I've something of a crush on Molly O'Neill since I read her autobiography, Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food and Baseball a couple of years ago. She communicates a love of and respect for food that is unlike many other writers I've encountered. So, when I came across a copy of her book, A Well-Seasoned Appetite at my library's used bookstore, I added it to towering stack in my arms. Published in 1995, it was one of the first of the current crop of cookbooks to combine recipes and essays in this manner, and to organize them by season. She starts with Spring and moves forward through the seasons, allowing for those challenging in between times by including shorter sections devoted to the times of year when it is nearly Summer, but just not quite.
For those of us who always want more with our recipes--more information, more notes and more detail as to how the recipe came into being, then this is a wonderful book to have in the collection. There's not a single recipe in here that doesn't satisfy that desire for more. The only problem I've discovered in reading it is that after just two or three pages, I am absolutely ravenous and in need of instantaneous sustenance (preferably whatever I had just been reading about). Most of the time I have to satisfy my cravings with an apple or a handful of pretzels. I'm hoping that soon, I'll instead get to sate my hunger with her Spinach with Garlic and Lemon or the Sour Cherry Crumble.
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
