Roast Chicken and Other Stories

I just finished reading this book. Yes, it is a cookbook. Yes, I read it cover-to-cover. It is the first time I've set out to do that (I think it's happened on accident before), and I'm not sure I'd do it again. More about that at a different time, perhaps.

I offer the following, as some background:

I received this book from my foodie-uncle on Christmas Eve. I was a bit over-served at the time (to put it mildly...) and I don't know if I properly displayed my gratitude and enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Uncle Steve: this post is for you (and the next one's for my homies). I know. I should never speak or write again. So anyway, he made me a lovely basket (actually, a gift-wrapped cardboard box, but it's all good) containing this book, some arborio rice, nice olive oil, a 22-year-old balsamic, white truffle oil, a spatula (although this was apparently for my sister -- something I'm still struggling to understand), and a silvah plattah (translation: silver platter -- but it's more fun to type it with my Long Island accent preserved). Best gift this Christmas, hands down. Still don't know what to do with the truffle oil, but that's another post. This one's about the book, remember?

So, as I said, I read every page, in order. I quite liked the setup of the book. Hopkinson devotes a couple of pages (and maybe four or five recipes each) to a variety of ingredients. For instance, he has a chapter on brains, one on tripe, and one on sweetbreads. Mmmm-mmm. He also discusses different herbs, onions, eggs, lamb, and many other common foods. Each chapter starts with a whimsical image -- maybe of the highlighted food item, maybe not. I quite liked these little pictures -- there are no actual photographs in the book though. Minus 1 point. He leaves the reader with a couple of paragraphs talking about the featured ingredient, sometimes with anecdotes and fond memories. In that sense, it's kind of enjoyable to read. For the most part, however, it is a cookbook, and so I never found myself waiting with bated breath to see what Hopkinson would do with the offal next. (There's lots of offal.)

I should fully disclose that I haven't prepared any of these recipes. However, they all seem fairly simple, if not a bit time consuming. And as any good British chef would, Hopkinson puts cream and onions in almost everything -- and prepares a complimentary French sauce for topping. These recipes are not for the faint of heart -- I might've had a couple of heart attacks just reading them. But a lot sound really good.

In some ways, I'm thinking of this book as an encyclopedia. If I find myself with some Anglophilic ingredient, I feel that I can turn to Hopkinson's book and figure out what to do with the smoked haddock. However, there weren't many pages I was dog-earing for easy preparingation later on (what's wrong with that sentence? -- my English is poor from lack of use).

I think this will be a good book to keep around for reference, but not something that will reside close at hand with Bittman's tome and the ever-reliable Joy of Cooking. There are a few things I'd like to try (like its namesake roast chicken), but nothing moved me to go to the market straight away.

Next on the reading list: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert