Donovan Robin - The lazy gourmet: magnificent meals made easy

Table of Contents

Whether youre a nervous newbie or a skilled cook with utmost confidence, youre sure to appreciate this smart recipe collection that allows you to put an impressive spread on the table even when youre timepressedwhich for most of us, is 24-7. With The Lazy Gourmet, cooking turns relaxed and satisfying. Imagine that.

Carolyn Jung, James Beard Award-winning food writer and creator of FoodGal.com

I have always considered myself a lazy chef. For me, that means choosing seasonal, local ingredients, and relying on simple preparations to allow those ingredients to shine. In The Lazy Gourmet, Robin and Juliana have taken this approach to a whole new level, transforming lazy into quintessentially elegant.

John Scharffenberger, founder of Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker

Whether youre new to the kitchen or an experienced home chef, youll love The Lazy Gourmet. With its good-humored approach, engaging style, useful culinary information, and delightfully easy and delicious recipes, it takes the stress out of cooking. If you want to prepare sophisticated, exceptional meals for your friends and family but are busy, kitchen-phobic, or just plain lazy, this is the cookbook for you.

Sally Bernstein, editor-in-chief of Sallys Place, www.sallybernstein.com

That cooking is fun is one of the best-kept secrets in some circles, but not here. With infectious enthusiasm, The Lazy Gourmet will inspire both the neophyte and the well-seasoned home cook toward making meals that show how easy it is to love cooking from scratch.

Cheryl Koehler, editor and publisher of Edible East Bay

Each member of my family is very social; we have people dropping by frequently. I often need to pull together a quick meal to share with our dear friends, so The Lazy Gourmet is now my go-to resource for marvelous recipes that impress for less.

Billee Sharp, author of Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It

I LOVE to entertain and I am always searching for great recipes. Juliana Gallin and Robin Donovan have created delicious recipes and easy ideas for parties I will be using for many years. The Lazy Gourmet brings the fun back into the kitchen and puts it right on the table.

Nina Lesowitz, coauthor of The Party Girl Cookbook and Living Life as a Thank You

Everyone has a talent. Some people are excellent doctors, some people love to design clothing. There are folks who make good architects and those who find pleasure and excel as scientists. Me? Theres no question, I love to cook! And I love to teach people how to cook. I know its not rocket science, but it takes patience, hard work, logic, common sense, and a few good cooking skills.

Cooking comes easily to me. Im a fourth-generation chef. My mother was a professional cook, working at a private school planning menus and testing recipes. My grandfather cooked for summer boarders from New York City who came to experience life on a big dairy farm in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. And then there was my great-grandmother. Grandma Coulson was a wonderful all-American cook in a Boston restaurant called Pilgrims Pantry at the turn of the 20th century. For me, there is no doubt, the art of cooking and love of food are deeply ingrained in my soul.

I always say there are two kinds of cooks in the world: those who love to cook because their mother or someone in their family instilled the love of food and cooking in themthats me!and those whose mother just didnt have the knack and furthermore had absolutely zero interest in the kitchen. Out of necessity and interest, the latter kind learns to cook for salvation and hopefully learns to love it.

Thats my objective on my cooking show, Joanne Weirs Cooking Class. I take regular people who love food but are afraid to cook, dont know how to cook, or lack confidence in the kitchen. I teach these students how to make simple dishes that seem complicated. I love this process of standing side by side with students and seeing them go from saying they cant cook to being amazed and proud of their results. Theres that wonderful aha moment when a student says, I made thisand its delicious! I can do it.

But no matter where your expertise and interest in cooking lies, theres a reason why you picked up this book. Obviously you love food, or at least you have an interest in the subject. Either you want to find out what cooking is all about or you want to pick up a few new great recipes to try out on your friends and family. Maybe you want to spend a little more time in the kitchen and hone your culinary skills.

Congratulations! Youve come to the right place. This book is filled with food thats simple, seasonal, fresh, and doable. Here youll find recipes that are perfect for family dinner on Tuesday night but fun, hip, and cool enough to serve your friends when youre entertaining on Saturday evening. And its easy enough for even the novice to do.

All youll need is a good set of knives, a cutting board, a few bowls, a stove, and some good fresh ingredients. The rest is all about patienceand following the recipes and pointers that lie between the covers of this book. You can do it! Remember, its not rocket science. You can have a really fun time in the process.

Joanne Weir

From the day the two of us metas college students moving into a big drafty Victorian in Santa Cruz, Californiawe bonded over food. There were seven women living in the house, including science majors, banjo players, artists, and athletes. We were all very different, but the one thing we agreed on was food. We each contributed a set amount of cash to the food fund each week, and we took turns shopping and cooking dinner. Of course, we were barely out of our teens, and on student budgets, so the food was anything but fancy, but it was good enough to bring the seven of usand a nightly assortment of friends, boyfriends, classmates, and random hangersontogether around the dining room table most nights. There were, of course, plenty of frozen gnocchi and burritos, but there was also homemade calzone using store-bought pizza dough; a legendary rich, cream-based corn and tomato soup adapted from a recipe in The Moosewood Cookbook; and one July evening, when turkeys were inexplicably on sale for an irresistible price, an entire Thanksgiving feast, complete with bread stuffing, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. At best, there were homemade pierogies from someones grandmothers recipe. At worst there was a terribly misguided saut of nopales (Mexican cactus) that, to our dismay, even half a bottle of soy sauce couldnt save.

While we shared food costs and cooking dutiesand a love of eatingour culinary knowledge was anything but equal, with the two of us at opposite ends of the spectrum. Robin, on the one hand, grew up in a food-obsessed family where the primary topic of dinner table conversation was where and what the next meal would be. Having grown up watching (and helping) her mother, a professional restaurant critic and accomplished cook, prepare dinner each night, cooking came naturally to her; she was simply comfortable in the kitchen, not intimidated by complicated recipes or exotic ingredients.

While Robin inherited her mothers kitchen prowess, Juliana, in contrast, cruised through childhood blissfully delighted when meals magically appeared in front of her. While she did master the Toll House cookie at a tender young age, she was generally more interested in eating than cooking. Pringles, candy bars, and four-star meals were all welcomed with equal enthusiasm. Frankly, she never gave cooking much thought until early adulthood, when she was ready to start preparing meals for herself and others. She was beginning to develop an appreciation for good food, but chalked the gourmet cooking abilities of others up to innate magical powers that she simply wasnt lucky enough to possess. She watched with bemusement as friends like Robin took seemingly random piles of meat and produce, mysterious powders, and liquids and transformed them into feasts that caused awestruck guests to burst into spontaneous applause. She wanted to be able to impress friends with dinner party spreads they would still be talking about months later, but she was resigned to the belief that she wasnt cut out to be a cooking whiz.