COOKBOOKS AND IDEAS FOR HOME ENTERTAINING
If you like to entertain at home, this cookbook is for you. Tanis clearly relishes home entertaining and his enthusiasm is contagious. Despite his impressive chef's background, he's all about easy entertaining and fresh ingredients like Alice Waters. Tanis writes:
"Yes, I am a restaurant chef, and I do enjoy cooking for strangers but I don't want to go to a restaurant on my days off. Okay, I'll admit to being slighly restaurant phobic.
I've always preferred to cook at home for friends. Cooking at home is a different experience entirely from the stressful world of restaurant cooking. To me, it doesn't feel like work. And even if it's not a perfect meal, the overriding mood of friends at the table still trumps a bad -or just okay - restaurant meal. Sound funny, coming from a chef?
A meal needn't be fancy; nor should it take all day to make. But, that said, most of the menus in this book are not those 30-minute-specials-with-only-3-ingredients whose intent seems to be to keep you out of the kitchen. What's wrong with spending a little time in the kitchen? I like peeling carrots, I like washing the lettuces. I like building a meal. I believe there's joy and amusement inherent in the cooking process, in putting the food into companionable serving vessels, in gathering in the kitchen and at the table and in all the many little and big aesthetic decisions along the way." |
