Williams-Sonoma Family Meals: Creating Traditions in the Kitchen (Hardcover)

~ Maria Helm Sinskey (Author), Williams Sonoma (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“When as many as eighty-five percent of all American children don’t sit down and eat with their families at dinnertime, it’s vital that we teach our children the importance of a shared meal. Maria Helm Sinskey shows how deliciously you can introduce your children to the principles of caring for each other and the land by shopping at farmers’ markets and preparing fresh, local, organic, and seasonal meals.” Alice Waters, founder, Chez Panisse

“Maria Helm Sinskey is someone Iadmire greatly…a gracious host and gifted cook all rolled into one. Her new book Family Meals reflects her talent in the kitchen. She cooks intuitively, while remaining lighthearted and nurturing at the same time. recipes will make you feel right at home.” Thomas Keller, owner, The French Laundry

“Family Meals is the perfect how-to book for families of all ages, exposing you to the importance of good ingredients, good nutrition, and good techniques. Those essential elements add up to great food for all.” Bobby Flay, chef, cookbook author, and owner, Mesa Grill

Product Description

For Maria Helm Sinskey—author, award-winning chef, and mother—one of the best ways to spend time with family and friends is to gather in the kitchen to cook. Whether tossing a salad of lettuces fresh from the garden, or filling the house with the scent of Banana–Brown Sugar Muffins and hearty Braised Beef Stew, Maria and her family show you how effortless it is to have fun in the kitchen.

Filled with delicious, easy to prepare, made-from-scratch recipes such as Fresh Rosemary Focaccia, Corn Fritters with Lime, Chicken-Coconut Curry, and Baked Butterscotch Puddings, Family Meals is written for people of all ages. Maria’s experience with her own children and those of friends and family prove that when kids help select ingredients and join in the fun of meal preparation, they're more eager to eat what they've cooked, and revel in their culinary triumphs at the table.

Family Meals is much more than just a collection of recipes. Each chapter sparks curiosity about where food comes from and how the foods we love are made through culinary projects such as curing bacon, smoking salmon, and making homemade ricotta cheese. This book is sure to become a staple in your kitchen, and will launch the small to the tall on a delicious culinary journey filled with fresh, wholesome, seasonal meals that are a joy to create and satisfying to eat.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxmoor House; 1 edition (March 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0848732634
• ISBN-13: 978-0848732639
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #68,006 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For the relaxed family, not the harried. Whole food, not "health food", February 14, 2009

By	Rachel Himes (Indiana, Pennsylvania USA) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

Many other reviewers have listed the recipes contained herein. Most are pretty lengthy in process. Few could be assembled in less than an hour. This book is beautiful to look at with an ample number of lush photographs. It promotes almost-lost traditions of baking homemade bread, cheese and pickles as well as making marshmallows from scrach, which taste and feel significantly different than those found in the plastic bags.

Who will love this book: Moderns and "country" cooks who enjoy the process of cooking and the time spent with family will love the ideas, photographs and suggestions. The pictures are reminiscent of a rustic style home in the country with a family featured throughout working together on the recipes. Whether most children would eat some of these recipes largely depends on your family. The food has an appeal as it is all "from scratch" and relies on whole foods and real ingredients to a large extent, however whole foods are not necessarily low-fat or whole grain. If you're opposed to packages mixes and the like, this is your style.

Who will not like this book: The health-conscious, whole-grain oriented, anti-sugar, modern, in a hurry to get dinner on the table, stressed-out mom with picky eaters. The recipes are a mix of old school and ethnic-flare, which is nice. However, if your kids are the mac 'n' cheese or pizza type, they will not eat most of these. Also, meal prep is way too long and the emphasis is on taking time to enjoy the preparation, rather than a quick meal, which is what the majority of moms I know are concerned about. The proverbial "soccer mom" will enjoy the pictures and never use the recipes. Also, most bread recipes rely on white flour and sugar is used without reservation. I'm concerned about my kids feasting on copious amounts of these ingredients for medically sound reasons and cannot in good conscience make most of these. Also, the meat recipes and cheese recipes are neither low in fats nor cholesterol and do not lend well to conversions of that type.

All that said, the book is beautiful to look at and to read. It is strongly reminiscent of generations past but may not translate well to modern cooks or activity-centered families. As with most cookbooks in the Williams-Sonoma line, this is created for people who enjoy the process of cooking and don't mind spending time to do so. If you are one of them, enjoy!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly (almost) done!, January 20, 2009

By	Grandma "Robin" (NH, USA) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

Maria Helm Sinskey's latest offering, Williams-Sonoma Family Meals: Creating Traditions in the Kitchen, is an absolute delight. Those that want to start cooking from scratch, particularly cooking from scratch with children, will find this book invaluable. While the offerings are not encyclopedic - there are only about 100 recipes - some are truly unusual. Sinskey tells us how to make natural Easter egg dyes, smoke our own salmon, make jam, and produce fresh pasta.

I do have two quibbles with the book. I would label them "minor" but they are not. My academic background is in medical science and I've had lots of experience in medical microbiology. First, Sinskey recommends cooking pork chops "until light pink in the center" - pg. 215. I have huge problems with that. Current USDA regulations state that pork needs to be cooked to only 140 degrees Fahrenheit. However, CDC recommendations for pork are that it be cooked to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. The cysts that lead to trichinosis (found in pork and bear) are not killed at temperatures under 165 degrees Fahrenheit or so. Trichinosis is relatively rare in the US - about a dozen cases a year - but it is fairly common elsewhere. And it is deadly. Since so much of our food supply these days comes from outside of the US, I am hardpressed to consume pink pork and certainly would never recommend that anyone else do so.

My second quibble is similar. Sinskey includes instructions for producing your own homemade sourdough starter by catching a wild yeast. She starts with a bunch of grapes. (The bloom on the grapes contains yeast.) This is fine for her, since her family owns a winery and she has access to grapes that she knows are safe. I, however, live in New England. Except in the fall when my own grapes are ready, the grapes that I buy come from elsewhere - often South America. We don't eat grapes that have not been washed, which of course defeats any attempt to use them as a source for a wild yeast.

That said, Williams-Sonoma Family Meals: Creating Traditions in the Kitchen is packed full of information, beautifully laid out and chock-full of wonderful illustrations. A nice gift for every young mother on your list.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful cookbook, but not the most comprehensive, February 17, 2009

By	Mary Jo Sminkey "author of cfwebstore" (Carlisle, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

I was torn about how to review this cookbook. It seems to be somewhat in between a working cookbook and art. It's definitely one of the most beautiful cookbooks I've owned, and as both a cook and a photographer, I can certainly appreciate all the artfully done photos that comprise a great deal of this book. You could probably even use this book as a coffee table book when not in use, as it's the type that people would just enjoy picking up and looking through. But I'm not sure that all the space used for photos really added to my ability to successfully step through these recipes, and for the size of the book, you get a fairly small number of recipes as a result, so as a cookbook, I felt it fell a bit short of what I look for. This is definitely not a book for cooks that want quick, easy meal to prepare. I don't mind preparing a meal that takes a little while on occasion, but a lot of these take so much time and steps that I'm not sure I'd ever get around to trying them (like making ricotta cheese). If you are the type of cook though that likes to try making all kinds of things from scratch, you would probably enjoy this book a lot. I do think it's the kind of book that would make a great gift as well, for the family approach to meals that it takes, and the lovely photography. It's definitely not the best book for someone who is looking for a really comprehensive set of recipes that cover a wide variety of ingredients and meals.