Philadelphia, the city I now call home, had its first major restaurant renaissance back in the mid-seventies. Frog, a somewhat fancy restaurant tucked away in an old store front, and its sister eatery, The Commissary, were two of the trail blazers in this rebirth. Both restaurants closed some years ago, but they live on in a catering company as well as in this really terrific cookbook. I inherited my copy of The Frog Commissary Cookbook from my grandmother. She and her sister often had lunch at The Commissary and occasionally visited The Frog for special occasions. They were both partial to the chicken salad they served and my aunt loved their desserts (particularly the carrot cake). I imagine that they both bought copies as soon as they saw them on sale, even though my grandmother rarely cooked.
This is a great cookbook for if you're looking for creative recipes for soups and salads (there's other good stuff in there as well, but these are the sections to which I always tend to return). I learned to make vinaigrettes from this book and often pass their coleslaw off as my own. The best thing about it is that no recipe made it into this book without the exhaustive testing that results from being used regularly in a popular restaurant.
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