Price: $64.87
Description: This new work by Sass (Cooking Under Pressure) offers a timely view of the relatively new–and constantly increasing–bounty of organic foods available in many urban areas. Recipes are both numerous and practical, keeping the author’s promise of “sophisticated flavor and strong visual appeal.”28 Some of the best dishes include carrots with olives and 20 cloves of garlic, curried yellow split-pea soup with squash and raisins, sun-dried tomato dip, and fig and hazelnut pudding. Interspersed are excellent ideas like marinades intended to give “that wallflower tofu some assertiveness training,” and how to double or triple batch-cook beans and freeze the rest. Utilizing the pressure cooker and the wok (yet not explaining why the microwave oven is ignored here), Sass shows how to get “a healthy, well-balanced meal on the table in record time.” The highlight of the book, however, is the 75-page alphabetical list of ingredients and storage information on a vast variety of New Age (and oldtime) produce, grains, beans and even aquatic vegetables. Refreshingly, this is obviously not textbook information, but is based on invaluable real-life, real-kitchen use of these items.