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Ah, food bloggers and books. They go together like carrots and peas. When I was asked about whether I'd been approached about a book in an interview the other day, I smiled because it has become almost cliche'. However, The City Cook: Big City, Small Kitchen. Limitless Ingredients, No Time. More than 90 recipes so delicious you'll want to toss your takeout menus has lots of useful info, even if it was written by a blogger ;-)

Ah, food bloggers and books. They go together like carrots and peas. When I was asked about whether I’d been approached about a book in an interview the other day, I smiled because it has become almost cliche’. However,  The City Cook: Big City, Small Kitchen. Limitless Ingredients, No Time. More than 90 recipes so delicious you’ll want to toss your takeout menus has lots of useful info, even if it was written by a blogger 😉

From http://thecitycook.com :

The City Cook is an elegantly simple and eminently practical guide to fitting great cooking into a busy life and a small kitchen, including more than 90 recipes from Kate McDonough, editor and founder of TheCityCook.com.

Taking you from fishmonger to cheese merchant to greenmarket and then back to your own kitchen, The City Cook makes confident, cosmopolitan cooking effortless. You’ll learn how to find the best ingredients at specialty shops and farmers’ markets, how to curate an urban kitchen, and how to entertain in the city. It will be easy to resist takeout and mediocre restaurant meals with satisfying, pulled-from-the-pantry dishes such as Carrot and Chickpea Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette or Spaghetti with Tomato Paste and Garlic. Deceptively simple showstoppers like Green Beans with Tomatoes and Prosciutto, Salmon Cakes with Spicy Sriracha Mayonnaise, Broiled Black Cod with Miso, and Seared Duck Breasts with Port-Shallot Pan Sauce give you exciting weeknight options. Recipes for Bloody Mary Sorbet with Crab Salad Brioche, Simple Oven-Roasted Whole Duck, and Grand Marnier Soufflé give you an excuse to host a sumptuous supper for your friends.

Even though I don’t live in the city, I do have access to a stunning array of local ingredients, I have a small kitchen, and I have no time. Thus I loved the helpful tips included in the opening chapters, which include

  • Cooking in the City
  • The City Pantry
  • Equipping a City Kitchen
  • How to Cook from the Ingredients Up
  • Be a Brilliant Food Shopper
  • Making It Work In Your Own City Kitchen

I found myself making mental notes and looking forward to getting more organized in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the wonderful info only took up 47 pages; after that were several recipes that weren’t *that* spectatular. Nothing that made me say “oooh, gotta make that!” Maybe because a lot of it called for summer produce? Whatever. They are divided in traditional manner (starters, salads, vegetables, pasta/rice and grains, meat/poultry/game, fish and shellfish, desserts and other treats).

I did appreciate the resources at the back though – a handy listing of urban markets (which I’ll look into next time I travel), web merchants, a glossary, and metric equivalences.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy, however all opinions are mine and I was under no obligation to review it.

As you’ll remember, my cookbook shelf is quite full, so I’m finding this one another home.

Would you like to win my copy?

You can earn up to three entries:

  1. Comment below saying why this book sounds interesting to you.
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Please remember to leave a separate comment for each entry, as the winner is automagically drawn by a plugin that randomly chooses from among the comments.

Deadline for entry: Wednesday, December 8, 2010, midnight EST. Open to U.S. and Canada.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Andrea M

    Hello!
    The tagline for this cookbook is how my husband and I live! I would love recipes to go along with such a lifestyle 🙂
    Thanks!

    Grace & Peace,
    Andrea M Wernz

  2. PatriciaD

    It sound imminently useful. I like part about elegant and simple…that is so me. I like to keep things really simple but I adore elegance, too. I also like the part about being a brilliant food shopper. Oh, yeah!!

  4. Michelle @ Italian Mama Chef

    Oh I would love this book! I think those recipes and tips sound so helpful. I find a lot of recipes in metric amounts and I hate having to search online for a way to find the equivalent in standard measurements. Thanks!

  11. jacquie

    i have a smallish kitchen currently and it will likely get even smaller when i move so i would like it for that reason. also being vegetarian i’m always interested in cookbooks w/ grain/rice sections.

  13. Susan R

    I would be happy to learn from those 47 pages, first of all. And there’s always a recipe that jumps off the page calling my name. 🙂

  16. Francine

    Big City, Small Kitchen – that’s me. I love to cook, but seriously, I’ve had closets bigger than my kitchen. It was obviously designed by someone who didn’t cook. Short of moving, I really need this book!