New York Times Book Review: “Cooking” by William Grimes

5/20/14

This review of “THE REAL FOOD COOKBOOK: Traditional Dishes for  Modern Cooks” was written by William Grimes and published in The New York Times on May 30, 2014. 

Nina Planck, an American farmer’s daughter who opened several farmers’  markets in London and, for a contentious few months, ran the Union Square  Greenmarket in Manhattan, spreads the gospel of real food in her latest  cookbook, THE REAL FOOD COOKBOOK: Traditional Dishes for  Modern Cooks (Bloomsbury, $32). 

The idea is simple. Whether it’s animal or vegetable, high-fat or low-fat, if it  comes from a farm run on traditional lines, eat it. The point is to use high integrity ingredients, put them together in pleasing combinations and let the  flavors shine. Planck doesn’t care for fad foods. She’s suspicious of innovation,  especially when it comes to vegetables. “Sexy and original combinations do not  emerge from my kitchen, and my repertoire has not grown noticeably more  sophisticated in 20 years of cooking,” she writes. “Where vegetables are  concerned, I’m not a subtle person.” That’s all right. Case in point: her recipe for  sweet-onion custard, rich and amazingly versatile. She proposes variants that  incorporate capers, chopped olives or diced shrimp. It can even be rolled out on  puff pastry, cut into squares and served with drinks.