Review: A must have book for serious cooks or just plain deli lovers!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 15, 2012
While reviewing another of Mr. Cowles' interesting cookbooks, I realized that I had neglected to rate and review this terrific one that first introduced me to his writing. I'm a serious cook and cookbook collector with hundreds of print books on food and now about 150 digital examples so far on my Kindle.I love a book that is both well written and with recipes that actually work. There are all too many alleged cookbooks that are just pirated from recipe sources or badly put together or simply don't make good food. Cowles' book is well edited and tells an interesting story as well. It is a book that I recommend highly to the curious or adventurous cook. The recipes are detailed enough that even beginners should be successful. Most of all, the food and the recipes are workable and delightful.My introduction to what is largely Jewish ethnic food came from my mother. She was raised in a Southern Baptist family whose cook for many years kept Kosher! She might be turning in her grave to see how much her liver-loathing eldest now lusts after good chopped liver, though. While she was an accomplished cook, she mangled liver badly with vulcanized liver that even the starving would have been hesitant to eat. Cowles presents recipes that just might jar her and you into trying some new and delicious things like homemade pastrami.The recipes in this book are also quite frugal compared to buying deli style food and in time of tight money, that's yet another thing to recommend the work. If you aren't quite convinced by these reviews, at least try a sample and enjoy the writing style as well as the recipes.