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Soul : A Chef's Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes
Overview
Amazon's Best Cookbooks of 2018Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2018Food52 Favorite Cookbooks of 2018 The Atlantic Best Cookbooks of 2018Grub Street (New York Magazine) Best Cookbooks of 2018James Beard Award-nominated Chef Todd Richards shares his personal culinary exploration of soul food. Black American chefs and cooks are often typecast as the experts of only one cuisine--soul food, but Todd Richards' food is anything but stereotypical. Taste his Hot-Chicken-Style Country-Fried Lamb Steak or Blueberry-Sweet Tea-Brined Chicken Thighs as evidence. While his dishes are rooted in family and the American cuisine known as soul food, he doesn't let his heritage restrain him. The message of Soul is that cooks can honor tradition yet be liberated to explore. Todd Richards celebrates the restorative wonders of a classic pot of Collard Greens with Ham Hocks, yet doesn't shy away from building upon that foundational recipe with his Collard Green Ramen, a reinterpretation that incorporates far-flung flavors of cultural influences and exemplifies culinary evolution. Page after page, in more than 150 recipes and stunning photos, Todd shares his creativity and passion to highlight what soul food can be for a new generation of cooks. Whether you're new to Southern and soul food or call the South your home, Soul will encourage you to not only step outside of the box, but to boldly walk away from it. The chapters in Soul are organized by featured ingredients: Collards, Onions, Berries, Lamb, Seafood, Corn, Tomatoes, Melons, Stone Fruit, Eggs and Poultry, Pork and Beef, Beans and Rice, and Roots. Each one begins with a traditional recipe and progresses alongside Richards' exploration of flavor combinations and techniques.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780848754419
- ISBN-10: 0848754417
- Publisher: Southern Living
- Publish Date: May 2018
- Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.2 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
- Page Count: 368
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Cooking: A legendary cafe
The River Cafe, the subtly swank, Michelin-starred London restaurant, celebrated its 30th birthday last year, but it still has all its original panache. Co-founders Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, with the aid of their head chefs, Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli, decided to honor the occasion with River Cafe London: Thirty Years of Recipes and the Story of a Much-Loved Restaurant, which revisits the first River Cafe cookbook, published in 1995. Now those iconic recipes are presented with the delectable patinas they’ve acquired from being refined over the years, plus more than 30 new creations. From antipasti to dolci, Raw Porcini Salad to a Pear and Almond Tart, this is Italian food at its finest. Fresh and never fussy, these are the simple, sensational foods you’d eat in an Italian home. And River Cafe London is beautifully designed, featuring bold colors (check out the hot-pink edges and orange endpapers) and fabulous photos throughout. Just looking through it will make you smile.
GATHERING GO-TOS
An arsenal of tried-and-true recipes for a weeknight quickie supper or a more elaborate weekend dinner party is essential for any home cook. These are the culinary rabbits we pull out of our chef’s hats, the dishes that save us when it’s late, when guests turn up out of the blue or when we want to make a familiar favorite. Most of us collect them, helter-skelter, through the years, but every once in a while a food pro who’s been pondering what becomes a keeper lets us in on their personally curated treasure trove. Jessica Battilana, a longtime recipe developer and food writer, has done just that in Repertoire: All the Recipes You Need. To rev up and revitalize your own repertoire, you can pick and choose from starters, mains and sweets—or you could just cook your way through Battilana’s admirable array of inviting, never-fail recipes like Avocado and Citrus Salad, Spaghetti Niçoise and a Perfect Tarte Tatin.
TOP PICK IN COOKING
When Todd Richards was growing up on the South Side of Chicago, his parents and grandparents cooked food that wasn’t on the menus of “fine dining” establishments. So this self-taught, James Beard-nominated chef, who paid his dues in many well-known kitchens before getting national attention, did some deep soul-searching before he opened Richards’ Southern Fried in Atlanta, where he honors the cuisine of his family and ancestors in flavorful, inventive ways. Though the food he creates has its roots in African-American traditions, Richards has liberated himself from labels and “supposed to’s,” incorporating inspiration from around the world. In Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes, he shares his passion for Southern cuisine and culture, offering up traditional ingredients in traditional dishes, then riffing on them. You might start with Collard Greens with Smoked Ham Hocks and Cornbread and end up with Oysters Poached in Collard Green Pesto on Cheese Crisps with Caviar. It’s soul-satisfying from beginning to end.
This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
Cooking: A legendary cafe
The River Cafe, the subtly swank, Michelin-starred London restaurant, celebrated its 30th birthday last year, but it still has all its original panache. Co-founders Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, with the aid of their head chefs, Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli, decided to honor the occasion with River Cafe London: Thirty Years of Recipes and the Story of a Much-Loved Restaurant, which revisits the first River Cafe cookbook, published in 1995. Now those iconic recipes are presented with the delectable patinas they’ve acquired from being refined over the years, plus more than 30 new creations. From antipasti to dolci, Raw Porcini Salad to a Pear and Almond Tart, this is Italian food at its finest. Fresh and never fussy, these are the simple, sensational foods you’d eat in an Italian home. And River Cafe London is beautifully designed, featuring bold colors (check out the hot-pink edges and orange endpapers) and fabulous photos throughout. Just looking through it will make you smile.
GATHERING GO-TOS
An arsenal of tried-and-true recipes for a weeknight quickie supper or a more elaborate weekend dinner party is essential for any home cook. These are the culinary rabbits we pull out of our chef’s hats, the dishes that save us when it’s late, when guests turn up out of the blue or when we want to make a familiar favorite. Most of us collect them, helter-skelter, through the years, but every once in a while a food pro who’s been pondering what becomes a keeper lets us in on their personally curated treasure trove. Jessica Battilana, a longtime recipe developer and food writer, has done just that in Repertoire: All the Recipes You Need. To rev up and revitalize your own repertoire, you can pick and choose from starters, mains and sweets—or you could just cook your way through Battilana’s admirable array of inviting, never-fail recipes like Avocado and Citrus Salad, Spaghetti Niçoise and a Perfect Tarte Tatin.
TOP PICK IN COOKING
When Todd Richards was growing up on the South Side of Chicago, his parents and grandparents cooked food that wasn’t on the menus of “fine dining” establishments. So this self-taught, James Beard-nominated chef, who paid his dues in many well-known kitchens before getting national attention, did some deep soul-searching before he opened Richards’ Southern Fried in Atlanta, where he honors the cuisine of his family and ancestors in flavorful, inventive ways. Though the food he creates has its roots in African-American traditions, Richards has liberated himself from labels and “supposed to’s,” incorporating inspiration from around the world. In Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes, he shares his passion for Southern cuisine and culture, offering up traditional ingredients in traditional dishes, then riffing on them. You might start with Collard Greens with Smoked Ham Hocks and Cornbread and end up with Oysters Poached in Collard Green Pesto on Cheese Crisps with Caviar. It’s soul-satisfying from beginning to end.
This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.