The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper

You know you're a food enthusiast when at the age of 26, you hope to get cookbooks, a table top griddle and a mandolin for Christmas. Although I've enjoyed all those gifts, I may have put one of them to use more then the others in the last few weeks.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift converged to create an awesome book titled "How to Eat Supper," and I really recommend that you check it out, regardless of whether or not you are an advanced cook or even if you cook all that often. The book does a nice job of dissecting dinner and all it's courses including salads, soups, eggs and small plates, vegetable main events, pasta, main dishes, sides and sweets. The book is full of tremendous recipes (The Cuban Black Bean Stew is perfection) and cooking tips, but I really like all the additional little extras they've baked in.

There are all sorts of little goodies sprinkled throughout on a variety of subjects including how to pick out the perfect kitchenware arsenal, and how to build dressing and soup bases to be expanded upon in a number of variations. They even get as detailed as to instruct you upon which tomatoes are the best for what application, which greens make the best pairings for salads and what to do with leftover or rapidly aging bread. This book is part frugal, and all, simple and flavorful gourmet. I highly recommend checking it out! Let me know if you've picked up any good books recently as I am rapidly building my library.

Happy Eating,

-Teddy