Tasty: Get Great Food on the Table Every Day

by Roy Finamore

Book Overview

In Abraham Lincoln, Public Speaker, Waldo W. Braden presents a thought-provoking study of the sixteenth president's rhetorical style. In his discussion of Lincoln's speaking practices from 1854... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618240330
• ISBN13: 9780618240333
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Length: 479 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 7.8" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

excellent book - thoughtful author

this is available for a ridiculous price and worth, at least, five times as much. His name is not well-known, but his friends and clients are which certainly speaks well for him. I like the style of writing and the recipes, the few I've tried so far, have turned out very well. I also like the author's attitude. You have permission to enhance your result, if desired, without inciting his scorn. Latitude in cooking is a nice attribute. I found his web site, asked a question, and got a PROMPT answer. Nice photography and I like the serving suggestions that relate to other recipes in the book. This revision is written months later and i still like and use the book quite often. Some of his recipes have spilled over into other recipes I have devised and it's been a helppful read when I'm just looking for "ideas" on what to cook even when I don't follow a recipe.

How could simple be this good?

Having cooked out of this cookbook for about two months, I continue to be amazed by it. The recipes are clearly written and easy to prepare. Usually when this is the case, the authors have sacrificed flavor in an effort to entice people who don't cook to learn to cook. The strategy backfires, of course, since who would want to learn to do something whose results consistently disappoint? Roy Finamore starts from the premise that regular people who have lives outside the kitchen can make really tasty food without depending on lots of sugar, salt, or fat to equal "taste." As I have explored the book, I start almost every recipe thinking, "This doesn't sound hard, how good can it be?" and am consistently--pleasantly--amazed by the results. The food is joyful and colorful, nourishing and comforting. What a great find!

Terrific Everyday Cookbook

Picture this: You're sitting around a kitchen table on metal and vinyl chairs talking with your brother whom the family acknowledges to be the fancy cook in the family. Your brother relates to you his riffs on recipes from his famous friends or family and one thing is clear; this man knows how to cook. He knows how to kick classic recipes in the butt and give them new life. This is what it is like to read and use Roy Finamore's "Tasty: Get Great Food on the Table Every Day." Finamore lovingly acknowledges the contributions of his family and friends but kicks the recipes up a notch or two to make them his own. Check out the recipes for Roast Chicken and Cod-Puttanesca style. Finamore is funny and ingenious, and he torques classic recipes to a level one would not normally consider. The man knows his way around a kitchen and the book reads like a family recipe collection on fire. Clearly Mr. Finamore loves his family and cherishes the family gatherings he has experienced in the past. He is a blast to read and his food is amazing. My recommendation? BUY IT...NOW...AND USE IT DAILY.

Fantastic!

First checked this book out from my local library. Within ten miinutes, I knew I needed it for my own collection. Creative, simple -- and love the "pairing" suggestions. Very inspiring! Thanks Mr. Finamore!

Great First or Only cookbook. Buy It!

`tasty' by master culinary editor, Roy Finamore is an odd book by many counts, but if you happen to fit its best audience, it may be one of the best cookbooks you will see for many a moon. The blurb on the front from Ina Garten, `Recipes every cook should know' goes a long way to explaining what this book is all about, especially as it has a lot of similarities to Garten's own friendly `comfort food' style of recipes. But, I must point out at the outset that while Garten's books have less than half the recipes of this volume, they are all more expensive than this very thrifty list price of $30. The very best audience for this book is not the `I hate to cook, but have to' crowd, or the `I like to cook, but don't have the time Rachael Ray fan club' or the foodie cookbook collector who pores over good celebrity chef offerings from Sara Moulton, Susan Spungen, Tyler Florence, and Deborah Madison. It is also not necessarily for the dedicated professional who studies volumes from the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) or `Cooks illustrated'. It is for people like the author who like to cook, have the time to do moderately complicated recipes (work at home men are a perfect audience here), who like tasty, classic recipes, but who don't want to assemble a large library of cookbooks to garner twenty (20) good recipes. As someone who does own over 500 cookbooks, my first impression is that I have seen almost all these recipes in some other book. Maybe not the exact recipe, but something like it, as with the tomato pie, which has a family resemblance to a Sara Moulton tomato tart or the Welsh Rabbit, which I have seen in several English cookbooks from Nigel Slater and Jane Grigson, not to mention a gaggle of Irish cookbooks. Finamore is a cookbook editor who has worked with many important cookbook authors such as Garten, Martha Stewart, Tom Colicchio, Diana Kennedy, Anne Willan, and Gale Gand. This, I sense just a bit of the culinary `fellow traveler's point of view I taste in the work of Alton Brown, with not quite as much humor and not quite as much circumspection with words as I appreciate from Brown. For example, Finamore grossly misuses the term `melt' when referring to the breakdown of one ingredient into another as when mashing up anchovies or garlic into vinaigrette. Finamore is also not entirely rigorous in explaining all his terms, as when he uses the term gorgonzola `dolce' cheese in a recipe with no explanation of the two different varieties of gorgonzola in his introductory glossary of ingredients. But all this is minor nit-picking. In general, this is a superb cookbook for the casual cook who wants a reliable source of `tasty' recipes. The fact that many of the recipes will look familiar to even the non-foodie is a good thing, because even if they are not strictly `comfort food', they will have the feel of well worn slippers instead of the straitlaced feel of a totally unfamiliar `original' restaurant recipe from Emeril or Mario or Bobby o