A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes: A Cookbook

Nancy Silverston has put together a great book of recipes that are tasty, attractive, and interesting. Since purchasing the book, I have mail ordered a few ingredients I could not find locally and the rest came from a local grocery store. If you do not like to cook and really are interested in preparations like those of Rachel Ray, this is not a book for you. If you subscribe to Saveur, Gourmet, and similar cooking magazines, you will use this book and made adaptions to what you read. The photographs are a good enhancement for the recipes and the recipes themselves are easy to follow and to use.

I liked cooking from this book because it was FUN. It is not cheap. But I started cooking around the beginning of Marcella Hazan and Alice Waters. Everything was fresh, fresh, fresh. But all these years I have secretly loved canned peas and baby food apricots. Plus some of her techniques do translate to other menus. Silverton has given me a new life with mayo sauces and little sides. I have to say, I think it is so fun that it is the book that I am using more recipes than any other in the last ten years. and am cooking my way through it.

If you've ever wondered what to do with pomegranate molasses or piquillo peppers, this book is for you. For busy people who like to eat well, Silverton has scoured the grocery shelves for gourmet convenience items, like roasted red peppers, the new cartoned soups, jarred curry sauce, and tapenade to come up with dishes like Seared Tuna with Tomato-Olive Salsa, Peppered Skirt Steak with Spicy Tomato-Curry Garbanzo Beans and Tangy Greek Yogurt Sauce, and Chilled Corn Soup with Adobo Swirl. Most of them take 30 minutes or less and all are designed to be one-dish meals. There are lots of the usual pantry items too, like canned beans, sardines, capers, anchovies, etc., all used with flair and imagination. The salad and pasta chapters are especially simple and different with dishes like Orecchiette with Peas, Prosciutto and Crème Fraiche, Pot Sticker and Vegetable Stir-Fry, Spinach Salad with Lentils and Crispy Warm Goat Cheese, and Cumin Shrimp and Garbanzo Bean Salad with Roasted Carrots. Chicken salads are made with rotisserie chicken and tuna comes from a can (unless it's seared), but all the dressings are homemade, as Silverton cannot abide the commercial ones. Silverton suggests brands for many items and while most are locally available, she also provides a list of mail-order sources. A fine collection, suitable for enlivening the week night or serving to guests.

Nancy Silverton is one of the last chefs in the world I would have expected to write a cookbook that urges you to use prepared foods. Worse, prepared foods in quality meals. Even more unlikely: meals you can prepare with the fewest possible steps and the least preparation time. That's because Nancy Silverton is a Serious Chef. Trained at the Cordon Bleu in London. Apprenticed at Michael's in Santa Monica. In 1989, with her husband and a partner, she opened Campanile restaurant and La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles. Turned them into national brands. Sold the restaurant for a Brea Bakery for major money, sold an 80% stake in the bakery for $56 million. So she definitely has the time and resources to embrace "slow cooking," homemade dinners, 101% natural ingredients. And, in fact, Nancy Silverton is famed largely for her hand-crafted, artisanal breads. And for her elaborate sandwiches. Like her BLT: smoky bacon, Boston lettuce, and sun-dried tomatoes on toasted sourdough bread with a spoon of pepper mayonnaise. And for views like this: "If someone asked me to fillet a whole fish, I wouldn't have a clue." Still, it's a stunner --- even she thinks so --- for her to praise pasta sauce in a jar. Frozen pie crust. And, yikes, leftovers. To come to these conclusions, she remembered how frenzied she was when she was raising three children and running two businesses. So she shopped for a year. And not just in supermarkets. She trolled gourmet stores. She clicked around the web. And she found that prepared foods had greatly improved since she started avoiding them, all those years ago. Warning: To recreate her collection of cooking supplies, you'll have to exert some effort. You'll need to visit a high-end gourmet store. And you may need to shop on the Web, where sane prices are undermined by ridiculous shipping charges. Other modest warnings: You won't find a pre-mixed vinaigrette dressing that's worth serving. (At least, she didn't.) In season, if you want pesto, she favors a mortar and pestle. And commercial salt-by-the-pound won't do. Silverton favors sea salt. And kosher salt. Two bowls, always handy. Good news for vegetarians: Silverton discovered her love for cooking when she became the vegetarian chef for her college dorm. There are pages and pages of salads and soups that are either animal-free or easily could be.

Unfortunately many people's idea of a "twist of the wrist" recipe involves some sort of cream-of-whatever soup over protein, perhaps with some processed cheese thrown in for good measure. Often cookbooks involving prepared foods result in foods that are marginally tasty at best and rarely healthful. Silverton's book relies on quality ingredients, some of which just happen to be jarred, canned, bagged, or boxed (as indicated in the title of the cookbook). Spice pastes, roasted vegetables, cured meats, and other products prove very helpful in throwing together a meal in a short amount of time. These kinds of recipes are an excellent alternative to quantity cooking on the weekend or simply eating out. Many of these recipes would even be suitable to serve to company. The section on Silverton's preferred brands, products, and sources is also very useful. Overall a good book to have on hand for those days where a frozen meal or take-out is just too tempting.