Food editor pens 10 ways to heaven
LIST | Book about food passions is 'great for menu planning'
What foods do you crave?
If you're Sheila Lukins, and it's a weeknight, and you're staying in, it often is a simple roast chicken and a Greek salad from the Chirping Chicken, a takeout joint on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
(Scott Stewart/Sun-Times)
"I hate to say, I will order that in a lot," said Lukins, the longtime food editor of Parade magazine and author of seven cookbooks, including the influential The Silver Palate Cookbook.
No surprise, then, that both dishes made it into Lukins' newest book, Ten: All the Foods We Love and 10 Recipes for Each (Workman, $19.95).
In Chicago recently to promote the book, Lukins said Ten developed out of a dinner conversation she had about cravings -- "foods we have real passions for" -- with her publisher and editor.
Chocolate. Ribs. Corn. Her list grew quickly to include categories such as roasts and mixed vegetable salads.
The result: a 332-recipe book that is "like 32 great lists," Lukins said. "It's great for menu planning."
Many a cook prepping for dinner guests surely has turned to Lukins and her Silver Palate cookbook for help. The book is named after the gourmet shop Lukins and co-author Julee Rosso founded in New York. A 25th anniversary edition was released last year, after Lukins already had completed work on Ten.
Published in 1982, the Silver Palate cookbook introduced many to once-hard-to-find ingredients such as raspberry vinegar, pesto and capers, and creative flavor combinations (the chicken-olive-prune trifecta in the Chicken Marbella remains a Silver Palate signature).
Such ingredients are common now, but Lukins' easy but elegant cooking style still resonates.
"She brings the sensibility of different flavor profiles, without it being fussy food," said Sharon Myers, co-chair of ChicaGourmets!, a Chicago dining club that hosted a dinner for Lukins at May Street Market last month.
Ten retains the look and feel of Lukins' earlier books. Using it is akin to spinning a globe and stopping it wherever your finger lands. In the mood for pasta? She offers you 10 versions, from mac and cheese to soba noodles to saffron orzo.
The recipes are ones you'll want to share with company. They're not difficult -- and they work, something Lukins argues isn't always the case with today's cookbooks.
"Now every chef, everyone that owns a restaurant does a cookbook," said Lukins, who is not a classically trained chef. "Chefs figure why not, let's just make more money. Plus, they have staffs to do their books. I do all my own recipes in my kitchen with Laurie [Griffith, her assistant]. I think that's why all my recipes work so well."
As prolific a recipe generator as Lukins is, she does include recipes from other chefs and restaurateurs in Ten, including Daniel Boulud and Tom Colicchio.
There is but one repeat from her earlier books -- her Very Best Chocolate Mousse.