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Sundays at Moosewood
6:01

Sundays at Moosewood

Shelley
Posted by Shelley on Jan 29, 2025

 

I am often asked the following questions:

  • What is your favorite dish to cook?
  • How did you start The Chopping Block?
  • What is your favorite restaurant?
  • What is your top cooking show?

All of these questions are difficult for me to answer, but when I am asked about my favorite cookbook, there is no doubt or hesitation.

There are many cookbooks I absolutely love and refer to often and would never hesitate to recommend, such as:

  • The New James Beard (my very first “fancy” cookbook)
  • CookWise by Shirley O’ Corriher (science demystified)
  • Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazen (you don’t really need another Italian Cookbook)
  • The New Making of a Cook by Madeleine Kamman (perhaps the greatest chef of all time) 
  • Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child (my idol) and Simone Beck, and
  • my current obsession: Texture over Taste by Joshua Weissman (he delivers his astute insights with whimsy and guts)

But my favorite cookbook of all time is hands down, Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.

Sundays at MoosewoodI was living in San Diego when I got my first copy of Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. I can’t even recall if I purchased it or received it as a gift, as it was likely around 1992/1993. The book was released in 1990, but I know I was living on Georgia Street in San Diego, in one of those cool mini houses built during WWII to house the wives of the men serving in the Navy. These little homes were clustered generally around a palm tree-lined courtyard with a fountain in the center. I wish they would build housing like this today - I loved that tiny house.

San DiegoI remember being in my well-appointed but oh so small kitchen and making a meal out of this book including Sweet Potato Bread, Fiery Onion Relish, A Classic Raita, Sweet and Sour Tamarind Sauce and Dal. My first impression in reviewing these recipes was that I had no inclination to change anything about the recipes while preparing them. For a chef, that is highly unusual - we love to change things!

That is one of the most amazing things about this book -  the recipes are flawless. They are generally very clean, healthy and relatively simple recipes. The ingredients are generally easy to find even though they are regional or ethnic. The recipes are also very simple to turn into non-vegetarian dishes and they give tips and suggestions on how to do that all throughout the book. It's funny that my favorite cookbook is vegetarian, yet I am not.

Sweet potato breadThese days there is a lot less need to purchase a cookbook. I think we all love the ease and volumes of accessible information that can be found on the internet. The internet has helped to improve the accuracy and quality of recipes themselves through feedbacks and ratings.

There was no internet almost 30 years ago when I opened The Chopping Block, so a cookbook may or may not give you a well-tested and written recipe. I get a kick out of looking at old community church cookbooks and recipes, primarily for entertainment. Most of these recipes are almost impossible to follow. They might leave out half the of the steps and make sweeping assumptions about the readers knowledge and say something like “bake until done”. Their “measurements” if you want to call them that are more like suggestions like “fill an old Folgers coffee can a third of the way”.

It really is hilarious to peruse these old community books and see how far the art of cooking and documenting cooking has come. Today the entire world of cooking is open to us, almost anywhere in the country any night of the week, you can pop online and look for an exotic recipe from Africa, find the ingredients at your local market and transport yourself to Senegal at your evening meal.

CookbooksLike the church cookbooks, Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant is a community cookbook. That's because each Sunday at Moosewood’s Restaurant in Ithaca, New York, they serve a new ethnic or regional cuisine. The difference between those old church community cookbook recipes and Moosewood’s recipes is that Moosewood’s are contributed by the individuals who created the meals for this Sunday service and who each have familiarity and passion for the style of cooking they are representing.

This book is comprised of recipes that have been tested, tasted and vetted by the customers at Moosewood’s. Sure, you can go online and find any number of good regional or ethnic recipes, but I promise the recipes in this book are based in true authentic flavors, are thoroughly tested for accuracy and tasted for excellence.

Ground nut stewWriting this blog, I was reminded of one of my very favorite recipes in this book, one that I used to teach as a regular part of our curriculum, Ground Nut Stew. In the countless classes I taught this recipe, it was always a hit. I had a couple of friends over last night, funny enough, one of them really doesn’t like vegetables and her diet is largely comprised of cheesy white meals. Even she loved this dish and asked for some to take home for her dinner tonight! Please don’t be swayed away from this book if you are not into vegetarian cooking, there is so much more to this book than that. It's still my favorite cookbook, even 30 years after its release.

Andrea Pasta-1If you are looking to shake up your dinners, expand your repertoire of ethnic and regional cooking, I couldn’t recommend Sundays and Moosewood’s Restaurant cookbook more highly. Of course, The Chopping Block has countless classes to explore ethnic and regional classes such as Global Soups and Stews, Spanish Tapas and Pasta and Gnocchi Workshop, but if you are ready to get out and into the world to explore new culinary destinations in person we also have our culinary travel adventures. Join us in Tuscany this October for Cook Like a Tuscan- there are just 2 spots left! 

Learn more about Cook Like a Tuscan

Topics: cookbooks, vegetarians, vegetarian, cookbook, Cookbooks & Tools

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