Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Let me begin by saying that I am not a vegetarian. Save for a few very angsty and idealistic years in highschool, I've been a devoted omnivore (though I refuse to eat oysters - they just look too much like snot to me) my whole life. However, Deborah Madison's cookbook, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. There are a number of reasons why I love this cookbook:

1. This woman knows her vegetables, grains, fruits, cheeses, nuts, legumes, etc., etc. She is truly a great cook with a huge breadth of knowledge and it shines through on every page.

2. The book is not written for vegetarians, alone. Her recipes are not designed to be used as substitutes for meat (something which I find is often the case in other vegetarian cookbooks.) I think the quote on the book's cover pretty much sums it up, "The 1,400 recipes in this book are those that I like to cook. If you're a committed vegetarian, you can prepare every recipe in this book. If you're a vegan, you can cook most of them. If you don't attach a title to your eating style, you can cook everything in this book and serve it with meat, fish, or fowl. This is Vegetarian cooking for Everyone."

3. Her recipes are creative and they show her love of food. Reading this book always makes me excited about cooking and opens my eyes to new foods and techniques.

4.Like the Joy of Cooking or the recipes in Cooks Illustrated magazine, it includes a lot of useful information about technique, science, ingredients, etc. I find that including this information makes it much more likely that the recipes will turn out well and that it enables me to apply new techniques, skills, or lessons learned from past mistakes from one dish to others.

5. It just offers so much! At 720+ pages and 1,400 recipes, the book provides an amazing variety of delicious foods.

So if you don't already own a copy, I urge you to get one!

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Let me begin by saying that I am not a vegetarian. Save for a few very angsty and idealistic years in highschool, I've been a devoted omnivore (though I refuse to eat oysters - they just look too much like snot to me) my whole life. However, Deborah Madison's cookbook, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. There are a number of reasons why I love this cookbook:

1. This woman knows her vegetables, grains, fruits, cheeses, nuts, legumes, etc., etc. She is truly a great cook with a huge breadth of knowledge and it shines through on every page.

2. The book is not written for vegetarians, alone. Her recipes are not designed to be used as substitutes for meat (something which I find is often the case in other vegetarian cookbooks.) I think the quote on the book's cover pretty much sums it up, "The 1,400 recipes in this book are those that I like to cook. If you're a committed vegetarian, you can prepare every recipe in this book. If you're a vegan, you can cook most of them. If you don't attach a title to your eating style, you can cook everything in this book and serve it with meat, fish, or fowl. This is Vegetarian cooking for Everyone."

3. Her recipes are creative and they show her love of food. Reading this book always makes me excited about cooking and opens my eyes to new foods and techniques.

4.Like the Joy of Cooking or the recipes in Cooks Illustrated magazine, it includes a lot of useful information about technique, science, ingredients, etc. I find that including this information makes it much more likely that the recipes will turn out well and that it enables me to apply new techniques, skills, or lessons learned from past mistakes from one dish to others.

5. It just offers so much! At 720+ pages and 1,400 recipes, the book provides an amazing variety of delicious foods.

So if you don't already own a copy, I urge you to get one!