THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512060038
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Morsels
SOURCE: Ruth Fantasia
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
SOMEONE ONCE told me, ``Cooking is easy. All you have to do is pick out a recipe and follow the directions.''
That's true. Except when the directions aren't clear, or the ingredients are in weights instead of volumes, or the recipe calls for a technique you don't know.
Fortunately, there are resources to help cooks of every level. Here are a few that offer more than recipes - they also anticipate and answer a cook's question. Consider one or more for your holiday gift list.
My mother thinks ``The Betty Crocker Cookbook'' (Prentice Hall, about $15) wrapped with a pie plate and rolling pin is the consummate bridal-shower gift. For years, she has encouraged wives with good husbands to make home-baked pies. Women with not-so-good husbands - well, at least they were armed.
The cookbook with the bright red cover is perfect for beginners. It offers the best of the basics, from how to make meatloaf to baking brownies. Photographs show what the dish is supposed to look like, and the volume contains roasting times and food-safety tips. The book is wonderful for anyone new to the kitchen - a teenager, a college student or even a recently singled noncook.
About half of my office telephone conversations are spent answering readers' questions.
``How many tablespoons are in an envelope of gelatin?''
``Can I freeze sour cream?''
``How many limes do I have to buy to get three tablespoons juice?''
The answers to all these questions (in order: one; it's not advisable; and two) are in ``Joy of Cooking'' by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker (Hobbs-Merrill, 1975; $25 hard-bound; $14 paperback).
This the the first book I pick up when the office phone rings. Billed as the ``All-Purpose Cookbook,'' ``Joy'' includes measurement-conversion charts; equivalents and substitutions tables; and descriptions, purchasing and use information on most of the common ingredients found in supermarkets.
If everyone in Hampton Roads owned a copy of ``Joy of Cooking,'' I wouldn't have a job.
For the cook who knows cream of mushroom soup wasn't created in a can, there's ``The New Professional Chef: Sixth Edition'' by the Culinary Institute of America (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1996; $60).
This 1,190-page, illustrated, hard-bound volume includes how-to's for such advanced processes as trimming a whole beef tenderloin, making hollandaise sauce (it includes a how-not-to photograph as well) and making puff pastry from scratch.
``The New Professional Chef'' is written for the restaurant chef; measurements are in weights, and there is a minimum of 10 servings per recipe. But it's a must-have for serious kitchen enthusiasts and anyone considering a career in the culinary arts. Remembering Farello
The Frank Farello Senior Chef's Scholarship Fund will be established by the Southeast region of the American Culinary Federation next year.
Farello, who died last May, was a driving force for culinary education in Hampton Roads and throughout the nation.
Reimund Pitz, Southeast regional vice-president of the ACF, has announced 50 percent of the proceeds from a culinary auction at next year's regional conference will be donated to the fund. The conference will be Feb. 2 through 4 in Nashville, Tenn.
Students who are members of the Junior American Culinary Federation will be eligible for scholarships. To make a donation, call Pitz at (407) 560-4359. Big berries
Judy Eldred of Virginia Beach wants to know why fresh cranberries she bought this year are so big.
``They're two to three times the size of regular cranberries,'' says Eldred. ``They're good for stringing, but I wasn't as pleased with the sauce. These just don't have the tang of the small berries.''
Al Garner, vice-president of produce for Farm Fresh, says Eldred's berries are bigger by chance rather than intent.
While it's possible that weather conditions have produced bigger berries in some areas, cranberries aren't graded or sold according to size, says Garner. It's just luck.
And while since we're talking produce, seedless grapefruit isn't always seedless.
Garner says a grapefruit can have six to nine seeds and still be called seedless. Mix and match
Your dinner dishes don't have to match, reports Bulletin LaVarenne, a newsletter from the LaVarenne cooking school at Chateau du Fey in Villecien, France.
Trendy in French restaurants are plates with different colored borders so foods can be presented on the best backgrounds. ILLUSTRATION: [Book jacket]
THE NEW PROFESSIONAL CHEF
by CNB