Your Organic Kitchen: The Essential Guide to Selecting and Cooking Organic Foods - Hardcover

Cool, Jesse Ziff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579541666 ISBN 13: 9781579541668

Publisher: Rodale Books, 2000

Synopsis

Organic foods are the fastest-growing trend in cooking. In Your Organic Kitchen, nationally known chef and restauranteur Jesse Ziff Cool shows you the how's and why's of cooking with organics, from stocking your organic pantry to combining seasonal flavors and creating exciting, elegant dishes. Best of all, she offers up a treasure trove of 160 magnificent recipes that reflect her love of food and her commitment to sustainable agriculture and cuisine.

About this title

About the Author

Jesse Ziff Cool is the chef-proprietor of Flea St. Cafe and jZcool Eating and Catering Company in Menlo Park, California, and the Cool Cafe at the art museum at Stanford University. She has been using organic ingredients in her restaurants for more than 26 years. All of Jesse's restaurants use as many organic products as possible--about 85 percent. She is an active advocate and supporter of sustainable agriculture and cuisine. Jesse is a board member of the Chefs Collaborative 2000, a group of more than 1,500 chefs nationwide who are devoted to educating the public and other chefs about the importance of sustainable agriculture. She is a spokesperson for Small Planet Foods, a leading organic food producer and the author of Breakfast in Bed, Tomatoes: A Country Garden Cookbook, and Onions: A Country Garden Cookbook.

From the Inside Flap

For more than 26 years, Jesse Ziff Cool has been dazzling customers with innovative culinary creations prepared from fresh, local organic ingredients. At her Flea St. Cafe in Menlo Park, California, about 85 percent of the food served is organic. Jesse grew up in a loving family who respected the old traditional ways of growing, gathering, and preparing foods, and she passed down these values to her own children. As down-to-earth as she is talented, Jesse embodies the organic philosophy and lifestyle. In other words, she walks the walk.

Now you, too, can walk along with Jesse. In Your Organic Kitchen, she extends a welcoming hand and shares with you all that you'll need to know about how--and why--to embrace the booming organic movement. Much more than a cookbook, Your Organic Kitchen provides a history of organic farming, convincing answers to the question "Why choose organic?," detailed instructions on how to stock your organic pantry, and hundreds of practical kitchen tips on cooking organically.

Still, the recipes comprise the heart and soul of Your Organic Kitchen. When Jesse opens her recipe box, she reveals a veritable treasure chest of 160 tantalizing creations that showcase organic seasonal ingredients. Because produce changes during each season, the recipes in Your Organic Kitchen are divided into eight seasons instead of the usual four. With delights like early spring's Orange-Steamed Chicken and Asparagus, midsummer's Zesty Zucchini Quesadillas, autumn's Pork Chops with Cherry Port Sauce, and the deep of winter's Parsnip and Beet Soup with Dill Cream, cooks will be inspired throughout the year. In addition to Jesse's own recipes, you'll find tasty contributions from eight of her chef-friends, including Alice Waters, Nora Pouillon, and Michael Romano.

A varied combination of meat, poultry, seafood, and vegetarian dishes ensure that Your Organic Kitchen will please every palate, and 120 lush color photographs make this book a savory feast for the senses.

Reviews

In this easy-to-navigate cookbook, Ziff Cool, proprietor of jZcool restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif., and author of Breakfast in Bed, praises the flavor and health benefits of organic produce. A section titled "Why Organic?" explains that "before 1900, all food was organically grown," so the fad for heirloom tomatoes is really a return to the food-raising practices of centuries. Cool proudly relates that she raises chickens in the backyard of her suburban Palo Alto home, which is known as the best after-school-snack house among her son's friends. After the first two chapters, which explain how to shop for organic produce, readers may head straight for the closest co-op. However, recipes are organized into eight mini-seasons, so if you're wondering what you should do with those early springtime fresh strawberries, or those portobellos you impulsively bought, recipes such as Strawberry-Chocolate Cobbler and Stuffed Portobello Burgers, with easy instructions and tips, will help. There are also a number of meat and fowl dishes, including Port-Braised Lamb Shanks and Pork 'N' Pumpkin Noodles. Yet some recipes call for ingredients, such as chicken broth in Creamy Autumn Soup, that are not exactly fresh from the farmer's stall. The strongest points are fruit-based recipes and desserts, such as Persimmon-Berry Crisp and Rosemary Grilled Figs. If Cool had included more of the unusual vegetables and fruits that are now available at local farmers' markets, these recipes might have melded better with her laudable philosophy. Photographs by Lisa Koenig not seen by PW. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although some people are attracted by vegetarianism's ethical and health claims, others argue that the central principle of good eating is that foods be organic, raised without pesticides or chemically enhanced fertilizers. Jesse Ziff Cool's Your Organic Kitchen has recipes including red meats, but her emphasis on organic produce skews her toward a diet lower in meat use than customary. Her recipes, arranged by seasons, attract with smart, simple ideas such as enhancing ordinary creamed peas and potatoes with Gorgonzola and chives. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1579541666
• ISBN 13: 9781579541668
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304