Cooks reverently adore their cookbooks. We spend years curating exceptional collections, reading and memorizing, and lending with discernment. Some are specifically for learning, others - intended for cooking. Some books I have just for the fabulous photography. I love them all, but they aren’t like children. I do have favourites.
Favourites are comforting old friends I turn to when I need something to rely on. They always tell two stories - the first is in the creator’s content. The second is in the meals and memories prepared from the recipes within. I remember them by the drips and splatters and grains of sugar and salt forever trapped inside their bindings.
If a dream job exists for me, I would be part of the team that brings cookbooks to life. I can hardly imagine something more fascinating and challenging than testing recipes, writing copy, styling images, and editing the final compilation. Heck, I’d be happy to be the person who gets the coffee (in the beginning, anyway).
So you can imagine that I watched with ripe enthusiasm as Chef Michael Symon documented the process of creating his latest cookbook - Simply Symon Suppers. I stayed glued to his Instagram feed. Watching the creativity and sheer volume of intense work and focus required for a team to bring a book into existence was mesmerizing. I geeked out - no shame, I couldn’t get enough. And I couldn’t wait for the book to be released. I put it on my Christmas list with a big old asterisk so my husband would not fail to get the hint.
I was thrilled to find it under the tree. I spent the whole day reading while preparing our Christmas feast. I made the Classic Dressing on page 275 for dinner that very night. The reviews were expectedly raving.
Chef Symon’s book contains recipes that remind me of childhood - cabbage rolls, beef stew, schnitzel, French onion soup, corned beef, pork chops, and lasagna. And I appreciate the more sophisticated dishes that appeal to grown-up me - paella, citrus salad, wheatberry salad with butternut and brussels, braised lamb, pan-roasted duck, and roasted radicchio salad. These recipes temper the classic homestyle offerings with interesting trys. The list goes on, but the recipe that won my heart and moved the book into my pile of favorites was the recipe for American Goulash. You never find recipes for trashy goulash in chefy cookbooks, and I love that Symon included the ‘cheap and cheerful’ nod to his childhood.
Goulash was a staple in our house when I was a kid. It was the thing I made most often for my family when I began cooking at 12. Dead simple and impossible to foul up, it was a meal to stretch out and beef up with whatever was on hand. The recipes - mine and Symon’s are practically the same. Except that in our house, goulash always came with the addition of vegetables - usually peas and corn, the occasional carrot or green bean. So, when I made the Simply Symon Suppers recipe tonight, I added a handful of peas and a serving of corn.
I put the ketchup out, and in an instant, I was back, kicking my brother under the table. It tasted just like a memory.
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