Smitten Kitchen Keepers

July 1, 2022

From the 1970s to 2020, when Cecchi-Azzolina proclaimed Your Table Is Ready, he meant it; he was ma�tre d' for sparkly New York restaurants like River Caf�, Minetta Tavern, and Le Coucou (50,000-copy first printing). Critic, journalist, and author of the National Book Award finalist Lifting as We Climb, Dionne uses personal experience--from harassment to health issues--to plumb issues of size, race, and gender in Weightless (100,000-copy first printing). A vending-machine entrepreneur by age nine now famed for TikTok's Her First $100K, Dunlap was surprised to learn in college how many female friends lacked money-management skills and now seeks to bring out the Financial Feminist in every woman (100,000-copy first printing). Following nine sometimes glamorous, sometimes painful decades and publication of the New York Times best-selling memoir Lady in Waiting, Glenconner asks Whatever Next, then delivers lessons learned while living in proximity to the Crown (50,000-copy first printing). In Why We Meditate, internationally best-selling author Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Rinpoche join forces to explain why and how meditation can help practitioners push back destructive emotions. In Screaming on the Inside, New York Times opinion writer Grose examines 200 years of unrealistic, even morally questionable parenting expectations to reveal the damage done to generations of mothers in particular (100,000-copy first printing). In Smitten Kitchen Keepers, her much anticipated third book, star food blogger Perelman tests and retests classics to offer failproof recipes for cheddar broccoli quiche, lemon poppy seed cake, and more. Quilter's Hatching draws on both reportage and personal experience to explore the impact of assisted reproductive technology today. From Forbes staffer Sorvino, Raw Deal details the current crisis facing the U.S. meat industry, flailing after consolidation, price fixing, and supply-chain issues even as alternative meat producers emerge.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 21, 2022
Keeper recipes should bring chefs joy, writes Smitten Kitchen blogger Perelman (Smitten Kitchen Every Day) in this fuss-free collection that aims to make “food more reliably delicious.” Those on offer here cover a range of options, from weeknight fare to more elaborate offerings, and easily earn their place in home cooks’ “forever” files. Salad options pack some surprises, as in a deli pickle potato salad that can be kept in the fridge for up to four days. Filling, meat-centric dinners include cabbage and kielbasa with rye croutons, roasted lemon chicken wings, and turkey meatloaf, which is topped off with a glaze of ketchup, molasses, apple cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Perelman excels at tricking out vegetables to create such appetizing dishes as charred salt and vinegar cabbage with butter and garlic, and a spiced winter squash soup with red onion crisp. The desserts are standouts, among them brownielike chocolate peanut butter cup cookies, thick molasses spice cookies, brown butter carrot cake, and crumb pie bars. On the beverage and snack end, there are salt and pepper limeades and a chocolate olive oil spread. Perelman’s mastery of culinary magic is evident on every page, and the recipes are clearly the work of someone who knows what she is doing in the kitchen. Practical and versatile, this is a boon to home cooks.

Starred review from September 1, 2022

In her third cookbook, Perelman returns with a gathering of the best versions of her key dishes--recipes that she has tested, trialed, and tweaked until they became what she wants her kids and readers to learn by heart and cook with delight. These include blueberry pancake cobbler, cauliflower-cheese baked potatoes, zucchini cornbread with tomato butter, and skillet chicken parmesan. The book is a joy to read, with Perelman's confiding, cheering voice showcased in short prefaces and recipe notes. She writes as if she were dashing off a recipe on a napkin for her best friend, while at the same time telling them what to do to really make it work. It is pure pleasure. The book covers breakfasts (which Perelman says are good at any time of day), salads, soups, vegetables, meats, sweets, and even a few drinks. Vegetarians and gluten-free eaters will find plenty of options and can adapt many of the other recipes. (See LJ's Q&A with Perelman on p. 159 of this magazine.) VERDICT Essential for all collections. The cookbook, like the recipes it shares, is a keeper.--Neal Wyatt

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2022
Every cookbook creator makes a dish again and again so that we don't have to, and Perelman (Smitten Kitchen Every Day, 2017) just seems to have more fun doing so. With us strangers in mind ("I'm never not thinking about how a stranger will feel making a recipe of mine on spec in their kitchen, with free time they're not sure they have, just because it promised greatness"), she shares recipes that withstand the most important test: folks will actually want to make and eat them over and over. For breakfast, a bodega-style fried-egg sandwich can be yours in three minutes, and a salad-topped frittata cooks entirely in the oven. Vegetables get their own chapter, organized by size: small (pea, feta, and mint fritters), medium (cauliflower cheese baked potato), and big (Swiss chard enchiladas). Meat dishes are balanced and homey, like a skillet-chicken parmesan that promises crispiness and sauciness and fail-safe, 10--ingredient pulled pork. Repeat-worthy cookies and unfussy cakes fill out the sweets chapter before Perelman invites readers to host more parties with a tight edit of crowd-pleasing drinks (alcoholic and non) and snacks. There's a reason readers are still smitten, and this ode to "Weeknight Greatness" confirms it.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.