The Kitchen Reader - It Ain't All About the Cookin' by Paula Deen

February's The Kitchen Reader book is Paula Deen's memoir, It Ain't All About The Cookin'. In Australia, we are not exposed to Paula Deen, but I did have a vague idea of who she was through reading other people's blogs, and knew that she was famous for using lots of butter in her cooking.


Paula's story is very inspiring. Hers is a true case of rags to riches off the back of her own labour (and with some help from loyal family and friends), with a bit of risk taking along the way that paid off. Paula's business grew from delivering sandwiches to Savannah offices through The Bag Lady business, to the multi-million dollar restaurant, television and publishing empire that it is today. Paula has even appeared in a movie (Elizabethtown), showing how far she has come from the cheerleader who fell in love with the wrong guy and married him against her parents' wishes. Along the way, she conquered the loss of her parents, a lack of funds, agoraphobia and a shiftless husband.


Paula's book is no holds barred - she even discloses some of her own dirty laundry, inviting the reader to make their own judgements. I personally liked her more for disclosing that she isn't a saint, unlike the many sanitised celebrities that enter our loungerooms. As Paula says, telling secrets is a great gift you give to others - tell a secret, get one back. She also refuses to pretend to be someone she's not. For example, in the Foreword, Paula states that she is a cook, not a chef. When she gets her own cooking show, Paula's Home Cooking, and her producer asked her to take "princess bites", she refuses, and tastes the food as robustly as she would in her own home.


The book is peppered with some of Paula's most famous and favourite Southern recipes, many of which sound delicious - who could go past a good beef stroganoff or Mississippi mud cake? I have bookmarked the recipes (because there is no recipe index), and hope to try some of them one day soon.


I love the fact that Paula involved her family in her enterprises so that her businesses are true family businesses. Their involvement was not always willing (at least in the case of her sons), but it gave them an opportunity to grow and prosper together as they overcame the odds to build up a successful food empire. The importance of family is evident throughout the book, and Paula's belief in this fact helped her to deal with the initial rejection of her step-daughter on her second marriage.


Despite the very serious subject matter that is raised in Paula's book, her story is told with a sense of good humour. There are also some great characters in Paula's life for whom she has a very evident affection - her second husband, Michael, and her producer, Gordon Elliott, are standouts.


I enjoyed It Ain't All About the Cookin' a lot. I admire Paula's gutsiness, initiative and obvious zest for life, and I think I could learn a lot from her in those respects. I could imagine there are plenty of people who might not like Paula's style, which is forceful and no holds barred, but I think she's a pretty amazing woman, and I am so glad that we got to read this book.


If you would like to hear other perspectives on this book, check out The Kitchen Reader blogroll.

The Kitchen Reader - What We Eat When We Eat Alone

The January book for The Kitchen Reader group is What We Eat When We Eat Alone by Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin. As the title suggests, this book examines the question of what people eat when they eat alone, and why.

The book is broken down into chapters which deal with different aspects of people eating alone, and explores issues such as differences between what men and women eat when dining alone, the reason for people's choices, their favourite dishes, and recipes for some of the dishes mentioned.

Unfortunately, I didn't really get into this book. I started reading it with great expectations, as the title would suggest it was a book written for someone like me, but ultimately, I found it as interesting as reading someone else's grocery list. I also didn't relate to the recipes - most of them were things that I would not dream of making. Perhaps this is because even though I often eat alone, I am more than happy to make myself a proper meal. Sure, I will often divide that meal into portions, freeze it and proceed to eat it for the next week, but I never feel the need to skimp on cooking for myself or to eat something gross and lacking in nutrition, in bed with my cat while I read a book just because I eat alone. OK, perhaps I am taking bits from the most extreme scenarios in this book and stringing them together, but I really didn't relate to what most of the people interviewed for this book ate alone. Maybe it's because I have never had to deal with the demands of regularly cooking for others, so I don't appreciate what a release it can be for people when they finally get a chance to eat alone. Whatever the reason, this book did not hit any chords with me.

To see what the other Kitchen Readers thought about this book, visit The Kitchen Reader blogroll.

The Kitchen Reader Cookie Exchange - Gingerbread Men

The lovely Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort, who organises The Kitchen Reader book club, kindly suggested that we bake a Christmas cookie that means something to us and post about it this month instead of reading a book. This is a relief, because I have no idea where I'd find the time to read and review a book this month.


Whether this be strange or not, baking biscuits is not a Christmas tradition for my family, so there is not a particular family Christmas cookie recipe that I can share. Accordingly, I have decided instead to share a recipe from my recent tradition of baking for friends as Christmas gifts. The recipes that I choose to make for friends are important to me because I have selected them as something that captures my imagination sufficiently that I believe it would make an enjoyable gift.


In this case, I have chosen to post about the gingerbread men that I made as "gifts" for our work bake sale, which was held to raise money for the Salvation Army Christmas appeal. There are many, many recipes for gingerbread men; however, I chose to make the recipe from the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook, because other people have spoken highly of this book, and it is a recent acquisition for me that I wanted to trial.


The recipe made an industrial quantity (48) gingerbread men, so I halved it and still ended up with 32 gingerbread men (presumably because some of mine were a little thinner than they were supposed to be). I didn't taste these myself because I donated them all to the bake sale, but I was reliably informed that they were popular sellers - surely the word would have spread if they weren't good? Their popularity leads me to assume that this was a good gingerbread men recipe, and I can say that they smelled wonderful while baking. (Also, next day, a director told me that her children liked them and wanted more.)


When decorating the gingerbread people (because that it what I must hereafter call them), I made little girls:

and little boys:

and paired them together for sale purposes.

I am sure that you have your own special gingerbread recipe, but in case you want to try this one, a half batch requires the following ingredients:


550g plain flour
2 1/2 g salt
2 1/2g baking soda
7 1/2g ground ginger
2 1/2g ground cinnamon
2 1/2g ground nutmeg
200g butter
200g brown sugar
160g golden syrup or honey
1 egg
2 egg yolks


Sift the flour, baking soda and spices together into a bowl and set aside.


In a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugar and golden syrup together until light and creamy. Add the egg and egg yolks into the mixture as a stream, still beating, and mix until well combined. Turn the mixer speed to low, and add the flour mixture to the batter in 3 batches until just combined.


(I needed way more flour than the recipe required to get a workable dough. Originally, I thought that the softness of my dough would be counteracted by chilling, but I found that I still had to add more flour to get a dough stiff enough to roll out.)


Divide the dough into 2 and flatten each piece into a disc, and chill for at least 20 minutes.


Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and soften slightly, then roll out each disc between 2 sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 3mm. Cut out gingerbread people using an appropriate cookie cutter, and place each biscuit onto a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silicone mat.


Bake the biscuits for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Remove the baked biscuits from the oven, and allow them to cool on the trays. (This helps to prevent them from warping, bending, breaking or becoming marked, which may happen if you move them.)


Once the gingerbread people are cool, pipe features on with royal icing and decorate with lollies if you like. For the boys, I stuck on Skittle buttons with royal icing, and for the girls, I gave them sugar heart necklaces, and dresses and hair ribbons made of sliced musk sticks.


For more great Christmas cookie ideas from the other Kitchen Readers, go to the Kitchen Reader blogroll.

The Kitchen Reader - The Warmest Room in the House

November's pick for The Kitchen Reader is The Warmest Room in the House by Steven Gdula. The book's title comes from the author's introduction, where he states that:

My family's kitchen was the warmest room in the house.

It's kind of hard writing this review today, as every room here is the warmest room in the house - our maximum temperature was 35 degrees Celsius, and it is still currently 26 degrees outside (and way hotter inside!).

However, Gdula is not referring to the temperature of his family's kitchen; rather, for him, it was the fact that the kitchen was the room where his extended family came together and stayed together as a family, thereby keeping their traditions and their pasts alive, which made it "the warmest room".

The Warmest Room in the House is a history of the American home kitchen in the twentieth century. It works its way, in chapters divided into decades, through developments and changes in the American home kitchen. Gdula assists readers to understand how the political and social changes which took place inside and outside the home led to corresponding changes in the kitchen. This made Gdula's book an interesting read, despite being purely historical; I would never have imagined that outside events could have such an influence on the domestic sphere of individuals.

The kitchen of the first decade of the twentieth century was often a dark and depressing place where only the servants entered. The labour was hard, and women who did not have servants spent much of their time in the preparation and preservation of food. There were none of the mod cons such as electric or gas ovens and refrigerators, and canning and other means of preserving were important.

During the 1920s, sweets and soft drinks replaced the prohibited alcohol as a means for people to indulge, which was counter-balanced by the fashion for small figures to fit into flapper fashion. It was the decade in which boxed cereal and sliced bread first hit the shelves, revolutionising the way in which people ate, as these were the beginning of "convenience" foods.

The 1930s saw the introduction of many new kitchen gadgets to take the labour out of kitchen chores, such as pressure cookers and sink garbage disposal units. Another important innovation was the gable topped milk carton, because it could be resealed without having a lid.

In the 1940s, the war led to unexpected developments in the home kitchen, as freeze-dried meat, the microwave, Teflon coating and aluminium foil came about through scientific research for defence purposes. Additionally, the stimulus to the economy started by the war effort led to affluence in the kitchen, by contrast to the Depression years of the previous decade.

Further technological developments in the 1950s meant that people could spend less time in the kitchen, and leisure time came into vogue. Bigger families also led to bigger homes with bigger kitchens, and the development of the open plan living area in ranch style house meant that people could interact with family and friends while preparing food. The invention of the modern electric refrigerator during the 50s revolutionised the way in which food was stored. In this decade, the beginning of the long association between men and barbecues also began.

The 1960s began people's awareness of potential food contamination through the very chemicals that were being used to increase yields, such as pesticides, commencing with Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. This led to the birth of the organic food industry. "Non-food" items such non-dairy creamers and artificial sweeteners were invented. The 1960s was also the decade when Julia Child first beamed into American homes, and urged people to ditch convenience foods in favour of cooking from scratch. Weight Watchers and similar organisations were also born during the health conscious 60's.

In the 1970s, as both men and women entered into the workforce in greater numbers and became time poor, technological advances in gadgets (such as the food processor and the Crock Pot) and convenience foods (such as Hamburger Helper and frozen dinners) became popular. People also became more familiar with authentic international cuisine such as Chinese, Italian and Greek.

The 1980s saw the battle of the bulge launch into full swing, as studies showed that Americans had become unhealthy on high fat and sugar laden diets. Diet books and diet foods were all the rage (as they still are today). Poultry and fish became more popular in American diets than ever before. Chickens became easier and cheaper to raise due to scientific advances in disease control, which helped poultry's popularity on the dinner table. Americans also branched out into more exotic international cuisine, such as Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai. Beautification of the kitchen came into vogue in the 80s through Martha Stewart.

In the 1990s, "Frankenfoods" (genetically modified foods) were approved for sale by the FDA, continuing the trend of technological advancements in the kitchen, while at the other end of the spectrum, nostalgia overtook the kitchen, with the re-emergence of the martini and retro-inspired kitchenwares becoming popular. This was also the era when people stockpiled non-perishable foods in preparation for the Millennium Bug which threatened to bite at the turn of the next century. Increases in the price of food during the 90s saw the return in popularity of foods such as the Hamburger Helper, originally developed to help people to save time but which now also helped them to save money by making more of less. The 90s was also the dawn of online grocery shopping - another technological advancement which meant that people could attend to the necessities without ever leaving the house.

Gdula finishes his history of the American kitchen with a short chapter on where the American kitchen may go from here. He concludes with this summation of the role of the American kitchen:

In its recipes we find our past; in the daily preparation of its meals we celebrate the present; and in our desire to share these recipes, meals, and moments with family and friends again, we look hopefully toward a warm and comforting future.

Although I am an Australian, I found Gdula's book interesting, because there are obviously strong parallels between the development of the Australian and the American kitchen, and we have been influenced by similar world events and share many aspects of American popular culture, from television shows through to groups such as Weight Watchers. I enjoyed learning how and why many things that we now take for granted were created, and after reading this history, I am appreciative that I have a modern twenty-first century kitchen rather than a labour intensive turn of the twentieth century kitchen.

Gdula clearly demonstrates how wider social, economic and political issues impacts on the domestic life of all Americans (and of course, everyone). Although The Warmest Room in the House is a history book, it is certainly never dull, and makes interesting reading for foodies and modern historians alike.

The Kitchen Reader - My Life in France by Julia Child

The Kitchen Reader book for October is My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Alex worked with Julia in the last year of her life to put together this book from her memories and from old letters that the Childs and their friends and relatives had sent over the years. The idea for the book had first been floated by Paul Child, Julia's husband, in 1969, but it was not until shortly before Julia's death in 2004 that the idea came to fruition. It was a close call, as Alex had to finish the book after Julia's death.


My Life in France documents the lives of Paul and Julia Childs, not only during their time in France, but also during Paul's diplomatic transfers to Norway and back to America before his retirement. Through its pages, we learn how Paul and Julia came to be in France, and how Julia came, first to cooking and earning a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu, then to writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking (MtAoFC) and her subsequent TV career. I learned for the first time that Julia co-authored MtAoFC with two French women, Simone Beck (known as Simca) and Louisette Bertholle, and that the project to write a book on French cookery for American women was actually started by Simone and Louisette. It was not until their original publisher rejected their efforts and suggested that they find an American collaborator to help them that Julia's involvement with MtAoFC commenced. None of Julia's achievements came without considerable downs and lots of hard work. Perhaps the most striking aspects of Julia's personality which shine through in My Life in France are Julia's determination and committed work ethos. Without them, MtAoFC would never have been published.


The pages of My Life in France are littered with colourful characters, including the larger than life Julia and her sister, Dort, through to their cantankerous father, John McWilliams, the Childs' French maids, Coo-Coo and Jeanne-la-folle ("crazy Jeanne"), Chef Bugnard, Julia's teacher at Le Cordon Bleu, Julia's devoted friend Avis De Voto (who is integral in MtAoFC finally being published), Judith Jones, the editor who made MtAoFC happen, and last but certainly not least, Paul Child, the love of Julia's life. The relationship between Paul and Julia is remarkable, and I would consider myself extremely blessed if I find a soulmate who makes me feel like Paul made Julia feel.


Paul and Julia dubbed their apartment in Paris "Roo de Loo" (as it was located at 81 Rue de l'Universite), and it is here that much of the action in the book takes place. Although Paul and Julia are forced to leave Paris after 4 years for Marseilles due to Paul's work commitments, their hearts remain in Paris. While in Paris, Julia met Simca and Louisette, and together they started a cooking school called L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes ("The School of the Three Hearty Eaters") before their book collaboration began. When Julia collaborated with Simca and Louisette on what was to become MtAoFC, there were so many hurdles to the book's publication that I am sure that Julia often had reason to recall one of Paul's favourite phrases, Illegitemus non carborundum est ("Don't let the bastards grind you down").


Julia's successful TV career began in 1962 after she returned to the US as a means of promoting MtAoFC, at a time when she had never even watched television. It was a baptism of fire, as the original three shows were filmed without interruption, and as Julia herself said, she was a complete amateur. However, those first three shows were popular enough for her show, The French Chef, to become a regular television program.


Child residences which feature prominently with Roo de Loo include their Provence getaway situated near the Becks called La Pitchoune (meaning "The Little Thing" and dubbed "La Peetch" for short), and their final home at 103 Irving Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which Avis spotted for them, and from whence Julia's famous kitchen was relocated to the Smithsonian Institute.


The book's conclusion is rather poignant, as Julia's relatives and friends begin "to slip off into the wide blue yonder". However, a life as rich as Julia's gives reason to celebrate rather than to mourn. We are incredibly lucky that, thanks to Paul Child's original idea, Julia's dedication to that idea and Alex Prud'homme's ability to bring it to fruition, we are able to share some of the details of Julia's life, and be inspired ourselves.


My Life in France has a wonderful tale to tell, which is interesting and inspiring regardless of whether or not you have an interest in food or have seen Julia's shows or own MtAoFC. It gives readers an inside look at an extraordinary life and at a number of pivotal historical eras in modern European and American history.

The Kitchen Reader - Julie & Julia

This month, The Kitchen Reader group is reviewing Julie & Julia - 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment (Penguin) by Julie Powell.

I had read this book earlier this year, but needed to re-read it to remind myself of the finer details. This book has become the flavour of the month because of the movie based on it, but I am yet to see the movie. For the purposes of this review, that is a good thing, because my comments are not influenced by the movie.

This book evolved from Julie Powell's blog, The Julie/Julia Project. Julie's blog chronicled her progress in making every recipe in the American classic cookbook, Mastering The Art of French Cooking ("MtAoFC") by Julia Child, in a 12 month period. The Julie/Julia Project commenced when Julie's husband Eric suggested that she attend culinary school as a way to escape the rut that she felt trapped in with her life as a secretary living in the outer boroughs of New York. Julie countered Eric with the fateful statement that, if she wanted to learn to cook, she'd just cook her way through MtAoFC (which she had snaffled from her Mom's house in the spring on the hunch that she'd found something important). Rather than being dissuaded, Eric suggested that Julie should do just that and write a blog about it - and so the Julie/Julia Project was born.

Julie & Julia chronicles, not only Julie's progress through MtAoFC, but also her interactions with family, friends and total strangers during the project and the ups and downs of her life. We are offered a "fly on the wall" perspective as Julie conquers her fear and loathing of eggs, then moves on to challenges such as tracking down and extracting bone marrow, making various types of aspic, cooking live lobsters and boning a duck. There are both triumphs and failures, not to mention Julie's incidental battles with a couch, the plumbing in the couple's apartment and an unintended science experiment under the dish rack.

Interspersed with Julie's story are reconstructed snippets from Julia Child's life with her husband Paul. Julia's story gives me hope because it wasn't until she was around my age that she began to cook, and discovered a whole new life for herself.

The contemporary timeframe in which Julie & Julia is set is readily apparent through, among other things, its pop culture references (Julie quotes Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, and is an avid Buffy fan), and the discussion of 9/11 (Julie worked for a government department that dealt with the families of victims of the tragedy as part of their work in planning the redevelopment of the World Trade Centre site).

Through the Julie/Julia Project, Julie feels transformed, and indeed, her life does change from that of an anonymous suburban secretary to an author with a presence in cyberspace, on television and in print. Julie concludes that, rather than using MtAoFC to learn to cook French food, she was really "learning to sniff out the secret doors of possibility". If both Julie and Julia discovered themselves and their passions through these recipes, then MtAoFC has much to recommend it.

Overall, I enjoyed Julie & Julia, although Julie's anecdotes were sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying (perhaps like all of us). I was fascinated by the incredibly gross things that Julie sometimes had to do for the various recipes and the lengths required to track down certain ingredients (who would have thought that sugar cubes would be difficult to find?). As a food blogger, I was also interested in Julie's interactions with her blog readers and what motivated her to blog. You can check out the views of the other Kitchen Readers on Julie & Julia by visiting the Kitchen Reader blogroll.

The final word goes to Julia Child:

Bon appetit!

The Kitchen Reader - The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz

(Picture courtesy of http://www.davidlebovitz.com)

I am proud to be a member of a new online book group, The Kitchen Reader. Each month, we vote for a foodie book to be read by the group, and write up our reviews on the last day of the month.

Our first book is The Sweet Life in Paris - Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious and Perplexing City by David Lebovitz. In this book, David describes various aspects of his daily life in Paris through his American eyes.

The book opens with a chapter on David's pre-Parisian existence and the reason why he moved to Paris, followed by a chapter on his trials and tribulations of settling in, with the remaining chapters each dealing with a distinct aspect of Parisian life. Some of the diverse topics covered include dress, manners, fish, coffee, strikes, queue jumping and cheese. The book concludes with David stating that, even though not every day in Paris is sweet, he now counts himself among the quirky people that make Paris a special place.

The standout factor of this book for me is David's humour - on a number of occasions, I found myself chuckling or, in the case of the chapter on David's earlier attempts at the French language, laughing out loud! I was laughing with him, not at him, as I am one of the large numbers of people in English-speaking countries who, sadly, only speak English. One of my favourite anecdotes was David's recounting of how he tried to impress his fellow guests at a dinner party by describing his visit to a statue of the Virgin Mary, when he instead rendered them speechless by confusing the French word for "virgin" with the French word for the male appendage!

If I ever visit Paris again, I am sure that David's etiquette tips will be invaluable. Knowing to dress smartly in public, not to cut the nose off the cheese wedge, to always greet shopkeepers on entering and leaving shops and to not touch anything I don't want to buy are tips that are sure to stand me in good stead. There are also other useful tips, such as where to buy a terrific hot chocolate, how to survive the street where the said hot chocolate shop is located, and to heed mother's tip to "go" before going out because of the dearth of working public conveniences in Paris.

For the cook or baker, this book is liberally peppered with sweet and savoury French or French-style recipes, which is an added bonus. I have not yet had the chance to make any of these recipes, but rest assured I will be when I get the time (to be added to my ever growing list!). Accompanying each recipe is a short anecdote from David about its significance, together with tips for making, storing and/or serving the dish concerned. There is a handy recipe index at the back of the book so that you need not frantically flip through the pages to find that too-die-for expresso caramel icecream recipe or the bacon and blue cheese cake that you have been day-dreaming about. As for me, I have bookmarked the chocolate macarons and the dulce de leche brownies - mmm, mmm. There are also some fabulous sounding main courses that I would like to try my hand at, including the braised turkey in beaujolais noveau with prunes and the chicken tagine with apricots and almonds.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, as it had a little bit of everything - some good travel stories, a sprinkle of humour, a dash of interesting local recipes and some downright interesting and useful information about life in Paris.

Thank you to the founder of The Kitchen Reader, Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort, for establishing this group. I've had fun reading this month's book, and look forward to next month's selection, which is Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Kitchen Apartment. And don't forget to see what the other Kitchen Readers though of David's book by visiting the links in the Kitchen Reader blogroll.