Review: Alice Waters' - The Art of Simple Food & How to Pick a Peach by Russ Parsons

K and I really like to cook and eat. Mostly I find the recipes that sound potentially yummy, and convince K that he really wants to make them. Our two favorite foodie books we've bought in the last year are probably The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution and How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table. Both are these books are *awesome* in their own way.

The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution has great simple recipes. K and I belong to this CSA called Eat With The Seasons. This gives us good access to fresh produce grown in California. Alice Waters' book emphasizes using fresh ingredients and simple recipes that bring out the flavors. Everything we've made from here has been easy to make (we haven't screwed up any recipes yet) and yummy. The tomato bruschetta recipe takes 4 ingredients (tomatoes, basil, olive oil, salt), and is highly recommended. Another recipe I really like is the apple tart, which besides making the tart, calls for apples, butter and sugar. You can't really go wrong with that!

How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table describes the produce that's fresh each season, provides some history on said produce, and tells you how to choose the best fruit/vegetable out of the bunch. The "how to choose the best" is my favorite feature. I never knew how to tell when anything is ripe, now I just open the book and read a short paragraph. This book also has simple recipes like the Alice Waters' book, mostly focused on bringing out the flavors of the particular ingredient.

Anyhow, I really like both of these books. They are a bit different from the straight up recipe books, but are both good reads and reference books.