"family cookbook" news and stories

Recently, as I was dipping through a copy of my family cookbook in search of one of my mother's favorite recipes, I took a good, long look at the book itself. In addition to being a nice resource, it is also something of an heirloom: in the early 1980's, flush with the joy of culinary experimentation, my mother and my aunts compiled their favorite recipes into the slim volume. Titling it Beyond Rice Krispie Treats, they dedicated it to my grandmother Ida, who famously "couldn't cook, but loved to eat."

The cookbook is heavily influenced by Seventies-era foodways. The recipes are full of fat, sugar, and sodium, and their seasonings tend to be a little mild for contemporary tastes. On the other hand, they also reflect those days immediately after the release of Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking, when average housewives began to explore the wonders of gourmet cookery. In some ways timid, in other ways bold, Beyond Rice Krispie Treats is a hell of a lot of fun.

Flipping through the book, I decided to do my own version of Julie and Julia, trying out some of the Carter-era cooking that my mom's family compiled. When I ran the idea by my Aunt Evie, she was immediately helpful, sending me almost 30 years worth of notes and updates. With Evie's advice, and my own experimentation, I'm hoping to resurrect some seventies classics.

About once a year, I get the bug to make homemade pizza. I always find it to be a messy process, resulting in broken dough and leaky toppings. It's always tasty enough, but by the time I finish with it, I determine that pizza should remain a take-out only item. However, over time I forget this resolve and decide to make it again, only to be smacked with the same realization that it's too much trouble for home cooking.

I made pizza last Sunday, and went through the same process as in the past. Except this time, instead of resolving to abandon the practice, I started to think that maybe I needed to make pizza more often, in order to work out the kinks and have successful pies come out of my oven. Some unknown force must have had a hand in this decision, as on Monday, a pizza cookbook landed in my mailbox. The California Pizza Kitchen Family Cookbook was written by Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield, the co-founders of the chain of the same name.

Written to be accessible to kids (while not pandering to parents), I've found that this book is the exact right speed for me. It starts with three variations on pizza dough and a recipe for a classic tomato sauce. Then they take a break from pizza for the moment, to offer up an assortment of salad and panini recipes (admittedly, those recipes seemed out of place there - I would have put them towards the back since this book bills itself as a pizza cookbook). Finally though we get into the pizzas and the recipes sound delicious and give me such inspiration that in my mind I'm already heading towards the kitchen. The book closes with suggestions for pizza parties for kids, special holiday pizzas (potato pancake pizza, anyone) and finally wraps up with dessert pizzas. It is beautifully photographed and would make a wonderful present for an older kid who was interesting in cooking.