FOR THE VEGETARIAN
FOR AN ARTISANAL AND AMBITIOUS COOK
The SimplyRaw Kitchen By Natasha Kyssa Arsenal Pulp Press, $21.95
Several big-name vegetarian books came out this year, among them Mollie Katzen’s The Heart of the Plate and Moosewood Restaurant Favorites. But for my money, you can’t do better than an Ottawa original.
Natasha Kyssa, the owner of SimplyRaw Express in Hintonburg, has been teaching vegan cooking classes for more than a decade, and her recipes are not only time tested, they’re exceptionally flavourful.
Try her Marinated Kale Salad (which won a readers’ favourite recipe in the Citizen several years ago) or her Luscious Lemon Cheezecake, and you will be become a convert, even if you’re a carnivore.
Her new book is simpler than her earlier manual, with most recipes doable in half an hour or less. And it has a bonus: in addition to Kyssa’s raw recipes, the new book, which came out this fall, also includes several hot, hearty soups, courtesy of her mother, Ilse Kyssa, who ran the beloved The Pantry café in the Glebe Community Centre for 20 years.
The A.O.C. Cookbook By Suzanne Goin Knopf Doubleday, $37
Suzanne Goin, whose first cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques, won a James Beard award, has said that her new A.O.C. Cookbook (named after her Los Angeles restaurant) “is not the easiest cookbook you will ever use.”
But in an interview with Patricia Reilly of epicurious.com’s epi-log blog, she said: “I don’t think Sunday Suppers at Lucques is the easiest cookbook, either.
“My two books are in the same vein in that they are meant for people who like to cook or want to dedicate themselves to learning the craft of cooking, meaning that the focus of this book is not easy and quick.”
But her recipes from A.O.C. (which is an abbreviation for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, because the restaurant’s concept is about sharing food and wine) are beautiful.
They include more complex dishes — such as Beef Brisket with SlowRoasted Romano Beans and Black Olive Aïoli, and Sticky Toffee Pudding with Blood Orange, Tangerine and Whipped Crème Fraîche — but also easy ones, such as the fouringredient but irresistible stuffed, wrapped dates, one of the recipes below.