Book Review: Food by Mary McCartney

I have no use for two types of cookbooks: the esoteric and the simplistic.  I also dislike those which lack photographs of the completed dishes as much as those which overindulge in candid shots of hot chefs.  Mary McCartney's collection of vegetarian recipes and photographs, then, is the perfect book: the recipes are challenging but won't cost you a hundred bucks in specialty items from every ethnic grocery in town, and, since her first calling is as a photographer, the photos illustrating the book are a tremendous and beautiful help in selecting and preparing meals.

I made a full, fancy meal from three recipes in the book: the eggplant wraps, quinoa & white bean soup, with coconut rice pudding for dessert.  I did have to cough up a few extra bucks for fancy ingredients: pignoli (aka pine) nuts, quinoa, arborio rice, and sundried tomatoes, but all of these came in under $20 together and were available at my neighborhood supermarket.

The eggplant wraps were fantastic yet simple: wilted spinach, toasted pignoli nuts, and cheddar wrapped in a thick slice of fried eggplant.  I love recipes where a vegetable substitutes in for bread; we once made tacos where a broad leaf of lettuce served as taco shell, and I don't think I've ever had better.

The quinoa & white bean soup was stomach- and heart-warming, but perhaps better suited for a winter's eve than a summertime brunch.  The quinoa, however, seemed kind of useless for such a pricey item, and the soup would have been just as good with pastina in its place.

A chocolate sauce made the coconut rice pudding leap from the bowl rather than hunker gelatinously as pudding often does.

I did spend a good four hours preparing this big meal, so I wouldn't recommend constructing an entire menu from McCartney's book unless you have that time; also, the total grocery bill ran upwards of $50 just for this meal.  However, one would do well to select a recipe once a week from this collection to try out something new and surely delicious.  By the way, we had a vegan and two gluten-free eaters at this meal, and McCartney's recipes easily pleased everyone (though my son had his eggplant wraps minus the cheese).  And a final note: yes, Mary McCartney is the daughter of Linda and Paul McCartney, a legacy she neither hides nor overemphasizes in the book, but pays respectful homage to, as many a cookbook author gives a nod to her forebears and influences.