The Splendid Table's, How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show

I work full time and cook for my husband and me. It is important to me to cook healthy meals and I am willing to purchase quality ingredients although my budget is limited and I hate waste (buying a jar when I need a quarter cup of a rarely used ingredient, for example). Once in awhile I'll cook an elaborate meal, but my preference is for meals that can get on the table with less than a half hour of my time and rely mostly on staples I can keep around. So far I LOVE the "Warm white bean salad with fragrent garlic and rosemary" which is now a weekday,throw-together-at-the-last-minute meal for us on a regular basis. I also LOVE the "Summer Zucchini Pasta." But the cookbook is worth the price for the French Fudge Cakes alone. I made the panna cotta and served it along with the fudge cakes for guests who haven't stopped talking about it when I see them. I can't remember the last cookbook where I found both weekday staples along with dishes that impress. I also appreciate that Lynne teaches techniques and encourages experimenting. I've riffed on the zuchinni pasta but now always add the pasta water to create the "sauce." I feel like I am learning to cook, not just following a recipe. I agree with one reviewer that the graphic design is a bit distracting in some cases, but I've taken to writing on the recipes myself - notes about substitutions and favorites - so it feels like a two-way conversation. This cookbook is for the just beyond basic beginner or the cook who has more ambition than time. A cooking 102 from a master teacher.

As a huge fan of the Public Radio show I was delighted when this book came out. Rossetto-Kasper is a practical enough cook to know that supper is often a hurried affair, often involving a bag of Fritos. The recipes are easy to prepare and easy to upgrade. My most-used recipe is the cheater's version of homemade broth, which starts with canned chicken or vegetable broth to which you add white wine, herbs and spices and aromatics. This versatile broth is used in any number of dishes to good advantage. I also enjoy the taste tests including canned tomatoes, canned chicken broth, etc. This has become a staple of my collection in under two weeks.

I like, not love, The Splendid Table. I enjoy it when I happen to turn on the radio, but I don't market my calendar to ensure I catch the radio show. On the other hand, I'm completely taken with this cookbook. It fills a specific niche: real non-shortcut cooking, with the awareness that you probably have to start dinner after you get home from work. The recipes are all chosen with that desire/limitation in mind, and give you an estimate of how long it'll take from start to finish. There's a pretty wide range of ethnic flavors, from Italian pasta to Chinese stir fries, which can keep the supper table interesting. So far, I've made only one recipe, but it was a clear winner: tarragon chicken breasts with buttery leeks. It promised to be done in half an hour... which was really more like 45 minutes, but we spent less than ten minutes in the kitchen. Many recipes suggest improvisations, simple or complex; she suggests other herbs instead of the tarragon for that chicken recipe, but another recipe for pasta with butternut squash and greens extends to a fennel garlic roast. I have my eye on this recipe for corn chowder and on the tamarind-glazed pork chops. Among the features I like in this cookbook (and wish others would adopt) is that the ingredient is in boldface. That is, "2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice" has the "lemon juice" in bold type, making it easy to scan through the ingredient list while you're composing a shopping list or cooking. A more major component of the cookbook is the little essays that come from the radio show, such as the discovery that consuming different cheeses before bedtime affects the nature of your dreams, and an explanation of the seed savers' exchange. Plus, a "building your library" sidebar will recommend cookbooks that you probably want to explore. The result is an inordinately *readable* cookbook, not just one to grab when you're wondering what you can possibly feed the family.

As a former caterer and still-avid cook, when I saw this book, I grabbed it. I like to read a cookbook--in other words, give me cooking tips, great stories and exciting recipes! The book begins: "The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who wake up thinking about what they're going to eat for supper, and those that don't. We are decidedly in the former camp; in fact we wake up thinking about what we are going to cook for supper." I love it! What I love even more is Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift's philosophy on food: "We feel strongly about local, sustainable,and organic food... This philosophy doesn't come solely from concerns over well-being. It is larger than that. It is about ecology, the survival of rural life, and values." Amen! Some highlights: In salad section, there is a do-it-yourself dressing kit. If you buy bottled dressings, please give this a try--homemade dressing is extremely easy to make and far superior to store-bought. In soup section, the authors advise how to improvise your own soups. Basically, the authors seek to teach the reader how to cook and they do a great job. The neat part about cooking is that no matter how experienced you are, there is always more to learn. I look forward to trying many of the recipes in this beautiful book. The instructions are crystal clear, to boot. A quote from the book: "I aam not a vegetarian because I love animals. I am a vegetarian because I hate plants." A. Whitney Brown By the author of the award winning book,Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet.

I love to cook but was in a rut with my weeknight standard recipes, and heard Lynne talk about this new book on NPR. I immediately bought it just for the Hoisin Noodles 4 Flavors recipe, which I made this weekend for a very appreciative audience of husband and dad - it was easy and delicious of course, but most happily it was something different. I can't wait to try many of the ideas I've found there - now I need a bottle of fish sauce to add the umami to lots of recipes - and am excited about weeknight cooking again. I'd recommend this to anyone who isn't afraid of red pepper flakes, roasting a vegetable, or the occasional pat of butter or dollop of cream. It's full of tips, clear explanations, realistic cooking times for recipes, and a great "Here's a basic equipment list," plus great little stories and quotes. I love this book! I'm ultra-confident that new recipes will put the "Wow" back into our weeknight AND weekend cooking! Thank you, Lynne and Sally!