The Home Cook: Recipes to Know by Heart: A Cookbook

The across the board cooking book of scriptures for another age with 300 plans for everything from straightforward vinaigrettes and meal chicken to birthday cake and mixed drinks.

For Alex Guarnaschelli—whose mother altered the original 1997 release of The Joy of Cooking, which characterized the food of the late 20th century—a day to day existence in food and cookbooks was nearly fated. Presently a refined gourmet specialist and writer in her own right (and mother to a youthful girl), Alex pens a cookbook for the manner in which we eat today. For ages raised on energetic, global flavors and general stores loaded with miso glue, harissa, and other strong toppings and fixings, here are 300 plans to supplant their folks' Chicken Marbella, including Glazed Five-Spice Ribs, Roasted Eggplant Dip with Garlic Butter Naan, Roasted Beef Brisket with Pastrami Rub, Fennel and Orange Salad with Walnut Pesto, Quinoa Allspice Oatmeal Cookies, and Dark Chocolate Rum Pie.

About the Author
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI trained at La Varenne Culinary School in Burgundy, France, before moving to Paris and working at Guy Savoy for four years before eventually returning to New York to cook at Daniel. Since 2003, she has been the executive chef of Butter Restaurant. Alex appears on numerous Food Network shows, including as a judge on Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay and an Iron Chef on Iron Chef America. She lives in New York City with her daughter.

I have been a fan of Alex Guarnaschelli from watching her as a judge on the “Chopped” television show. I lost track of her once she became an Iron Chef and never really got to see her style of cook except for the special “judge cooks” show on “Chopped”. What little I saw of her style of cooking, I thought highly of. Enough so that I bought “The Home Cook” sight unseen. I have a decent collection of cookbooks, most of which sit on a bookshelf in my game room and get pulled out for specialty recipes. I have a few tried and trusted cookbooks which get shelf space in my kitchen. After both looking through this cookbook and trying several recipes, “The Home Cook” has its place in my kitchen and will be a cookbook that I use frequently. Along with the wonderful recipes, the cookbook has many beautiful photographs of the finished dishes (some of which I will include below.) --iiiireader

This is a wonderful cookbook. The Home Cook, Recipes to Know by Heart is a very befitting title. They are the classics that we all know and love, with a slight skew to the Italian American end of the spectrum. There are both humble and special dishes throughout the book, but nothing overly difficult. I just bought groceries for four main dishes, two sides, and two breakfasts, and found all of the ingredients at the very average supermarket down the street. The tone of the book is charming, filled with nostalgia for Alex’s childhood food memories. There aren’t a lot of photos in the book, but that fits with the casual platings and the focus on flavor and technique. Strongly recommend. --Jennifer Guerrero

Love this cookbook, I’ve tried several recipes and they have all turned out really well. Great for someone not super experienced as the instructions are step by step and well explained. More pictures of the food would be nice. --Hans

The Home Cook: Recipes to Know by Heart: A Cookbook