In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite

Starred review from May 31, 2010
Clark, a New York Times food columnist, takes readers into her home kitchen and delights them with personal stories interwoven with recipes in this engaging and scrumptious collection. Born to gourmands and exposed to a wide variety of foods from an early age, Clark possesses the uncanny ability to recreate meals from memory or invent them on the spot. Her love of breakfast results in buttery polenta with parmesan, olive oil, or fried eggs with swiss chard. Her obsession with the farmer's market inspires extra-sharp leeks vinaigrette and raw Tuscan kale salad with chilis and pecorino, and overcoming her aversion to crustaceans prompts spaghetti with spicy tomato, clams, and bacon. She shares the story behind every dish including Dahlia's fragrant chicken fingers, conjured for her chiliand bratwurst-eating one-year old's advanced palate. Italian sausages necessitate reinventing sausages with sweet pepper and onion stew, and fried croutons with chorizo and paprika. Clark creates for the home cook, making her dishes easy to replicate without special equipment and complicated preparation. Her trademark unassuming writing style, genuine love of food, and wealth of recipes, which cover chicken and meat, cheese, sandwiches, and desserts, are an incredible treat for foodies everywhere.