Cookbook of the Week: 'Good Food, Good Life' from Chef Curtis Stone
Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Good Food, Good Life: 130 Simple Recipes You’ll Love to Make and Eat (Ballantine) by Los Angeles-based chef Curtis Stone. He created the book because he believes that “through tasty, well-cooked food prepared with fresh, quality, and seasonal produce you can have an incredible life,” he writes in the introduction.
Noteworthy: Stone melts our hearts before he even gets to the table of contents. He writes: “I would like to dedicate this book to my son and chief recipe taster, Hudson. In only three years you have taught me so much about food and life. Thanks, mate.”
The Team: Curtis Stone, who is—are you ready for this?—the author of six cookbooks, the chef-owner of Maude restaurant in Beverly Hills, host of Food Network’s Kitchen Inferno and a Top Chef regular, and a columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine. Most importantly, perhaps, is that he’s a proud husband and father of two; pictures of his wife and children are sprinkled throughout the book, which is all about home cooking. Photographer Ray Kachatorian, who has worked for a long list of food magazines including both Bon Appétit and Food & Wine, is responsible for the images that make us feel like we’re inside Stone’s home.
The Cuisine: These recipes are influenced by Stone’s own life, from schoolyard snacks in Australia to fancier dishes dreamed up in his restaurant. The former have been updated and the latter have been made more casual so that they all suit the home cook. As Curtis writes, “The recipes that make up this collection are the same delicious ones that I cook at home from morning to night and include snacks, sweets, light meals, sides, drinks, breakfast, and dinner, too.”
Who Should Buy It: Anyone who wants to make his or her family happy by cooking delicious food for them. If we may be so bold, this book is really a soul food cookbook, in that it’s about nourishment. As Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams, the mother-daughter authors of Soul Food Love told us, soul food refers to “the spirit in which the food was prepared. You feed your family and sustain them, both emotionally and physically.”
Must-Make Recipes: Seafood Stew with Cream and Fennel, Curtis’s Favorite Potato Salad, Manchego Crackers, Lemongrass Chicken Wings, and Winter Citrus Tart with Rosemary Whipped Cream.
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