The Arrows Cookbook: Cooking and Gardening from Maine's Most Beautiful Farmhouse Restaurant

When I need to plan a dinner for friends that are not foodies this is the first cookbook I choose. The recipes are delicious, easy to prepare and are not over the top. Every recipe has been meticulously checked and all have proven to be delicious. The book helps capture the feel of eating at the restaurant. The seasonality of the book's organization helps us northern new englanders plan an appropriate meal.

`The Arrows Cookbook' combines 156 recipes from the four seasons of the highly regarded coastal Maine restaurant with a experienced amateur gardener's recommendations on planting and running a large southern Maine vegetable garden for the restaurant. The book embodies the familiar mantra of using fresh, seasonal, local ingredients fortified by giving you the information you need to grow fresh, local ingredients. This is the special slant the book offers, as no publisher has yet gotten the chutzpah to charge $40 for a book without trying to give the reader something extra.The tone of the book is heavily oriented to their rural Maine terroir in style and content. In Maine, the seasons play a much greater role in daily life than they do in California or even in Manhattan. Therefore, the book's attitude toward its product has neither the mystical reverence of Paul Bertolli or Alice Waters nor the high maintenance, high craftsmanship of Daniel Boulud or Eric Rippert. Even though there is considerable respect for ingredients and home brewed food making here in both the gardening in the Spring and Summer and ham curing done in the Winter. There is also no evidence of high tech houte cuisine (there are no prep or cook times or difficulties ascribed to the recipes) or of Napa Valley chic wine recommendations. This is Maine! This is boiled lobsters, boiled meat, and wild apple country.The asking price of $0.26 a recipe is a relatively high price for the average cookbook. Many very good books average out at $0.10 to $0.20 a recipe, list. What would make you willing to pay the extra toll for this book aside from the celebrity status of the venue?1. The recipes are good, simple preparations. Of the 156, there are:Appetizers 27Salads 22Main Courses 26 11 of which are for seafoodSauces 21Side Dishes 36Desserts 24The relatively high proportion of appetizers, salads, and side dishes to main courses is explained by the fact that the menu is different for each of the four seasons, based on what produce is available in that season. There are few or no tomato dishes in Spring and few strawberry dishes in Winter. The up side to this picture is that this book is a very good source for seasonal salads, appetizers, and side dishes. If one's limited cookbook budget was aimed at either seasonally or vegetarianism, this is a very good book. The attention to edible flowers is especially noteworthy.2. The gardening information is fairly complete for the straightforward vegetable garden. Its primary value is inspirational and getting one started in the right directions. A good bibliography of gardening texts is included. The supplementary books are needed, because these authors are amateurs. I found at least one botanical mistake, but it wasn't serious. The book's value drops off the further you live from the Southern Maine growing zone and the less space you have available to grow stuff. The greatest value of this part of the book is the inspiration it can give to save m

As both a cook and a gardener, this cookbook is a treat. Oganized by season, the recipes use fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables found in the garden and at the farmer's market. There are ambitious recipes that call for a lot of time and preparation, as well as extremely simple fare. The book also gives hints and instructions for everything from freezing berries and shucking oysters to building raised beds; even providing advice on whether or not to buy a greenhouse! You can plant the authors' "10 veggies that let you have a life," and then use their recipes to create such dishes as Red and Golden Beet Salad or the very simple Ginger-Roasted Parsnips. Armed with my seed catalogs and Frasier and Gaier's cookbook for inspiration and ideas (not to mention a slice of Super-Moist Apple Cake and a cup of coffee), I am looking forward to planning my garden for 2004. I can hardly wait until next year's harvest!

This book is a must have. The recipes are fun and easy to prepare. When my family goes to their restaurant we are always treated as family. So many of the recipes are great that I can't even pick a single one as my favorite. What really puts this book into the next level is the way that they use seasonal ingredients. A must have.

Anyone who's ever visited Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine, knows the owners are sticklers for exquisite detail. From the views of the lush and meticulous one-acre garden out the freshly painted farmhouse windows, to the seasonal food artfully arranged on the plate, the experience is a treat for the eye as well as the palate. With the garden full of flowers, herbs, vegetables and heirloom tomatoes for inspiration, the food is creative and bursting with bright and subtle flavors. The owners' first book reflects this with a balanced presentation of recipes, gardening advice and personal details. Organized seasonally, the authors showcase Maine staples such as lobster, Maine shrimp and cod and halibut, fiddleheads and blueberries. But the fiddleheads come served in brown butter with Bundnerfleisch, a German cured beef (you could also substitute prosciutto or smoked salmon); the lobster comes in an Asparagus Soup with Lobster, Morels and Chervil, and the lobster salad is served, not with mayonnaise, but with Tomato-Tarragon Vinaigrette.The authors cross cultures freely and do not mind a little extra effort for a spectacular result. The skewers for the Chinese-inspired Grilled Lamb Brochettes on Basil Skewers with Spicy Basil-Cilantro Marinade, for instance, are basil stems left to dry over the winter.Each chapter opens with a short essay on the season and state of the garden (which provides 90 percent of the restaurant's produce) and business, then moves on to feature appetizers, main and side dishes, sauces and desserts. Recipes are prefaced with short, useful notes on growing (even in Maine, "tomatillos grow like weeds"), selecting (the best piece of bluefin tuna, for instance), variations, accompaniments, and cooking tips.Interspersed with the recipes are short gardening pieces - how to grow tomatoes or peppers, growing and using herbs, watering with soaker hoses, using up zucchini, making the most of a small space, edible flowers, saving seeds and lots more.But the food is what Arrows veterans are looking for here. For a tantalizing taste of summer, try a Sweet and Sour Fennel Salad or a simple plate of Marinated Tomatoes or a Sugar Snap Pea and Rock Shrimp Salad. Then maybe some Maine Sweet Clams with Risotto and Arugula, or Grilled Rib-Eye Steak with Herbs and Caramelized Onions. Accompanied perhaps by some Thai-Style Corn-on-the-Cob (soaked in coconut milk, grilled), or Yam and Leek Gratin, and your own Onion and Rosemary Focaccia. Topped off with Cinnamon Basil Shortcakes with Peaches or Blueberry Ice Cream or Steamed Raspberry Pudding.This is an attractive, personable, conversational book, as much fun to cook from as to browse. The recipes are not difficult, though some are time consuming and many feature ingredients you can find, but not necessarily at the local supermarket (but isn't a new discovery half the fun?). A delightful book and a kitchen inspiration.