A feast can be a daily extravagance after all

books:


	• Feast: Food to Celebrate Life Nigella Lawson Hyperion, 2004 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 40 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A feast can be a daily extravagance after all

Nigella is my original muse, she single handedly got me back into the kitchen and cooking when the days of making cookies with my grandmother passed and I had to start doing it on my own. I have all of her books and honestly they are something one can actually cook from, my shelves are bending from the amount of cookbooks they house but only half are being used to make dinners and cakes, others I look at for inspiration and for pictures but Nigella's recipes are worth every penny one spends on a cookbook. I can't express my love and gratitude for this woman; she's intelligent, cheerful, honest a magnificent food writer who actually got me into writing as well, I even got my first KitchenAid mixer because she used her so much to make all of her delectable treats. So fear not, this and other books that she penned are not only gorgeous to look at but they can help anyone put something mouth watering on the table in no time. This one has pictures on almost every page and a short little bit of how this came to be or how she eats it before each recipe, probably my favorite part of the book.

This book is broken into occasions rather than seasons or ingredients - Thanksgiving & Christmas, New Year, Meatless Feasts, Valentine's Day, Easter, Passover, Breakfast, Kitchen Feasts, Kiddiefeast, Cut-out Cookies, Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame, A Georgian Feast, Eid, Ultimate Feasts, Hallowe'en, Rosh Hashanah, A Venetian Feast, Festival of Lights, Partytime, Midnight Feast, Wedding Feast, Funeral Feast ( somber I know but the food is actually very appropriate and having herself lose her mother, sister and first husband to cancer, Nigella is still living life and making the best of what she has) so no matter what one celebrates they can find something good in this super large volume. I have to admit that I use this daily and don't wait for special occasions.

Feast is probably her biggest ( thickest) book to date, and I made some good things from it. Let me tell you, the Pumpkin Cheesecake (on page 68 ) was my first cheesecake and no only was it ridiculously easy it turned out so good I was shocked I made it myself. There was a suggestion for Butterscotch sauce on the page to pour on top, I made it as well ( gotta love the pairing suggestions) and the combination was just divine. The sauce would also go well on something like an apple and macadamia nut crumble or anything thatis sweet.

Gingerbread muffins on page 91 were so warm and cozy I make them in cold weather to keep the chill of, the trouble is stopping at one. If you want your house to smell like a home, make this!

Roast Loin of pork with caraway, lemon and garlic - spicy fragrant, nothing ordinary about this simple to make dinner, makes great leftovers as the rub on top intensifies.

Chicken Pot Pie - I guarantee that after this one no one will be shopping for it in the frozen section of their supermarket, flaky dough, creamy hot center, lost of peas, ham and chicken in sauce, the only caution is not burning the tongue as it's hard not to gobble up.

There's even Muttar Paneer - an excellent Indian dish, makes me feel silly for ever thinking it was hard to make. Now I can control the ingredients and how much salt and fat goes into it, one can make a healthy lunch out of an exotic staple after all.

This book has everything, I don't know how this woman thinks it all up, but she makes these recipes and writes about them, she feeds them to her children and friends, real people are involved into bringing this book to life and it shows.

- Kasia S.

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Review for the baking recipes

I have all but one of Nigella's cookbooks and this is my favorite. Since I bake rather than cook a lot this review focuses on the baking recipes. After having made a lot of the recipes from this book and her others I have been disappointed more than I thought I would be. Some of the recipes turn out very dry. But this book offers a unique layout by feast and/or holiday and some good, potentially great recipes if they were just tweaked or reworked a little- like the Chocolate Truffle Cake, Lemon Meringue Cake and Chocolate Gingerbread. The only problems are that some of the recipes are not exact enough or have some issues. For instance, with the truffle cake some people complained that the thin layer of cocoa sifted on top made them choke, but the cake and meringue crust were a hit. Also, she does not mention in this recipe that if you do not slowly add a little of the melted chocoalte to the cream them mix the rest in you can get little grainy chocolate pieces rather than a smooth base. The lemon meringue cake is also beautiful, but I would recommend just doing meringue disks, cream and curd and not the cake part since it is SO DRY. The chocolate gingerbread is utter bliss though. The pictures are utterly amazing and the stories behind them are fun to read.I also liked the way the book is set up kinda by holiday rather than the traditional appetizers, main course, desserts, etc. here little background jaunts over where she found or came up with the recipes is a pleasure to read and she is very descriptive in a very sensual way. For some this may be a little tiring. Another plus, this is a big cookbook with lots of recipes andd color pics, which is just great. It's a beautiful cookbook with fun, vibrant, sensual dishes. Overall, I'd recommend this book as her best work so far. If you are a some what experienced home baker able to see some minor flaws in recipes and be creative in re-working the recipes and enjoy being inspired by dishes I'd recommend picking this up.

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Not bad, but not my "cup of tea"

It's not a bad cookbook. Entertaining. Interesting to read about the classic christmas cake and various other stories about her life. I'm sure the recipes are delicious. But the author has a very different life, and celebrations, than I do (I can't imagine serving fiddly hot canapes - maybe it's an urban thing) and different tastes (she's heavy on the meat, not so heavy on the spices and strong flavors). I can't imagine I'll ever make any of these recipes, although some of the cakes and tortes are tempting, if I had extra time and energy on hand... but for real armchair cookbook fantasy, I'd have wanted more pictures. After the first chapter - on roasting turkey and goose - there's not much that really screams holiday eating at me.

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The real deal for home entertaining

Nigella can do no wrong--her style of carefree yet interesting cooking is in top form in this 'holiday/celebration' collection of recipes...

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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