Cookbook of the Week: ‘Seven Spoons’ by Tara O’Brady
By Joanna Prisco
Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week is “ Seven Spoons ,” a collection of more than 100 favorite recipes and stories culled from renowned Canadian blogger Tara O’Brady’s website bearing the same name.
After a decade of developing her culinary skills, expanding her family’s palate, and documenting the results in a tone both ebullient and educational, “Seven Spoons” reads like a best friend’s kitchen diary. That is, if your friend is Anglo-Indian, raised in Ontario, Canada, and delights as equally in preparing crunchy pakoras and spiced hummus as she does timeless cheesecakes and salt-studded chocolate chip cookies.
“My childhood was one without culinary boundaries,” writes O’Brady, describing the different cuisines that peppered her multi-cultural upbringing.
After college, O’Brady moved in with the man who would become her husband, and who added his own Irish and English tastes to the mix. It was through that shared living experience that she began finding her own voice in the kitchen, and ultimately the inspiration to launch Seven Spoons as a blog.
“At some point in that tiny kitchen, I fell in step with the rhythm of cooking,” she writes. “I learned which spices I wanted at arm’s reach, which knife felt right in my hand, and the vinegars that were most useful.
O’Brady shares her journey and her best tips in “Seven Spoons” through dishes that range from easy pasta dinners pulled together quickly after work to celebratory slow-cooked meats to make-ahead snacks to toothsome sweets, all featured alongside the author’s own stunning photography.
“I am, as ever, devoted to the meals of my childhood,” she writes. “But am continually excited by the changing world of food.”
Visit Yahoo Food throughout the week for recipes from “Seven Spoons.”
Check out other cookbooks from Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week:
A Kitchen in France by Mimi Thorisson
