Cook What You Love: Simple, Flavorful Recipes to Make Again and Again

We were told before our recent trip to Anguilla, Blanchard's is simply the best! Not only did we fall in love with the island but with Blanchard's and their newly opened restaurant, Zurra. The food was amazing and each night Bob Blanchard personally greets all the guests. We purchased both this cookbook and another and yes, we have brought it all home. The recipes are easy to follow, quick and are simply delicious. You can not go wrong!

It's easy to love --- or envy --- Melinda and Bob Blanchard. They have a charmed life: a restaurant on a Caribbean island so popular that people fly to Anguilla just to have dinner there, a lovely house in Vermont for summer retreats, lifestyle books that sell and sell. But in the end, the early motto of Motown applies: "It's what's in the grooves that counts." That is: These "simple, flavorful recipes to make again and again" --- well, do you? We bought "Cook What You Love" because "At Blanchard's Table: A Trip to the Beach Cookbook" was very much a cookbook we turned to again and again. And not for the entertaining stories about Blanchard's Restaurant, the Blanchards' enlightened management theories and their annoyingly happy marriage --- those passages made for pleasant reading, but only once. The reason to own a cookbook is the food. And here the Blanchards shine. Melinda Blanchard does not begin in the kindergarten --- she assumes you know your way around a kitchen and can crank out a dozen meals good enough to serve to friends. She assumes you have sharp knives and quality pans. She assumes you don't need to be told that fresh trumps frozen, that prepared foods are generally a disguised delivery system for chemicals, and warmth and friendship are essential ingredients in any dish. As a result, Mrs. Blanchard produces stunningly straightforward recipes. You'll need fresh ingredients and a few spices. You won't need much time; nothing takes very long to make. And you won't need to stress, as dinners build around Blanchard recipes somehow seem.... relaxed. Bonus points: great range and great editing. In about 175 pages, Melinda Blanchard not only covers hors d'oeuvres, salads, main dishes, vegetables and desserts, she presents a toothsome selection of breakfast specialties and eight recipes for kids.

A friend gave me this book, and I absolutely love it. The recipes depart refreshingly from standard fare and yet remain very accessible, often by providing a twist on old favorites. Just as the title says, these are wonderful, simple recipes you'll want to make many times. The style of the writing is warm and welcoming, a friendly reminder to slow down and savor the moment. And whose life wouldn't be improved by a little more savoring? :)

So...with all the free recipes online, why would I need to buy cookbooks? The authors address this question in the introduction, and I agree with the answer they quote in their book: "Like other good books, the best cookbooks have strong voices that lure readers into unfamiliar worlds, give colorful observations about those places, and, above all, reveal a passionate interest in sharing pleasure." (Barbara Haber, food historian.) Online recipes (not the food described, but the writing style, if that makes any sense) are usually straightforward and colorless. "Do this. Do that. Don't let this happen." The recipes in the best cookbooks, on the other hand, imply the outlook of their writers. "Do this, because it will make your tongue melt. I did that the other day, and while it isn't for everyone, it made me want to dance around naked."* The recipes in Cook What You Love are appealing. The first section, breakfast, begins with a short essay about the joys of making breakfast in bed, so while I was reading this section, I was imagining my husband bringing me breakfast in bed. "Yes," I said to myself, "I would eat Crunchy Coconut French Toast in bed. I would eat Orange-Currant Muffins and One-Eyed Jacks and Spanish Scrambled Eggs in bed..." It all sounded good. I then asked myself whether I would cook all those recipes if it meant getting up early to do it...well, that one was harder, but I ended up with a "yes" there, too. As I read my way through the book, I realized I would cook anything in the book, just so I could eat it, and that, I think, is the mark of a good cookbook. The mark of a really good cookbook is when it can talk you into trying something you normally wouldn't try, either because you don't care for it or it's a pain to make. I found myself actually considering roasting cherry tomatoes, even though I don't like them, just because of the description in the book: "We're always looking for ways to add color and texture to a recipe. Food seems to taste better if it looks beautiful. Roasted whole cherry tomatoes are a quick, easy way to brighten up a platter of these or any other scrambled eggs. Just toss the tomatoes with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast at 400F for about 10 minutes or until hot and wrinkled. Serve them hot or at room temperature." Hm....I'll think about it. I keep promising myself a trip to the farmer's market. Maybe I'll pick up some cherry tomatoes and give it a go. *Also, online recipes usually don't have pictures. Mmmm....it's food erotica.

`Cook What You Love' by restauranteur / authors, Bob and Melinda Blanchard belongs to an odd class of cookbooks which has no interest in teaching you how to cook French or Italian, or simply how to cook, or how to cook fast or how to cook cheap or how to grill or how to entertain or how to cook for your family or how to cook for kids (although there is a section here for cooking with kids). These books have a mysterious attraction that, if it works, makes you simply fall in love with the books, and you can't seem to put your finger on why that is. For me, the paradigm of this type of book is those written by Jamie Oliver. Like his fellow British writers, Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater, and Tamasin Day-Lewis, Jamie's books seem to effectively communicate more of a lifestyle which includes cooking and eating, than it does simply a set of instructions on how to cook particular dishes. Part (but not all) of this can be explained by the lessons the handlers on the Food Network's `Next Food Network Star' competition shows give to the competitors. You can't be a talking head that cooks. You have to draw your audience into your world and make them want to make your dishes. The flip side of this quality is that when it doesn't work, it can really turn one off. For example, while I constantly praise Rachael Ray's shows and books, I have a hard time buying her constantly effervescent personality. On the other hand, Mario Batali's enormous confidence and force of personality on `Molto Mario' were consistently able to draw me in and really become strongly interested with his love and lore of Italian cuisines. What all this means for this book is that the authors, the Blanchards, have opened their book with the perfect description of this quality, quoted from Food Historian, Barbara Haber, who says `Like all good books, the best cookbooks have a strong voices that lure readers into unfamiliar worlds, give colorful observations about those places, and, above all, reveal a passionate interest in sharing pleasure...' This, of course, exactly fits the title of the book. So, the Blanchards proceed to give us about 100 recipes that are near and dear to their hearts, and some stories about how they came across some of these recipes, or at least the dishes which inspired them to create these recipes. This quality, the Blanchard's call soul. And, I think they communicate almost as much soul as his nibs, Sir Jamie. They certainly do better than Giada De Laurentiis does in her two cookbooks, which don't quite capture the genuine love of food she shows on her Food Network show. One thing to keep in mind with books of this type is that they will not teach you to cook. Like a travel book, it assumes you already know how to get a passport, book passage on trains, planes, or boats, pack an effective suitcase, and get the appropriate film for your camera. It does say, before you get to the goodies, a few things about which techniques and ingredients are really important. The