[.ca] Simply Bishop's Easy Seasonal Recipes (ISBN 1550549499)

Amazon.ca:
Many of the recipes in Simply Bishop's, the eponymous Vancouver restaurateur's third cookbook, were created for a class Bishop and his chef, Dennis Green, taught to showcase local foodstuffs harvested and prepared according to the rhythms of the year. With ingredients such as morels, chanterelles, duck breasts, and heirloom tomatoes, these are recipes for special occasions. Keeping to the book's title, however, the introduction lists several good ideas for lessening the hassle of entertaining: "One secret ... is to keep it simple. Another secret is to plan. A third ... is to prepare dishes or parts of dishes ahead of time." For instance, in a section about stocks, Bishop suggests the time-saving shortcut of freezing stock in stackable containers and storing it in zip- lock bags. He also includes a recipe for a stock based on corn cobs, illustrating his desire to experiment and avoid waste. Since the theme is seasonal, Bishop cross-references the sections of the book--from appetizers to dessert--to the appropriate seasons. Full-page colour photos of finished dishes appear every four to six pages, alternating with smaller, uncaptioned black-and-whites, usually vegetable gardens, grocery counters, or close-ups of cooking procedures. The simplicity of these elite recipes is admirable, but occasionally beside the point. Some main ingredients are often expensive and may not be available in small towns. Also, some dishes have many clashing ingredients, typifying the excesses of fusion cuisine, as with the halibut fillet sandwiched between a pesto sauce and red lentils. That said, many of the celebratory dinners herein will have guests asking for seconds. A meal of Slow-cooked Pork Shoulder with Pan-roasted Vegetables followed by Spiced Poached Pears with Red Wine Caramel is a crowd pleaser, no matter how simple the preparation. --Ted Whittaker

Simply SUPERB!:
An excellent cookbook with easy to follow recipes. We own all of his books and while each one is excellent, Simply Bishop's probably stands out as the best of all.