Product Description

The renowned chef of New York's Verbena restaurant shows how to build a dishand a menufrom vegetables on up in this innovative cookbook that looks at flavors through a botanical prism. What do Poached Eggs in Asparagus Nests, Leek and Apple Hash, and Sauteed Scallops with Onion Pan Gravy have in common? Aspargus, leeks, and onions (along withe shallots, garlic, and chives) are all part of the botanical family Liliaceae. Diane Forley's fascination with the properties and groupings of fruits and vegetablesin the garden, in the kitchen, and on the platesuffuses The Anatomy of a Dish. But this is not a vegetable or vegetarian cookbook. It is a collection of the richly flavorful recipes Forley serves at her restaurant, illuminated by the culinary and botanical explorations that have led to her celebrated cooking style. Forley, one of America's rising chefs, has arranged her book to reflect her conviction that vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes define sensibility in cooking. Part I, which serves as the book's foundation, looks at vegetables one at a time, and details some of Forley's favoirte ways to prepare them. Cooking techniques are explained and applied to an array of vegetables to form side dishes and starting points fo rmore comlete meals. For example, artichokes are braised, shaped into griddle cakes, baked as gratins, and fried as snack chips; mushrooms are sauteed, pureed, and transformed into Forley's own Worcestershire sauce. A plentitude of notes alongside each recipe offer serving suggestions and menu-building links. From single vegetables, the book moves on to vegetable combinations in salads, soups and stews, pastas, tarts, souffles, and breads. And then, fish, poultry, and meat are added to create dishes that The New York Times praised for being delicious yet "disarmingly simple." Seasonal availability of ingredients inspires the recipes in the dessert chapter. These are alluring treates on their own, at any time, but they thoughtfully complement the savory dishes that precede them. Cooking from this immensely engaging book, you'll come to expect the unexpected and be thrilled by each encounter. For example, you'll learn how plants are classified and marvel at the notion that the potato, eggplant, tomato, petunia, and the tobacco plant have much in common, starting with a five-petaled star-shaped flower. (The hugely toxic belladonna also has the same shaped flower. Is it any wonder that the Old World was reluctant to try these New World fruits and vegetables?) Cooks who care to broaden their culinary horizons will find this side excursion into the world of botanical family trees as delicious as they'll find Forley's recipes, with their straightforward charm and exceptional soaring flavors.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #353444 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Amazon.com
Diane Forley, chef and proprietor of New York City's Verbena restaurant, has been praised for dishes that are delicious yet "disarmingly simple." This is one of the true tightrope acts in professional cooking. The Anatomy of a Dish, Forley's debut cookbook, shows how to think about ingredients and demonstrates the various ways to prepare and cook them to their greatest advantage. Forley considers the relatedness of fruits and vegetables, grains, roots, and tubers, and how their botanic lineages play out in recipes and menus. A good deal of this information is spelled out in clear charts with lists of subsequent recipes. These are Forley's keys to simplicity.

There are three basic sections to the book: Building a Dish, Developing a Menu, and Concluding with a Sweet. Building a Dish includes chapters such as "Vegetable Studies," "Salads," "Soups and Stews," "Grains, Beans, and Pasta," "Savory Pastries," and "Breads," the building blocks to the full menus to come when entrée dishes--fish, shellfish, poultry, meat, and game--are added. The roasted beets in "Vegetable Studies" turn up later in Ruby Risotto with Winter Greens and Horseradish Crème Fraîche; the roasted eggplant purée reappears in Eggplant and Garlic Stew with Merguez Sausage.

The Anatomy of a Dish is a beautifully designed and innovative cookbook with over 200 recipes. It's not for the timid or the new cook, but it definitely offers a leg up for the cook who wants to get inside the working mind of an accomplished chef. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly
With his analysis of the cooking process in terms of botanical families, Forley, chef and owner of New York's Verbena, offers a new and intriguing approach to the chef's cookbook, though it may scare away some readers with its seriousness. Charts and texts on categories such as chenoposiaceae (which includes quinoa and Swiss chard) convey information in accessible terms, and of course readers can easily skip the botany lessons (in an airy introduction, Forley notes that this information is provided not to help readers make substitutions or develop formulas, but "to reestablish a connection to the natural world around us and to offer a broader understanding of how and what we eat") and head straight to the recipes. Fortunately, there's no need to be a trained scientist to follow Forley's clearly written instructions for interesting dishes such as Sauteed Flounder with Braised Rhubarb and Artichoke Griddle Cakes. At first glance, the division of this book into three sections ("Building a Dish," "Developing a Menu" and "Concluding with a Sweet") may seem confounding, but the sections are further subdivided into more traditional chapters on breads, salads and the like. Forley places vegetables and grains front and center with recipes such as a Lemon Porridge with Asparagus and Basil made with short-grain rice. Desserts are mostly fruit-based concoctions along the lines of Caramelized Nectarine and Meringue Tartlets. Even those who find this kind of meditative approach a bit precious (a chapter on simple vegetable dishes is titled "Vegetable Studies") will find it impossible to resist Forley's innovative recipes.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Diane Forley, chef and proprietor of New York City's Verbena restaurant, has been praised for dishes that are delicious yet "disarmingly simple." This is one of the true tightrope acts in professional cooking. The Anatomy of a Dish, Forley's debut cookbook, shows how to think about ingredients and demonstrates the various ways to prepare and cook them to their greatest advantage. Forley considers the relatedness of fruits and vegetables, grains, roots, and tubers, and how their botanic lineages play out in recipes and menus. A good deal of this information is spelled out in clear charts with lists of subsequent recipes. These are Forley's keys to simplicity.

There are three basic sections to the book: Building a Dish, Developing a Menu, and Concluding with a Sweet. Building a Dish includes chapters such as "Vegetable Studies," "Salads," "Soups and Stews," "Grains, Beans, and Pasta," "Savory Pastries," and "Breads," the building blocks to the full menus to come when entrée dishes--fish, shellfish, poultry, meat, and game--are added. The roasted beets in "Vegetable Studies" turn up later in Ruby Risotto with Winter Greens and Horseradish Crème Fraîche; the roasted eggplant purée reappears in Eggplant and Garlic Stew with Merguez Sausage.

The Anatomy of a Dish is a beautifully designed and innovative cookbook with over 200 recipes. It's not for the timid or the new cook, but it definitely offers a leg up for the cook who wants to get inside the working mind of an accomplished chef.

(Amazon.com Review -Schuyler Ingle )

With his analysis of the cooking process in terms of botanical families, Forley, chef and owner of New York's Verbena, offers a new and intriguing approach to the chef's cookbook, though it may scare away some readers with its seriousness. Charts and texts on categories such as chenoposiaceae (which includes quinoa and Swiss chard) convey information in accessible terms, and of course readers can easily skip the botany lessons (in an airy introduction, Forley notes that this information is provided not to help readers make substitutions or develop formulas, but "to reestablish a connection to the natural world around us and to offer a broader understanding of how and what we eat") and head straight to the recipes. Fortunately, there's no need to be a trained scientist to follow Forley's clearly written instructions for interesting dishes such as Sauteed Flounder with Braised Rhubarb and Artichoke Griddle Cakes. At first glance, the division of this book into three sections ("Building a Dish," "Developing a Menu" and "Concluding with a Sweet") may seem confounding, but the sections are further subdivided into more traditional chapters on breads, salads and the like. Forley places vegetables and grains front and center with recipes such as a Lemon Porridge with Asparagus and Basil made with short-grain rice. Desserts are mostly fruit-based concoctions along the lines of Caramelized Nectarine and Meringue Tartlets. Even those who find this kind of meditative approach a bit precious (a chapter on simple vegetable dishes is titled "Vegetable Studies") will find it impossible to resist Forley's innovative recipes.
(Publishers Weekly )

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Customer Reviews

A mouth-watering compendium of delicious dishes
Compiled by Diane Forely (Chef and Proprietor of the Verbena Restaurant, New York City), The Anatomy Of A Dish is a mouth-watering compendium of delicious dishes that cover every aspect and stage of sumptuous dining. After the interesting and informative preambles "Why Botanical Studies"; "My Garden and My Kitchen"; and "About This Books", each recipe is organized into one of the three major sections: "Building a Dish"; "Developing a Menu"; and "Concluding with a Sweet". Enhanced with superbly presented, full-color photography by Victor Schrager, as well as a list of definitions, a bibliography, acknowledgments, and an index, The Anatomy Of A Dish offers palate pleasing, appetite satisfying, gourmet recommended fare that ranges from Mixed Grain Pilaf; Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Avocado Cream; Toasted Angel Hair Pasta in Shiitake Broth; and Braised Octopus; to Tamarind-Marinated Flank Steak; Quinoa-Crusted Chicken; Pan-Roasted Duck Breast with Pineapple Chutney; and Frozen Mocha Roulade.

Gorgeous to look at ... Hard to see
With great enthusiasm, I opened this much-raved-about cookbook which is a Christmas present for my husband, the foodie and avid cookbook collector. It looks to be a fascinating story and a completely new take on cooking.

Here's the problem for me. Beautiful as it is, with this book, the art director was WAY too much in charge. Art directors tend not to be as concerned as writers (and READERS) about actually being able to read a book easily. Looks and originality in layout are far more important. The result: much of the text is in what appears to be 8-point font size and less. It's layed out in a column format, sometimes 2 columns, usually 3. Compounding the problem, the small text is often printed in colors, so, for example, we have what appears to be gray text on a cream colored page. Additionally, most pages have at least 3 font styles ... so you have serif, sans serif, and italics all on the same page.

My advice: carefully study one of the sample pages online, if possible ... or go physically examine this book before buying. It's gorgeous, but this is a case of good looks winning out over good (layout) sense. Cooks need to be able to glance down at a recipe while standing and easily see what their ingredients and directions are. Not the case here.

Sophisticated Food Organized around Plant Groups
Neat background that the author provides of her interest in having a garden as vital part of her restaurant has turned into this passion to plan and create dishes and menus around plant groupings.

She builds on this by providing the normal dining classifications of appetizers, soups, salads, etc., but by forming and explaining how she utilizes this plant class system.

There are exceptional creative stuff here, e.g. Artichoke Bruschetta, Lemon Porridge with Asparagus and Basil, Ruby (Beet) Risotto with Winter Greens, Sauteed Scallops with Onion Pan Gravy, Sauteed Flounder with Braised Rhubarb, Short Rib Terrine, Quinoa-Crusted Chicken.

Working with veggies, fruits and grains, this concept will start you thinking and dreaming up your own variations of this plant classification scheme.

Fascinating stuff to read, try and explore.