Feast: Food to Celebrate Life Review
Nigella is my original muse, she single handedly got me back into the kitchen and cooking when the days of making cookies with my grandmother passed and I had to start doing it on my own. I have all of her books and honestly they are something one can actually cook from, my shelves are bending from the amount of cookbooks they house but only half are being used to make dinners and cakes, others I look at for inspiration and for pictures but Nigella's recipes are worth every penny one spends on a cookbook. I can't express my love and gratitude for this woman; she's intelligent, cheerful, honest a magnificent food writer who actually got me into writing as well, I even got my first KitchenAid mixer because she used her so much to make all of her delectable treats. So fear not, this and other books that she penned are not only gorgeous to look at but they can help anyone put something mouth watering on the table in no time. This one has pictures on almost every page and a short little bit of how this came to be or how she eats it before each recipe, probably my favorite part of the book.
This book is broken into occasions rather than seasons or ingredients - Thanksgiving & Christmas, New Year, Meatless Feasts, Valentine's Day, Easter, Passover, Breakfast, Kitchen Feasts, Kiddiefeast, Cut-out Cookies, Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame, A Georgian Feast, Eid, Ultimate Feasts, Hallowe'en, Rosh Hashanah, A Venetian Feast, Festival of Lights, Partytime, Midnight Feast, Wedding Feast, Funeral Feast ( somber I know but the food is actually very appropriate and having herself lose her mother, sister and first husband to cancer, Nigella is still living life and making the best of what she has) so no matter what one celebrates they can find something good in this super large volume. I have to admit that I use this daily and don't wait for special occasions.
Feast is probably her biggest ( thickest) book to date, and I made some good things from it. Let me tell you, the Pumpkin Cheesecake (on page 68 ) was my first cheesecake and no only was it ridiculously easy it turned out so good I was shocked I made it myself. There was a suggestion for Butterscotch sauce on the page to pour on top, I made it as well ( gotta love the pairing suggestions) and the combination was just divine. The sauce would also go well on something like an apple and macadamia nut crumble or anything thatis sweet.
Gingerbread muffins on page 91 were so warm and cozy I make them in cold weather to keep the chill of, the trouble is stopping at one. If you want your house to smell like a home, make this!
Roast Loin of pork with caraway, lemon and garlic - spicy fragrant, nothing ordinary about this simple to make dinner, makes great leftovers as the rub on top intensifies.
Chicken Pot Pie - I guarantee that after this one no one will be shopping for it in the frozen section of their supermarket, flaky dough, creamy hot center, lost of peas, ham and chicken in sauce, the only caution is not burning the tongue as it's hard not to gobble up.
There's even Muttar Paneer - an excellent Indian dish, makes me feel silly for ever thinking it was hard to make. Now I can control the ingredients and how much salt and fat goes into it, one can make a healthy lunch out of an exotic staple after all.
This book has everything, I don't know how this woman thinks it all up, but she makes these recipes and writes about them, she feeds them to her children and friends, real people are involved into bringing this book to life and it shows.
- Kasia S.
Feast: Food to Celebrate Life Feature
- ISBN13: 9781401301361
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Feast: Food to Celebrate Life Overview
Nigella Lawson,
Gourmet magazine's "It Girl,"
New York Times "Dining In" columnist, and bestselling cookbook author, is celebrating life -- and you're invited.
Feast, Nigella's most festive book yet, offers savory, spicy, and delicious recipes for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, Eid, New Year's, Passover, Easter gatherings, and any time you want to celebrate food and life. This book is filled with festive recipes, and in it, Nigella offers tips, tricks, and shortcuts that will ensure you dine with ease, style, and fun.
Feast also includes some surprising gems, like Nigella's Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame, and her best cheeseburger. And like her other cookbooks,
Feast is a cookbook that will be treasured all year long.
Feast: Food to Celebrate Life Specifications
If you consider eating with friends and family a joyful, indulgent celebration chances are you love a good feast. And who better to carefully guide you through the daunting task of preparing that
Feast than the domestic goddess herself Nigella Lawson. Written in the tradition of
Nigella Bites and
How to Eat,
Feast is a cookbook for the sensualist that wants to eat very well, but also wants to spend time enjoying the company of their guests instead of struggling with the creation of the meal. What sets Lawson apart is not that she's a good cookbook writer, but a strong writer period. Similar to her other books, Nigella's
Feast is presented as part personal memoir, part educational, and part recipe presentation. There is a nice blend of occasions including the obvious (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and Easter), a few culturally specific ones (Rosh Hashanah, Georgian Feast, and Venetian Feast), feasts for kids, for vegetarians, and an elegant cocktail party. Each chapter begins with an overview of that particular "Feast." Generally, there is a personal story and experience told, an overview of the cultural importance of the feast, and a description of foods that are associated with each occasion. Impressively, every recipe begins with a personal anecdote giving that impression Nigella didn't just throw it in the book, but is experienced with the recipe and has used it with success. Take her twist on the decadent Chocolate Guinness Cake for example: "I wanted to make a cream cheese frosting to echo the pale head that sits on top of a glass of stout. It's unconventional to add cream but it makes it frothier and lighter which I regard as aesthetically and gastronomically desirable." Who can argue? The cake is to die for. So next time you need to prepare a dinner party let the goddess be your guide, and remember: Keep the preparation simple, use easily available ingredients, and take time to enjoy your guests and your meal.
Feast may not be the most advanced cookbook you will own, but if you want to create excellent food with relative ease in a short amount of time, you can not beat Nigella.
--Rob Bracco
Related Products
Customer Reviews
Oh My - Jeanne Scott - Seattle, Washington
That is what my friend said as he glanced at the TV and saw Nigella for the first time. And we tried her recipes together. They were a hit!
An intriguing idea...with room for improvement - J. Burhans - Monument, CO USA
This is more than a sample, yet less than the full book which isn't available on Kindle. This "selection" says it iss 98 pages which doesn't mean much on a Kindle. It has a maximum location of 2476 compare with 143 in the sample of the selection. That said, if you like reading Nigella, this is a nice sampler with a few recipes for the Holidays. The table of contents is skimpy on the link, but its easy to search for anything on the Kindle (though I wish you could do it for only the current book) and you can add your own notes and bookmarks to mark specific recipes. A recipe list with links would be nice. But, for a cookbook, often it is key to see a picture of the finished result (in color is best) so you know what you are shooting for and that is lacking as you'd expect on the Kindle. For somethings, the grainy black and white images would do (like in the newspapers) or black line drawings (like comics) but for food you want color. Some day we may get that on a next gen Kindle. For now, this is an intriguing idea...was worth the low price.
save your money - Cricket -
the index is so poorly designed that you have to manually page to find out what recipes are included and their location. who has that time when they want to look something up......
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 26, 2010 17:00:04
