Cookbook of the Week: 'Milk Bar Life' by Christina Tosi
Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Milk Bar Life by Christina Tosi (Clarkson Potter), the funny and fearless leader of Momofuku Milk Bar. (Here’s a taste of Tosi’s personality: “I think quirks are what make the world go ‘round,” she writes in the introduction, “just like dogs, dessert, quilting, jumping rope, bad movies, and great music.”) While Tosi’s known for her sweet treats, this book also includes savory dishes, from simple roast chicken to Mac ’n’ Cheese Pancakes and Burnt-Honey-Butter Kale.
Noteworthy: The chapters in Milk Bar Life are organized by occasion instead of by course or ingredient. And occasions, to Tosi, are not weddings or birthdays — they’re “Weak Nights,” for times when there’s nothing but gas station ingredients to make dinner; “We Are Family” includes eclectic meals made by Milk Bar staff; and “Craft Night/Sleepover” covers ideas for late-night scary movie sessions that require loads of sweet and salty snacks. Every chapter begins with a dessert, because, Tosi writes, “let’s get real, behind every good savory dish, there’s something else you really want to eat. I figured I’d make it easy for you, so you wouldn’t have to go digging.”
The Team: Tosi, who opened the first Milk Bar six years ago and has since grown it into an seven-location, two-cookbook business. She is the 2012 recipient of the James Beard Rising Star Chef Award and a finalist for the 2014 and 2015 James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef Awards. New York-based pastry chef Courtney McBroom was Tosi’s writing partner and Lucky Peach editor in chief Peter Meehan was her “spiritual chaperone,” whatever that means. Gabriele Stabile and Mark Ibold took the intimate photographs.
The Cuisine: It’s a mishmash of hand-me-down recipes from Tosi’s own family and her Milk Bar family. And both of those are mishmashes themselves. The Tosi family has collected their recipes “from in-laws, old friends, new friends, church folk, firehouse cookbooks, PTA potluck dinners, and eccentric neighbors.” The Milk Bar family has been comprised of a variety of young, hungry pastry chefs over the years. “Despite the fact that many of us are formally trained and have worked in great restaurants, we also crave and embrace food with a more down-home, lowbrow approach. We long for FLAVOR, not fuss.” You’ll see recipes for things such as Cheesy Onions, the ingredient list for which reads pearl onions, butter, flour, milk, yellow mustard, Velveeta, salt, and pepper. The Hershey’s Kiss Roll contains two ingredients: pre-made dinner rolls (the kind that come in tubes from the refrigerator aisle) and Hershey’s Kisses. And, of course, lots of cookies, because Tosi will simply never tire of cookies.
Who Should Buy It: Those who are already fans of Tosi’s quirky work and want more, those who have a sense of humor and like to be playful in the kitchen, and those who have plenty of weak nights. “If you have a chip on your shoulder of any kind (unless it’s a Cool Ranch Dorito),” writes Tosi, this is not the book for you.
Must-Make Recipes: The two-ingredient Hershey’s Kiss Roll, Kimchi Quesadillas, Fruity Pebble Meringues, Salt-and-Pepper Cookies, and Pickle Juice-Poached Fish, which calls for “the more radioactive green [the juice], the better.”
Check out these other Cookbooks of the Week from Yahoo Food:
Steven Satterfield’s Root to Leaf
