Cindy's Supper Club

April 15, 2012
The home cook eager to introduce the family to diverse foodways or seeking to impress friends with mastery of uncommon ethnic cuisines will discover out-of-the-ordinary dinner menus in Pawlcyn's latest cookbook. As centerpiece of an Italian meal, she reinterprets involtini, wrapping fruit stuffing in rolls of swordfish in lieu of more conventional beef. South Africa's custard-topped national dish, bobotie, gets a side of sweet potatoes. Toasted rice powder, a flavor essential for Thai cooking, appears in a mushroom salad. Authenticity sometimes yields to the practical, rabbit substituting for guinea pig in a Peruvian stew. An Ethiopian stew mingles chicken and eggs into a single hearty presentation. The less adventuresome might opt for Pawlcyn's Flemish meat loaf, redolent with sweet spices, such as cinnamon, cloves, cumin, and ginger. Not for the novice cook, Pawlcyn's sophisticated approach challenges even the skilled chef. But reward awaits those who persevere.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)