The Anatomy of a Dish
Diane Forley, chef and proprietor of New York City's Verbena restaurant, has been praised for dishes that are delicious yet "disarmingly simple." This is one of the true tightrope acts in professional cooking.The Anatomy of a Dish, Forley's debut cookbook, shows how to think about ingredients and demonstrates the various ways to prepare and cook them to their greatest advantage. Forley considers the relatedness of fruits and vegetables, grains, roots, and tubers, and how their botanic lineages play out in recipes and menus. A good deal of this information is spelled out in clear charts with lists of subsequent recipes. These are Forley's keys to simplicity.There are three basic sections to the book: Building a Dish, Developing a Menu, and Concluding with a Sweet. Building a Dish includes chapters such as "Vegetable Studies," "Salads," "Soups and Stews," "Grains, Beans, and Pasta," "Savory Pastries," and "Breads," the building blocks to the full menus to come when entrée  dishes--fish, shellfish, poultry, meat, and game--are added. The roasted beets in "Vegetable Studies" turn up later in Ruby Risotto with Winter Greens and Horseradish Crème Fraîche; the roasted eggplant purée reappears in Eggplant and Garlic Stew with Merguez Sausage.The Anatomy of a Dishis a beautifully designed and innovative cookbook with over 200 recipes. It's not for the timid or the new cook, but it definitely offers a leg up for the cook who wants to get inside the working mind of an accomplished chef.--Schuyler Ingle