The Amateur Gourmet

June 11, 2007
Just a typical Jewish law student who returned to New York to study playwriting, Roberts forsook torts and all things dramaturgical for tarts and all things culinary. In order to better share his discoveries and enthusiasms, he eventually launched a Web site—amateurgourmet.com—replete with recipes, marketing and cooking tips, restaurant reviews and overall winsomeness. Here, in 10 short essays, and with the same charming voice, he offers simple (perhaps even simplistic) lessons from his own journey out of fast food and microwave captivity to the Promised Land of Foodiedom. From basic tomato sauce to a feast for 10, he guides the way through a series of culinary adventures and exhorts the kitchen novice toward the same discoveries, surprises and challenges. This is not really a cookbook or a memoir so much as a kitchen travelogue or series of essays on culinary attitude adjustment, and Roberts has such lightness of spirit that even proficient gourmands may be tempted to seek again the stance of a rank beginner in order to experience anew a perfectly cooked tomato sauce or dinner for one in Paris. There are recipes, mostly cribbed from other cookbooks, but the book’s primary feature is its delight in learning something new.