Oh happy day in the Burrell household. Yesterday, Cook’s Illustrated arrived, and I haven’t yet gone through it. I scheduled some time this gray and gloomy afternoon to cozy up in my office’s loveseat to read it. And just now, UPS showed up with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Family Cookbook, along with Oliver’s cheat codes for Lego Batman. Which means I’ll be able to slobber over recipes this afternoon, while Oliver and his au pair battle it out in Gotham City until dinner.
Embarrassing to admit, but I learned about Fearnley-Whittingstall and his River Cottage enterprise in Dorset through Gordon Ramsay’s dreadful F-Word, which used to come on BBC America very early Sunday mornings. He was the long-haired bloke helping Ramsay with his backyard turkeys and pigs. I liked his straightforward talk about animal husbandry, so I ran out this summer and bought his River Cottage Meat Book, even though I’d been warned about some graphic shots of a cow being slaughtered. Meh. I grew up in the country. It ain’t pretty, but I’ve seen it all before.
Anyway, I haven’t cooked from RCM yet, so I guess it’s kind of funny I’m onto the next book. My husband and son are the big meat eaters around here; perhaps this winter I’ll cook from it. The RCFC, though, promises to be more useful in the short-term. It’s broken up into sections like “flour,” “eggs,” “sugar & honey,” and “the cupboard.” The recipes look approachable, tasty, and something I can get Oliver interested in eating. There’s even a chapter about how to make your own salt! This excites me, given that I regularly make stuff like butter, lard, and cheese … why not salt?.
I’ll give a more thorough review of this cookbook once I’ve cooked from it a bit. Till then, I’m off to armchair cook.
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