The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen

By Peter Berley

Book Overview

Peter Berley's mission is to show how the simple act of cooking food can enliven your senses and nourish your life--from going to the farmersarket and outfitting your kitchen with the simplest, most useful tools to learning techniques and sharing meals with friends and family. The much-admired former chef of Angelica Kitchen, one of New York City's finest restaurants, Berley takes you through the seasons, with more than two hundred sumptuous recipes that feature each ingredient at its peak. A cooking teacher for many years, Berley has kept the needs of his students continually in mind in this book. The recipes are written to feature the basic techniques and background information needed to create wonderful meals with fresh vegetables, fruits, and grains. He truly inspires both novice and experienced cooks to understand what they are doing and why, to learn to work with ingredients, and to apply their skills creatively. This wonderful book brings vegetarian cuisine to a whole new level.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060989114
• ISBN13: 9780060989118
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 450 Pages
• Weight: 1.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

This cookbook changed my life.

Peter Berley, through this book has taught me to have a great respect and love for food and the art of cooking. It has dramatically changed my life. I have been a vegetarian for nearly all of my life, but not very well educated culinary-wise. None of my other cookbooks have ever motivated me to do the best I can. You feel like you have a teacher and friend with you in the kitchen since every recipe comes with helpful hints and interesting stories of how he created them. My friends and family now think I am a goddess. This is the first of Peter Berley's cookbooks that I bought. The second one is as amazing. Food is everything; it's the source of a great life, of happiness and health. My children (4 and 2) eat everything with a great appetite. So it's also a gift to them.

A truly inspirational book... a pleasure to read and use

I am a non-vegetarian living in a co-op that requires all shared meals to be vegetarian. I found this book on sale at Sur La Table, and bought it to provide me with more ideas for the dinners I cook for my house. After the first few meals that I made that included 2-3 different recipes from this book, it quickly became my FAVORITE cookbook (all genres). I now select this book more often than any other for my house and other dinner parties with non-vegetarian friends. The flavors are rich, the combinations are unique and work very well, and the instructions are easy to follow and provide you with all the info you need, even if you're not a seasoned macrobiotic chef. I give this book a HUGE "thumbs up"! (Some favorites: Creamy Garlic Miso Salad Dressing, Three Sisters Stew (beans, corn dumplings, and winter squash with toasted pumpkin seeds), Eggplant and Seitan Falafel).

A must have for any culinary enthusiast

Peter Berleys new book is a godsend. Not only for vegetarians and vegans, but for any chef who wants to meet the demands for healthy cuisine in the mainstream. After reading this cookbook, any intimidation you have about natural ingredients and whole foods will go right out the window. Mr. Berley really sums it up in a no nonsense, cool style. If you want to impress your cynical carnivore friends, just prepare a meal from this book, and I guarantee you'll convert at least one person. This book shows that vegan and vegetarian cuisine is about as cutting-edge as you can get, and there are no boundaries. I rate Peter Berley right up there with the best chefs in this country.

Simply wonderful - even for a non-vegetarian

I am not a vegetarian but like to eat that way some times because it seems like it should be healthier. But I've been disappointed in a lot of the vegetarian food I've tried. Luckily, Peter Berley has a great philosophy about food: Healthy eating is also the most pleasurable eating. Hey, that works for me and this book delivers. I've prepared quite a few of the dishes here for friends and the food has always been well received.A lot of the ingredients used in vegetarian cooking were a mystery to me. They have strange names and I didn't know how to prepare them. What's the difference between tofu and seitan? And what is seitan anyway? This book uncovers many of these mysteries. It's all there and well written. This is one of those cook books that will be stained with food very quickly. Highly recommended.