The Best of Gourmet: A Year of Celebrations (20th Anniversary Edition) Review

Posted by Juanita Avenue on Saturday, May 28, 2011 · Leave a Comment

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(More customer reviews)`The Best of Gourmet 20th Anniversary Edition' by the editors and writing staff of `Gourmet' Magazine appears better to me than I was expecting, especially if you are fond of entertaining between 8 and 12 people at a clip. If you are a regular subscriber to `Gourmet', I guess this book can be something of a tough decision, as virtually all the material herein is from the magazine. In fact, I would be willing to bet that practically all the recipes from the magazine in the last year are in this volume. I suspect it should be labelled `Everything but the Duds'.

The book has three main sections. The first, `Celebrations' is a collection of nine (9) menus based on specific common plus unusual twists on common events from around the world such as `A Russian Easter Feast' and `A Bohemian Thanksgiving'. Two things which immediately appeal to me about these menus aside from the excellent selection of themes is the large number of recipes per menu and the fact that the recipes are written to serve up to 10, rather than the usual 4 to 6.

The second, `The Menu Collection' is also recipes organized by seventeen (17) different themes conceived by season and occasion with some additional international themes and some menus for a somewhat larger than usual home entertainment gathering. Samples are `Dinner for a Dozen' and `A Modern Irish Supper'. I'm hard pressed to really see the difference between these two sections except that the first section is generally more formal.

The third section, `The Recipe Compendium' is organized like a conventional cookbook, except that it covers some topics such as breads and sandwiches which is not usually covered in conventional cookbooks.

Although I subscribe to `Gourmet', I have never found it as good a source on general cooking as `Cooks Illustrated', `Saveur', or `Fine Cooking', but it is a very good alternative to, for example `Cooks Illustrated' in that its recipes are created more to impress than to be practical for the amateur cook. Like all recipes published in periodicals, they have the advantage over individual authors in that they are reviewed by a standardized vetting process carried on by both culinary and literary (copy) editors, and I happen to know the `Gourmet' copy editor is very, very good.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the magazine's recipe style, I find they typically have little commitment to doing ethnically accurate recipes, but they are never entirely `easy' or entirely uninterested in ethnic recipe sources. On the one hand, for example, their recipe for the Spanish (Catalan) condiment, alioli is not only revisionist in the sense that it includes eggs, it is totally un-Spanish by including bottled mayonnaise as a principle ingredient. On the other hand, the recipe for Russian Easter bread which I have made several times and which I have compared to `authentic' versions is quite similar to recipes cribbed directly from the steppes. This book does me the special favor of being able to discard my worn copy of the `Gourmet' issue with this bread recipe, and I can ignore the mayonnaise alioli and rely on my various Spanish cookbooks for the real thing.

With a few exceptions, `Gourmet' generally doesn't go out of its way to give you quick versions, although the truly excellent index common to all recent `Gourmet' collections makes a point of identifying those recipes which can be done in 30 minutes or less. For all recipes, it does give the `active' time and the total time from start to finish. I suspect these times are for the experienced amateur cook. These books also have a truly excellent reference in the back for where to get any and all unusual ingredients or kitchen tools.

If you reallylike `Gourmet' magazine and you don't have a lot of cookbooks, this is an excellent `value added' collection of their recipes, which takes up less space than 12 issues. If you already own 500 cookbooks, it still has value in that it has some of the best entertaining material I have seen this side of Martha Stewart. I believe that if entertaining dinners is your thing, a complete set of these books may be as good or better than many books on entertaining, except for Miss Martha's classic `Entertaining'.

Better than I expected!

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Product Description:
Nowadays, everyone who entertains is looking for outstanding casual fare that will allow them to spend more time with their guests. Dishes must be quick and easy to prepare (or able to be made ahead) and filled with the purest ingredients for optimum flavor. The Best of Gourmet, Featuring the Flavors of Thailand is filled with twenty-eight such menus-most are very relaxed, all are absolutely delicious.

For example, after a chilly day on the slopes, you may want to treat your houseguests to A Ski House Dinner. Begin the evening around the fire with champagne and a large platter of ever-so-tender smoked salmon with cilantro cream. Later, roasted veal chops with shallots, tomatoes, and olive jus nestled on pillows of soft polenta make a rich, indulgent entree. And before everyone retires, a heavenly warm chocolate raspberry pudding cake, made the day before and reheated, is served with a glass of cognac.

When the summer heats up, why not spend A Weekend at the Shore with friends? You'll have three clever menus in hand that take advantage of the season's abundant fresh produce, include plenty of make-ahead dishes, and satisfy hearty seaside appetites. On Saturday morning you can serve Breakfast on the Beach with buttery-rich baked blueberry-pecan French toast. Lunch Indoors includes a serve-yourself composed salad of classic favorites and a lovely rhubarb rice pudding. Then, after a long day in the sun, Dinner on the Deck promises a seafood meal to remember with curry-marinated mussels, followed by grilled lobster with Southeast Asian dipping sauce.

Or perhaps a last-minute Beyond Backyard Basics dinner is closer to what you had in mind? This little gem of a menu features ratatouille with penne-a heavenly jumble of roasted eggplants, onions, yellow squash, and red bell peppers, with plum tomatoes, garlic, thyme, parsley, and basil. For dessert, multicolored grapes perched atop pastry cream in puff pastry shells make a scrumptious and ever-so-pretty choice.

So which menu will you try first? You'll find more than eighty pages of exquisite full-color photographs to help you decide. Altogether, this volume holds more than 350 recipes-including the very best recipes that appeared in Gourmet's food columns during 1999. There are hundreds of dishes that can be made in forty-five minutes or less (look for the clock symbol ð); plenty of leaner and lighter selections (look for the feather symbol F); seasonal ideas for everything from apples to zucchini; and an impressive array of tempting sweets and snacks.

This year's Cuisines of the World section turns to the intriguing flavors of Thailand with a traditional dinner for eight and a collection of Thai snacks. Dishes such as steamed red snapper with ginger, grilled beef salad, fish cakes, and coconut ice cream demonstrate the sweet, sour, hot, and salty tastes of this fascinating country. Informative primers and exquisite full-color photos add further insight.

Twenty-four more brand-new recipes appear in a special section featuring Unusual Pastas and Grains. From fresh rice noodles to Israeli couscous to wheat berries, and much more, these unique pantry items will undoubtedly expand your palette of flavors.

Just when you thought you had tasted it all, along comes a cookbook that opens up a world of new possibilities-The Best of Gourmet