Serves One: Toni Lydecker

By JULIETTE ROSSANT The joys of preparing a meal and enjoying it often seem limited to couples or larger groups -- thus feels the cook for one. Yet, chances are that everyone at some point cooks and eats alone. The solution? Easy: a cookbook full of recipes and tips when cooking for one. "We hear a lot about eating as a communal experience , but the pleasures of solitary dining should not be overlooked," writes Toni Lydecker in the first edition (p. 2) of Serves One: Super Meals for Solo Cooks (Lake Isle Press 1998). This year, Lake Isle Press published a second, updated edition, and beyond the obvious need for such a book, the reissue begs the question of how soon a cookbook needs updating -- and what that signifies for changes in cuisine. The answers are soon and plenty. Cookbooks need to be reissued relatively soon (within a decade) to keep up with changes in general cuisine trends (or changes in a chef's cuisine), because changes in cuisine are a-plenty. Author Toni Lydecker notes in the revised cookbook, Serves One: Simple Meals to Savor When You're on Your Own (Lake Isle Press 2005): "More than two-thirds of Americans eat a meal by themselves a few days a week or even more often... So why not relax and enjoy the experience?" (p. 12). So, many time-consuming dishes from the first edition are out of the second. The revised cookbook also includes single-serving packages of ingredients to reduce shopping time or trips. Take the first chapter on salads. Instead of a list of different greens, a description of their flavor, how long they last, or what they pair best with, Toni assumes that in this next millennium of New American Cooking (see previous article) most people have access to various kinds of greens in the market, from mesclun to baby spinach, so she recommends buying by the ounce at a salad bar. The recipes have changed accordingly. The salads are quicker to prepare and range around the world from a French inspired Frisee with Fried Egg and Bacon (p. 34) to a Middle Eastern Tabbouleh to Japannese-Style Marinated Veggies (p. 41). The soup chapter is also greatly changed. Gone is the chatty story about chefs and cooks like Pat Reppert, the Garlic Queen. In their stead, Toni has added new recipes with short preparation times of around 20 minutes each (like the Three-Onion Soup) and even 5 minutes (like the garlicky Soothing Tortellini-Broccolini Soup). Judging by some changes, however, Toni seems to give prefererence to convenience over excellence. For example, the first edition's Fresh Tomato Soup drops out in the second for Creamy Tomato Soup using canned diced tomatoes. Cream would tend to reduce the demand for fresh tomatoes, yet reasonably fresh tomatoes are far more abundant in supermarkets in 2005 than even 1998, much less two or three decades ago. One fairly dramatic change is that the chapter on Beans and Grains has now morphed into Beans, Grains & Soy. Surprisingly, there are only three tofu recipes now that the chapter includes "Soy" -- Gold Fried Tofu, Seasoned Tofu Cake, and Tempeg Burger (pp. 138-139) -- which is a bit disappointing since tofu is good source of low-fat protein. Also, neither tofu nor bean curd are in the new cookbook's index. There are other interesting changes for cookbook collectors. For instance, the first edition bases chapters on cooking methods, like "Stovetop" and "Oven & Grill," while the second bases chapters on ingredients. This change reflect a general improvement in cookbook design -- given the large number of cookbooks published these days, publishing houses seem to have understood that cooks don't usually think to themselves, "Gee, I think I want to cook on top of the stove today!" Granted, sometimes the weather is so hot home cooks don't want to turn the oven on, but more often we think, "I have fish in the freezer: what can I do with it?" And Serves One has contempoary recipes for just such occasions, like a Simply Seafood chapter packed with recipes like Roasted Halibut with Sweet Miso Sauce (p. 115) and Panko-Crusted Soft-Shell Crabs (p. 123). Ingredients have certainly improved in the American marketplace: Toni now includes miso or panko, whereas they were absent in the first edition. Unlike the orange duotone of the original version (which, by the way, was handsomely laid out), the new edition includes lush photos (by Dasha Wright) on glossy pages. Overall, the second edition of Serves One retains the tone of cheerful gusto and love of food in the original, with its clear descriptions and easy steps, while offering updated and contemporary, time-considerate recipes to encourage us to more happily cook and serve for one. Book details: Publisher Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Previous articles: [complete Cookbook Reviews] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, cookbooks --> back to superchefblog