FOOD52: Holiday Book List

Simplifying the act of cooking sophisticated, but simple meals power the new cookbook Food52: A New Way to Dinner — a playbook of recipes and strategies for the week ahead. Might sound like a football or basketball game plan, and, in a way, it is, because chapters lay out food plans for the week. Now this might sound like assembly-line eating, but trust me, it’s not.

To stay out of the “cooking rut” one recipe gets several outfits like “Farro with Mustard Greens, Almonds, Currants, and Shaved Cheese arrives as a main course one day and the next it becomes part of a ham and butter sandwich. Recipes come with little reminders like chopping all the onions at once that might be used in two dishes. Cleaning while you work allows you to re-use pots as a way of minimizing mess and blanch vegetables for added freshness while keeping stored in the frig.

Sections are divided by seasons so there’s Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. One fabulous recipe for those carnivores is the “Overnight Roast Pork” that requires the meat to slow cook in a 200-degree oven for up to 10 hours. Then viola! Succulent pork. And for dessert there’s a moist Chocolate Olive Oil Cake or sparkling Blueberry Ice. Put this book on your shelf.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis