Comfortable in the Kitchen
Chef, culinary instructor, food writer, and TV personality, Meredith Laurence, says the key to cooking great food and enjoying the process is being comfortable in the kitchen.
Known as the “Blue Jean Chef” who conducts cooking demos on television, Laurence has written the newly-released the part-cookbook, part-cooking manual, Comfortable in the Kitchen (Walah Publishers, $24.95), to help people find their comfortable culinary groove.
Comfortable in the Kitchen, attractively photographed by Jessica Walker, is an accessible book. At 311 pages, it’s not so big that it’s intimidating and the matte cover and food photos make the book feel, well, comfortable. Laurence has divided the book into several sections: soups and salads, snacks and sandwiches, pasta, meat and poultry, fish and seafood, breakfast, and desserts and sweets.
Each section has what she labels a “basic” recipe. For instance, there’s a recipe for chicken noodle soup, grilled cheese sandwich, nachos, tomato and basil crostini, tomato and cheese pizza, marinara sauce, mac and cheese and more. Under each of those basic recipes are variations on the theme. Under chicken noodle soups, for instance, she ventures into beef and barley soup, Asian shrimp noodle soup, and sausage and lentil soup. Under tomato and cheese pizza, she offers several different pizzas. Same with the mac and cheese and other basic recipes. With each of these basic recipes, she offers a “recipe explained” section that gives basic cooking techniques and pointers for success.
It this sophisticated cooking? No, but who else is going to tell you how to make a basic grilled fish or pot roast if you don’t know how?
Comfortable in the Kitchen isn’t a book for seasoned cooks. It is the type of cookbook you could offer your daughter or son going off to college or a young married person just learning to cook. Comfortable in the Kitchen is an easy, accessible cookbook that will surely help make new cooks more comfortable and more successful in the kitchen. — BH
