Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That?

August 2, 2010
The focus is on creating simpler yet appetizing dishes that save time and minimize stress in the kitchen in bestselling author (Barefoot Contessa Cookbook) and Food Network guru Garten’s latest. She showcases recipes that utilize fewer ingredients, limited to those easily found in supermarkets or specialty food stores. She also stays away from time-consuming cooking techniques, instead making unusually good use of her oven for everything from easy parmesan “risotto” and French toast bread pudding to spicy turkey meatballs. Despite the relative simplicity of these dishes, they are still elegant enough to be served at dinner parties, especially the roasted figs and prosciutto, fresh salmon tartare, and the mouthwatering, easy Provençal lamb. Garten’s vegetable dishes are particularly appealing and varied, including scalloped tomatoes, garlic-roasted cauliflower, and potato basil purée, and her desserts are equally strong, with easy cranberry and apple cake and fleur de sel caramels. Full-color photos accompany each recipe and are enough to send any hungry soul immediately into the kitchen. True to her trademark style, Garten once again shows that delicious food can be prepared with a minimum of fuss, even with guests on the way.

August 1, 2010

Garten, author of six best-selling cookbooks and host of the Food Network's Barefoot Contessa, has produced another beautiful, accessible book on easy entertaining. "How easy is that?" is a familiar refrain for fans of her show, and here it's become a philosophy. Garten shares her method for recipe writing, revealing that if an ingredient can't be detected, it's eliminated. She's a home cook's cook who understands that in our time-starved lives there's no reason to be denied the simple pleasure of great food. Few of the recipes are more than a page long, and most require easy-to-find ingredients. Standouts include Stilton and Walnut Crackers, Greek Panzanella (a riff on the Italian classic), Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms, and Fresh Peach Cake. Like other Garten books, this one is filled with over 200 color photos, a table of contents, and a well-organized index. VERDICT Garten's popularity and simple style make this an essential purchase. [Ten-city tour.]--Rosemarie Lewis, Georgetown Cty. Lib., SC

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2010
The Barefoot Contessa series of cookbooks (Garten is host of the eponymous television show on the Food Network) are the kind that librarians should automatically collect and recommend to their cooking-curious but time-constrained library patrons. Her new cookbook is all about ease and comfort. Saving you time and avoiding stress is the philosophy behind all her easily followed recipes that, of course, are not simply wrought from cans and mixes but are not composed of just two ingredients, either. For her, a good dish offers sophisticated taste but avoids backbreaking labor. Cooks who realize that they do not have the time to devote a whole day to cooking will find here, from appetizers to desserts, recipes calling for ingredients readily accessible in all grocery stores if not already in the kitchen cabinet. She is an admitted proponent of technique shortcuts and less-labor-intensive menus (such as deciding if you really do need a first course for the meal youre planning).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)