Review by Booklist Review
Mistakes happen, especially in the kitchen: look away and something's burnt, charred, scorched or any other variation of the same process. But burnt food is not always a bad thing. Peternell (Almonds, Anchovies, and Pancetta, 2018; Twelve Recipes, 2014) helps readers turn their kitchen mishaps into delicious dishes. Some of the best foods are burnt, like barbecue, caramel, and roux. Burnt your toast? Make cheesy onion bread pudding. Really roasted your vegetables? Try roasted vegetable salad with ginger, lime, and sour cream. Along with great recipes, this book offers cooking tips on common ingredients and how to use them, cute illustrations, and photos reminiscent in style of those found in a family album. Peternell shows readers that burnt food is nothing to fear and is just another step--perhaps even a new beginning--in the culinary journey.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Chef Peternell (Almonds, Anchovies, and Pancetta) applies his Chez Panisse pedigree to underwhelming fare to easily prove that "the humblest can be delicious, the good made great." Starting with the title dilemma, Peternell suggests using burnt toast to lend character to cheesy onion bread pudding. Then it's on to overcooked vegetables, where figgy dressing covers the sins of over-roasted veggies. A chapter on packaged foods offers new hope for canned soup and beans, and even tins of oily fish, as with a saffron, fennel, and almond pasta with sardines. A section entitled "What They Shoulda Done" is full of opinionated tips on revising classic dishes, with tweaked takes such as "unthick" clam chowder ("soup spoons should be at rest, not standing") that's thinned out using liquid from canned clams and canned corn. A half-dozen recipes are devoted to overcoming the bland attributes of boneless chicken parts, including flavorful chipotle chicken thighs with cumin and honey. Peternell's dry sense of humor is the main ingredient in a collection of "old man" cocktails: the "Crazy Old Man" is equal parts absinthe and brandy, while the "Wise Old Man" is an eight-ounce glass of water. To err is human but to repair divine in this handy and hilarious manual. Agent: Sharon Bowers, Miller Bowers Griffin Literary Management. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Maybe burnt toast isn't so bad: Peternell (Twelve Recipes) writes that his is a "cookbook full of just such success stories of bad food made good." The recipes mostly use shelf-stable ingredients and explain how home cooks can deploy their cupboards to their advantage. For example, burnt toast can be pulverized and added to meatballs; over-cooked vegetables can be turned into pasta sauce; really well-done meat can be tenderized by adding a few more ingredients. Peternell's personal version of a useful cupboard involves canned goods, sardines (for pasta with sardines), and dressings, but he also shows home cooks how to make the most of other ingredients that they might also already have on hand (beans; heavy cream). The book is peppered with amusing asides about Peternell's cooking experiences, and recipes are augmented with full-color photographs and illustrations of ingredients. VERDICT Fun, easy-to-make recipes for the "burnt out" home cook.--Barbara Kundanis, Longmont P.L., CO
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