#SWEET FARM STANDS NATIONS DIVIDES HOW TO#

#SWEET FARM STANDS NATIONS DIVIDES HOW TO#

Halfway through the book, Pelosi stops to let you know about all the “secret sandwiches” lying within its pages: i.e., how to make the best use of leftovers. The recipes are Italian American gone camp: tiny rainbow cookies become a large sliceable loaf, tiramisu and affogato merge into a single hot-then-its-cold dessert, and chicken gets coated in a multi-fruit mostarda that I want piled on every cheese board I eat hereafter. Beyond fun dish names like Broccolini Panini (which I have repeated, out loud, to myself at least once a day since making that gloriously cheesy sandwich) and Gay Italian Wedding Soup (made with rainbow chard, obviously), the bright colors, the family-focused stories, and the infectious smile of Pelosi himself make this book a joy to thumb through.

Noah KaufmanĪnyone familiar with Dan Pelosi’s delightful internet alter ego, GrossyPelosi, knows that with Let’s Eat, we’re all in for a good time. Some of his tips-like dehydrating the pork for the dan dan noodles at home-are so smart that I plan to work them into my regular in-the-kitchen cooking too. His deeply flavorful miso butter radishes transformed my expectations about what I can do with the foil packet cooking of my childhood, and his campfire dan dan noodles prove that following a bit of advance home prep with a cooking session on open fire out in the wild can amount to a meal that’s really special. He lays out easy-to-execute steps to do at home before your trip begins, then follows with easy steps that you can actually accomplish at camp with nothing fancier than a propane burner and some resealable bags of ingredients you prepped a day or two before. Chris Nuttall-Smith’s Cook It Wild succeeds where others have failed. Most of the camping recipes I’ve tried suffer from one of two problems: The food is too boring or the food, despite all claims to the contrary, is way too complicated to make at a campsite. But I am dubious, to say the least, of magazines and cookbooks that claim you can make “amazing” food on a backpacking trek to Utah or even a car camping trip to the local state park. I love cooking with a grill or an open fire. Target Cook It Wild by Chris Nuttall-Smith If you keep Company on your bedside table, it probably won’t be long before you start dialing up friends and inviting them over.

The menus tend to be meaty and cozy, always keeping an eye on thrift. She offers tricks for refreshing shrimp that have “a whiff of ‘fish washed up on the beach’” and a technique for candied walnuts that shed their wispy, tannic skins in a baking soda bath before getting a whisper-thin layer of caramel.

The food is smart: The way she tucks cinnamon sticks into a slowly burbling pan of confit vegetables gives the whole thing a subtly warm flavor that feels just right for the high-harvest moment when the tail end of summer releases into fall. But this is a chef you wan to be with all weekend, and learn from, one recipe at a time. While Thielen’s tone is casual, and it’s clear that to her, a great party is more likely to have loud music than a fancy floral centerpiece, make no mistake: many of these recipes are decidedly chef-y, time-consuming projects taken on in service of a great hang.

Sweet farm stands nations divides