef instead of lamb in a classic Greek moussaka; she said not many grocers actually sold lamb. She also worried about the recipe for handmade pasta (too esoteric) and a simple Chinese stir-fry of chicken (what on earth was a wok). She worried when I called for freshly grated Parmesan cheese (most people still used the stuff that came in the green can), fresh garlic (frowned upon in many places) and chiles (too hot, too hot, too hot).

What a difference a few years make! The American supermarket has turned into an international bazaar, offering us all the best flavors of the world. Whether you want to cook the foods of Asia, the Americas, India or Europe, the ingredients are there. And that's only part of the good news; the other is that the era of mindless eating is over. Good cooks everywhere are now aware of the consequences of their choices, and when they walk through the aisles, they think about sustainability.

It's a wonderful time for people who care about food. But it requires a new kind of cookbook, one that takes advantage of the great modern marketplace. Gourmet's twelve test cooks spent five years exploring all the new ingredients available in the supermarkets--from frozen pizza dough to Thai chili pastes and eggroll wrappers--figuring out the best ways to use them. They haunted farmers markets too, so we could offer advice on cooking everything from ramps to celery root. They spent time in fish markets, snapping up new offerings like Arctic char and tilapia. Then they cooked each dish again and again and again, taking out unnecessary steps and ensuring that each was absolutely foolproof. The result is more than a thousand recipes that are absolutely guaranteed to work. I couldn't live without this book. I love cooking from it. I hope you will too.

Best wishes,

Ruth Reichl

(Photo © Brigitte Lacombe)

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Recipe Excerpts from Gourmet Today

• Raspberry Lime Rickey
• Grilled Ceasar Salad
• Grilled Cumin Chicken Breasts with Avocado Salsa
• Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this follow-up to The Gourmet Cookbook, editor Reichl amasses one of the most comprehensive cooking resources available. She offers a diverse range of recipes that reflect the ever-changing American palate and the many cultures that have influenced it. Alongside Stilton cheese puff are recipes for babaghanouj, bangers and mash, Armenian lamb pizza, arepas with black beans and feta, and Vietnamese fried spring rolls. Informative sidebars provide details on a huge array of topics, from what salt to use when to preserving fish. Line drawings demonstrate folding techniques for dumplings and spanakopita and show how to trim and stuff artichokes. Cook's notes throughout provide valuable advice on how to store food, how long food will last and which steps can be done ahead of time. Most recipes are geared toward time-pressed cooks and can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. In addition to the usual categories of soups, fish, poultry, beef and desserts, Reichl includes substantial chapters on vegetarian main courses and grilled dishes. Highlights include eggplant soufflé, grilled lemon-lime chicken legs and sticky spicy ribs. Comprehensive, appetizing and thoroughly tested, this mammoth collection is the book no kitchen should be without. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1024 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (September 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618610189
• ISBN-13: 978-0618610181
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.6 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #36,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #13 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Special Occasions > Gourmet
  #60 in	Books > Home & Garden > Entertaining
  #69 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Reference

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

126 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great content; Binding breaking but publisher quickly resolved issue, September 13, 2009

By	Lisa Westbrook (CORDOVA, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Gourmet Today: More than 1000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen (Hardcover)

I got this book last week and have had it on the table, flipping through it and reading it all weekend. The recipes look great, they really do, contemporary and tasty, and I can't wait to try them. I doubt this book will hold up for cooking, though, because the binding is already breaking and those cute little green ribbon bookmarks popped out immediately. At over a thousand pages, this book should have a heavy-duty binding, and it doesn't. I think Houghton Miflin should have published it in two volumes to be more manageable and should have used much higher quality binding and materials. I would be willing to pay more for a book like that that would last. Addendum: WOW--these comments do get noticed! The publisher of this book contacted me and is sending me a new one. They were very apologetic and concerned and said that since I got an early run of the book, that might have explained the poor binding. I was very impressed with their response and how quickly they worked to resolve the problem--the true mark of quality customer service. I'd now give it five stars, but the app doesn't want to let me do that.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First, braised rabbit, then the world!, September 30, 2009

By	Jonathan D. Park (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Gourmet Today: More than 1000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen (Hardcover)

I had never made rabbit before last week. Not once, until a good, good friend gave me Gourmet Today. I meandered through it, loitering at the recipes that especially caught my eye, which many did, including one for rabbit braised in red wine. It reminded me of a French dish I love in which chicken and shallots are simmered for about an hour in red wine and vinegar, so I figured I'd try this similar approach to rabbit. It was better than the chicken, better than I ever hoped! The wine really deepened the flavor of the rabbit and it was so incredibly tender. And it was really easy, I actually made this after getting from home work on a weekday, and it is one of the best meals I've had in months. I took the book's suggestion and made buttered polenta to go with it, which was a great pairing.

This book is just wonderful! The only problem might be that there are too many recipes; I doubt I'll get through them all. I'm trying though. I've only had this for a week and I've already made the rabbit, weiner schnitzel (it's Oktoberfest time, after all, I should have appropriate food to go with my festbier), delicious cornmeal sugar cookies, and the grilled cumin chicken breasts with avocado salad. All great, and surprisingly easy. Last night some friends came over, including a couple vegetarians, so I made the asparagus with roasted potatoes and fried eggs (they weren't vegans!), plus I tweaked the red leaf lettuce salad a bit based on what I had on hand. These friends were also huge Mad Men fans, so I made Old Fashioneds and vodka Gimlets from the cocktail section. It was a good time, and it gave me an excuse to roast potatoes, as if I ever need one. The fried egg add-on was something I hadn't thought of doing, but it was a great idea.

A lot of the recipes seem very adaptable, which is a necessity for someone like me who always forgets a couple things when I'm grocery shopping. There's a great range of quick dishes and more involved and time-consuming recipes. So it's really useful for weekday meals as well as recipes for the weekend or when company is over.

The recipes also range widely as far as what ingredients are used. There are a lot of opportunities to use exotic seasons and ingredients, but also plenty where I can rely on what I have already on hand (as far as pantry items).

This is a really great book. If I had paid for it, I would say it's paid for itself already by getting me to stay in and cook better food than if I'd gone to a restaurant. I just hope I don't get too many food stains on it.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Gourmet Locavore: The Go To Cookbook, October 20, 2009

By	prisrob "pris," (New England USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gourmet Today: More than 1000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen (Hardcover)

Five Stars- 4 stars error

I heard Ruth Reichl speaking with Terry Gross on 'Fresh Air' while I was on a long drive home. She was scheduled to discuss her new cookbook and, oh, by the way, Conde Nast had just shut down the publication of 'Gourmet' magazine. A shocker to all and none more than Ruth Reichl- she had not seen this coming at all. In her grief, she was able to provide a marvelous romp through this new cookbook plus she was able to tell wonderful stories that go with food. The minute she started describing her two 'go to' dinner dishes, the meals that she could prepare in a hurry, I was more than hooked. I wanted to get out of my car and buy the cookbook immediately. I did buy it via Amazon,, and it is a beauty!

A 1008 page cookbook with a the most luscious green cover. Her cookbook from ten years ago is yellow and this compliments that book well. Besides this cookbook is a greening up of America, and the color is just perfect. Grant you, this cookbook is large, over 1,000 recipes. A little intimidating to be sure, but a cursory glance through the book quickly convinced me that this is the 'Go To Cookbook'. One of the ironic by products of this cookbook is that a one year subscription to 'Gourmet' is included on the flyleaf.

The cookbook is well designed and the lay out is perfect. The table of contents is two pages. From drinks, hor d'oeuvres, soups, salads, pastas, grains,vegetarian main courses, fish, poultry, meats, grilled dishes, vegetables, breakfast and breads, cookies and bars, pies, tarts. and pastries, fruit desserts, puddings, custards, frozen desserts, menus, tips and techniques, glossary, sources, and index. Did she leave anything out? It will take me years to find out for sure!

Ruth talked about her son who had gone to college, and after his first meal in the cafeteria decided to cook his own meals. Ruth went shopping with him one day and discovered the world was much different now. We have more fresh foods, we want fresh foods, some prepared foods, ethnic foods, fun foods, the world was out there for her son to discover. She realized that she needed to write a new cookbook, and thus this 'go to cookbook' was born. The chapter on drinks surprised me, but what a wonderful surprise. All drinks wise and wonderful. The drinks, vegetarian main meals and grilled dishes are new entrants into this book. The combination of all of these foods, plus menu planning and party ideas is a boost. This is a cookbook for a cook- a new cook, a cook with many years and the ultimate chef. Everyone can benefit from this cookbook. It is a must for every kitchen.

The green ribbon place finder is a wonderful surprise and right now it is on the page of my first recipe. Spiced Chicken on page 397. This could be one of the best chicken recipes I have ever had, and one of the easiest to prepare. The combination of spices and the chicken are yum, yum, finger licking, really. And, she gives us a hint of what to serve with it, and how to make a sauce. Really, everyone, you must try this chicken, I mean it!

'Gourmet Today' has found a place of honor in my kitchen, and I read a chapter or two a day. Cookbooks are for reading and they are one of my favorite books. I love this book.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 10-20-09


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