Product Description

EVERY HOME COOK HAS QUESTIONS

and How to Peel a Peach has the answers. Whether you're a bona fide beginner or a kitchen dynamo, chances are you've been stumped by culinary questions great and small. In these pages, wise, worldly culinary professional Perla Meyers comes to the rescue, offering a wealth of information about ingredients, equipment, and techniques in a forthright Q&A format. With timeless recipes that illustrate her points, it's as if this prominent cooking teacher is by your side, conducting a series of special classes just for you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1150912 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
To create fantastic food you need more than a book of recipes, says Meyers."To me," she writes, "this is where cooking begins-with the intimate knowledge of one's ingredients, how to shop for them, store them and cook with them." In this marvelous reference guide, the award-winning author passes that intimate knowledge along to her readers, answering questions like "how can I tell a really fresh cabbage?" and "is it a good idea to marinate veal?" Most of the book is presented in a Q&A style, with lovely recipes interspersed throughout, but each section also begins with a mini-essay in which Meyers describes her love for food or her beliefs about cooking. In "Poultry," she explains that "chicken was a religion" in her family; every bird was bought fresh in a Barcelona market. Like Meyer's previous cookbooks (Spur of the Moment Cook; The Seasonal Kitchen), this volume emphasizes fresh seasonal cuisine and down-to-earth economy. She suggests, for example, that tomatoes be tucked under the bed to ripen and that readers eat "the beautiful, black, pearl-like seeds nestled together at [a papaya's] core." Meyers is also alert to seasonal and regional variations: carrots are sweeter in the Northwest than in the Northeast, she says; look for blood oranges from December to May. There is a fantastic final chapter on grilling. Meyers is up-front about her bias towards Italian and Spanish food, and the book does contain a few omissions. (Radishes, for example, are ignored.) But these gaps are minor in such an otherwise complete book. Inspiring for the advanced cook, invaluable for the novice, this volume will be a treasured reference guide in many kitchens. 150 recipes.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
The Seasonal Kitchen, Meyers’s first cookbook, was published in 1973, long before cooking with fresh local ingredients became a mantra for chefs and good cooks everywhere.  Several titles in that same vein (e.g. From Market to Kitchen) followed.  Her new book features hundreds of culinary Q&As (the questions are culled from Meyers’s workshop students), along with her favorite recipes in each category, from vegetables to fruit; also included are chapters on equipment and stocking the pantry.  There is a lot of information here, and while some readers will appreciate the format, others might wish for an easier-to-use organizational style – i.e., a factual section on cooking duck rather than a series of questions, e.g., “I’d like to buy a duck breast, but I don’t know how to prepare it” and “I love to grill chicken but have never attempted duck – can it be done?”  Nevertheless, Meyers is knowledgeable, and her recipes sound delicious.  For most collections. (Library Journal, May 15, 2004)

From the Inside Flap
Can I use a twelve-inch black cast-iron skillet for roasting? What can a mandoline do that a food processor can’t? What is the difference between tournedos, filet mignon, and Chateaubriand?

Whether you’re a beginner, a seasoned cook, or a professional chef, no doubt you’ve spent precious time trying to unravel such kitchen conundrums, learning largely through trial, error, and perhaps one too many dry, leathery roasts.

Every home cook has questions, and in this user-friendly, indispensable volume, acclaimed cooking teacher and food writer Perla Meyers concisely and authoritatively answers each one, taking on the most basic as well as the more complex questions on everything from kitchen equipment, pots, and utensils to pantry essentials. Part technical reference guide, part cookbook, How to Peel a Peach is the comprehensive resource to rely on, day in and day out, for common-sense solutions and satisfying recipes from Meyers, plus tips from famous chefs.

The creative process doesn’t begin with a recipe–Meyers maintains that it starts at grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and specialty shops, places where cooks gain an intimate knowledge of ingredients and equipment. In a lively, direct style, she reveals the art of shopping, plus how to store and prepare everything from meat and game to vegetables, seafood, pasta, grains, and fruits–priceless guidance that is essential for cooking intuitively.

Whether sharing a recipe for blender mayonnaise or Sherry Sabayon, Viennese Goulash Soup or Pan-Seared Rib-Eye Steak in Herb and Shallot Butter, this culinary insider brings home her deep knowledge and deft techniques. Delicious and accessible, these recipes, over 150 in all, are quintessentially Meyers–contemporary classics with a Mediterranean twist–and make it easy to put the author’s sage, savvy advice into action.