Food: Vegetarian Home Cooking
Photographer Mary McCartney, daughter of Sir Paul McCartney and the late Linda McCartney, quietly welcomes readers into the world of vegetarian cooking without limiting herself within strict parameters. Her more than 60 recipes combine traditional food items with contemporary ingredients, all accomplished with a lack of pretension. “Easy-Peasy” soup, for one, relies on frozen peas and already prepared crème fraîche. “Asparagus Summer Target” combines those green stalks and onions with spices and store-bought, ready-to-use piecrust dough. “My Brownies” calls for chocolate, eggs, flour, flavorings—and no other additives. What make McCartney’s simple items so pleasurable are the chatty family-memory prefaces for each dish and the simply breathtaking color collages of food and people and places. Little fuss; no muss. --Barbara Jacobs