[.ca] The Anatomy of a Dish (ISBN 1579651895)

From Amazon.com:
Diane Forley, chef and proprietor of New York City's Verbena restaurant, has been praised for dishes that are delicious yet "disarmingly simple." This is one of the true tightrope acts in professional cooking. The Anatomy of a Dish, Forley's debut cookbook, shows how to think about ingredients and demonstrates the various ways to prepare and cook them to their greatest advantage. Forley considers the relatedness of fruits and vegetables, grains, roots, and tubers, and how their botanic lineages play out in recipes and menus. A good deal of this information is spelled out in clear charts with lists of subsequent recipes. These are Forley's keys to simplicity. There are three basic sections to the book: Building a Dish, Developing a Menu, and Concluding with a Sweet. Building a Dish includes chapters such as "Vegetable Studies," "Salads," "Soups and Stews," "Grains, Beans, and Pasta," "Savory Pastries," and "Breads," the building blocks to the full menus to come when entrée dishes--fish, shellfish, poultry, meat, and game--are added. The roasted beets in "Vegetable Studies" turn up later in Ruby Risotto with Winter Greens and Horseradish Crème Fraîche; the roasted eggplant purée reappears in Eggplant and Garlic Stew with Merguez Sausage. The Anatomy of a Dish is a beautifully designed and innovative cookbook with over 200 recipes. It's not for the timid or the new cook, but it definitely offers a leg up for the cook who wants to get inside the working mind of an accomplished chef. --Schuyler Ingle

A Recipe Collection:
This volume contains a series of recipes, grouped according to dish. It has much the same format as most standard cookbooks: vegetable dishes, salads, soups, seafood, meat, desserts, etc. The dishes reflect the unique culinary approach of author/chef Forley and most are fairly complex and delicious. The skill of the home cook using this book would need to be moderate to advanced; the available cooking time, fairly extensive. What is disappointing-- or actually somewhat misleading, given the way the book is being promoted-- is how little educational information is presented. The volume is touted as a new approach to cookery, based on a botanist's information about the plants that serve as the foundation for Forley's dishes. True, charts of botanical family trees are provided, listing the plants according to type. What is missing is any kind of theory that allows us cooks to use this information. Forley says that it can be instructive to think in botanical terms rather than according to standard edibility groupings of vegetables or according to times that plants ripen. Unfortunately, she doesn't guide us in any ways to employ this knowledge of plants' flowering types. She says she has gotten far using this scientific information, but a reader gets the sense she pays short shrift to her intuition and taste buds, preferring to cloak her instinctive experiments in academic terminology. She does not explain how her knowledge led her to combine different vegetables and herbs, or to build from basics into a full-bodied dish. She simply asserts that the botanical genealogy charts promote these types of skills. In the end, what the reader gets is a collection of recipes with a theoretical idea tacked on. If you are interested in tasting the dishes that are served in the author's restaurant, Verbena, or want another chef's cookbook, this may fill the bill. If you are seeking a theory-driven, educational book about culinary skills, look a bit further-- there are several on the shelves right now, including Culinary Artistry, Healthy 1-2-3, Sauces, and Great Tastes Made Simple.

Sophisticated Food Organized around Plant Groups:
Neat background that the author provides of her interest in having a garden as vital part of her restaurant has turned into this passion to plan and create dishes and menus around plant groupings. She builds on this by providing the normal dining classifications of appetizers, soups, salads, etc., but by forming and explaining how she utilizes this plant class system. There are exceptional creative stuff here, e.g. Artichoke Bruschetta, Lemon Porridge with Asparagus and Basil, Ruby (Beet) Risotto with Winter Greens, Sauteed Scallops with Onion Pan Gravy, Sauteed Flounder with Braised Rhubarb, Short Rib Terrine, Quinoa-Crusted Chicken. Working with veggies, fruits and grains, this concept will start you thinking and dreaming up your own variations of this plant classification scheme. Fascinating stuff to read, try and explore.

Gorgeous to look at ... Hard to see:
With great enthusiasm, I opened this much-raved-about cookbook which is a Christmas present for my husband, the foodie and avid cookbook collector. It looks to be a fascinating story and a completely new take on cooking. Here's the problem for me. Beautiful as it is, with this book, the art director was WAY too much in charge. Art directors tend not to be as concerned as writers (and READERS) about actually being able to read a book easily. Looks and originality in layout are far more important. The result: much of the text is in what appears to be 8-point font size and less. It's layed out in a column format, sometimes 2 columns, usually 3. Compounding the problem, the small text is often printed in colors, so, for example, we have what appears to be gray text on a cream colored page. Additionally, most pages have at least 3 font styles ... so you have serif, sans serif, and italics all on the same page. My advice: carefully study one of the sample pages online, if possible ... or go physically examine this book before buying. It's gorgeous, but this is a case of good looks winning out over good (layout) sense. Cooks need to be able to glance down at a recipe while standing and easily see what their ingredients and directions are. Not the case here.

A mouth-watering compendium of delicious dishes:
Compiled by Diane Forely (Chef and Proprietor of the Verbena Restaurant, New York City), The Anatomy Of A Dish is a mouth-watering compendium of delicious dishes that cover every aspect and stage of sumptuous dining. After the interesting and informative preambles "Why Botanical Studies"; "My Garden and My Kitchen"; and "About This Books", each recipe is organized into one of the three major sections: "Building a Dish"; "Developing a Menu"; and "Concluding with a Sweet". Enhanced with superbly presented, full-color photography by Victor Schrager, as well as a list of definitions, a bibliography, acknowledgments, and an index, The Anatomy Of A Dish offers palate pleasing, appetite satisfying, gourmet recommended fare that ranges from Mixed Grain Pilaf; Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Avocado Cream; Toasted Angel Hair Pasta in Shiitake Broth; and Braised Octopus; to Tamarind-Marinated Flank Steak; Quinoa-Crusted Chicken; Pan-Roasted Duck Breast with Pineapple Chutney; and Frozen Mocha Roulade.