Home or away, enjoy vacation food
By JOAN BRUNSKILL
Published July 20, 2005
NEW YORK - Food has a special taste these away-from-it-all summer days, and don't for a minute think that staying home need disqualify you from the pleasure. Even if you're not "away," you can catch the flavor through cookbooks that conjure up dishes and ingredients associated with what for many of us are vacation lands.
Here are some titles to start mouths watering:
Recipes From a Very Small Island by Linda Greenlaw and Martha Greenlaw (Hyperion, 2005, $25.95) delivers wonderful stories and photos as well as recipes from Isle au Haut, Maine.
Readers of Linda Greenlaw's bestselling books on the fishing life (The Hungry Ocean, The Lobster Chronicles and All Fishermen Are Liars) should know that Martha is her mother, for whom "food is a gift and a passion" and at whose table "every morsel is a celebration."
Together they provide a feast of a book, to read, to savor the photos and to cook from for a long time.
MaryJane's ideabook-cookbook-lifebook by MaryJane Butters (Potter, 2005, $35) has a sunny straw-hatted figure on the cover and the subtitle, "For the farmgirl in all of us."
This is a book that's lovely to look at but perhaps not conducive to lazy summer days for the more impressionable readers. Butters, who runs an organic farm in Idaho and founded the MaryJane magazine, seems capable of doing everything.
Her book includes how-to instructions in a serenely capable vein for cooking, sewing, cultivating, carpentering, looking after animals, hiking and camping and more. Her text tells stories about family, family history, friends and places. She also took the photos for the book, and this at least does promise readers a little downtime, for sitting back and absorbing the images' rustic beauty.
Vineyard Harvest by Tina Miller with Christie Matheson (Broadway, 2005, $35) is also likely to feed readers well beyond vacation. The subtitle explains that the book covers "A year of good food on Martha's Vineyard." The writer is a Massachusetts native who grew up on the Vineyard among cooks, took up a culinary career and is now a private chef.
Although she says the book is inspired by the Vineyard, Miller describes her cookbook's message as universal: Use local, seasonal ingredients as much as possible, wherever you live. Glossy color photos include food shots and a few local scenes.
The Beach House Cookbook by Barbara Scott-Goodman (Chronicle, 2005, $24.95) conjures up the beach mood without specifying any region, just the implication of leisurely days and fair, seashore weather.
Cookbook author and designer Scott-Goodman offers some 75 recipes for a pleasant selection of drinks and hearty grills, summer fruit, salads and desserts, with color photos intended, she says, to help readers cook and entertain in a relaxed manner.
Sharing the Vineyard Table by Carolyn Wente and Kimball Jones (Ten Speed Press, 2005, $24.95 paperback) uses the word vineyard in a different sense from the Massachusetts island: the subtitle describes the book as a "celebration of wine and food" from the Wente Vineyards Restaurant, in the Livermore Valley, Calif.
Carolyn Wente is president of Wente Vineyards, Jones was the vineyards' executive chef, and they've collaborated on this collection of some 100 recipes that bring out a California flavor in the seasonal use of the region's bounty. Jones has adapted his recipes from the restaurant's menus, with notes on wine pairing by Wente. Fine color photos show the food and the settings.
Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis (William Morrow, 2005, $24.95). Home for Loomis is in Normandy, France, where she and her family live, and where she runs her cooking school, Rue Tatin.
So Loomis' cooking is French home cooking, generously shared in a book that combines recipes with evocative text and a rich interweaving of kitchen wisdom. This is the sixth cookbook from Loomis, who is also a columnist and contributor to food shows.
Grilled Marinated Scallops With Ginger and Sesame1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
Zest and juice of 1 lime
24 large sea scallops
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
Lime wedges, for garnish
In a shallow dish, combine the pineapple juice, soy sauce, ginger, lime zest and lime juice. Add the scallops, turn to coat, and set aside for 30 to 40 minutes.
Build a hot charcoal fire or preheat a gas grill. Toast the sesame seeds in a small skillet over medium heat until they turn one shade darker, about 4 minutes.
Thread the scallops on four metal skewers, placing them so that the flat surfaces are exposed. Grill, turning once, until the scallops are lightly browned and no longer translucent, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, garnish with lime wedges and serve.
Source: "Recipes From a Very Small Island" by Linda Greenlaw and Martha Greenlaw.