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Summary: Made me look like a gourmet chef
Review: Bought the book a couple of years ago by chance and have so far tried more than 20 recipes, every one of them was a hit. I got a lot of new cooking ideas from the book. For any tofu-haters, they would never guess the Chocolate-Almond midnight you made was mostly tofu! Some of the recipes are indeed quite complex, it took me two days to prepare the Indonesian Rice Tamales with Carrot-Lemongrass Sauce for a gathering but it was quite worthy. Now I have a number of dishes made regularly from these recipes, in my own simplifed version.
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Summary: Millennium Vegetarian Cuisine is delicious and nutritious
Review: Eric Tucker (my co-author and executive chef at Millennium Restaurant) and I are happy to know that now through The Millennium Cookbook, people all over the world are enjoying Millennium Vegetarian Cuisine. At one time you could only enjoy these extraordinary vegetarian creations at our restaurant in San Francisco. Now anyone can enjoy Millennium Vegetarian Cuisine right in their own home - anywhere, anytime. If you already have The Millennium Cookbook or are planning to purchase it, we encourage you to incorporate as many of our vegetarian recipes into your menus at home as you can. Share them with your family and friends. You will find these recipes not only delicious, full of flavor and very satisying, but healthy for you as well. As a professional nutritionist and registered dietitian, and the staff nutritionist at Millennium Restaurant, I know the importance of eating a healthy plant-based diet. The recipes in our cookbook are heart healthy (contain no cholesterol and are very low in saturated fat). Every recipe is 100% pure vegetarian (also refered to as vegan vegetarian). They contain absolutely no meat, fish, poultry, eggs or dairy products. Many of our recipes are also very low in total fat content. Even some of our richer dishes have suggested modifications that keep fat to a minimum. For the diet/health conscious reader, I have prepared a nutritional analysis for every recipe in the cookbook. This provides information on the amount of calories, protein, carbohydrate, fat (also % calories from fat), cholesterol, sodium and fiber found in each recipe. As we enter the new millennium, more and more health professionals,scientists and even chefs are recognizing that a vegan vegetarian diet is the best way to go when it come to the prevention and treatment of many serious diseases and health problems. I believe that in the new millennium healthy vegetarian cuisine will play a prominent role in the future of medicine and healthcare in the United States and throughout the world. At the same time it will also play a more prominent role in the culinary profession as well. As a result, more and more people will be searching for great-tasting healthy vegetarian recipes. At Millennium Restaurant we have taken vegetarian cuisine to a whole new level - gourmet, elegant, lush, sensual, pleasing to the senses and very healthy. If you ever come to San Francisco please stop by and visit us at Millennium Restaurant for a wonderful fine dining adventure. Wishing you the best of good food and good health always, - John Westerdahl, MPH, RD, CNS/ Staff Nutritionist, Millennium Restaurant / Co-author, The Millennium Cookbook
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Summary: Author's comments on the Millennium Cookbook
Review: Hi, Thanks for your interest in the Millennium Cookbook. As chef of San Francisco's Millennium and author of the majority of the book, I thought I'd take a moment and chat about the book.First of all thanks Joan Price on the great review! I must say Joan you say it all in a nutshell. Second of all I want to thank Sascha Weiss,Millennium's pastry chef, who's name is not listed as an author in the review of the book. His contrabutions of his amazing and inovative desserts are definitely an integral part of this work. So what we have here is the culmination of a number of years work from the kitchens of both Millennium and it's former sister restaurant Milly's (where I and this cuisine got started). What our cuisine is is creative vegetarian fine dining. All of our cuisine is vegan, or animal product free. A number of the dishes are also low in fat. As Joan Price's review stated we definitly dispel the myth of vegetarian vegan cuisine being bland, boring, and from the land of over cooked brown rice and steamed tofu,with all the appeal of a wet sock and pleather. Instead you are going to find as one critic put it "..cuisine akin to a worldbeat concert.." Bright, bold flavors, food prducts and concepts of many ethnic cuisines intrepretated and extrapolated in our own style, all animal product free of course. As opposed to our food looking like a haphazard monochromatic mess, we place as much emphasis on the visual appeal as well as the flavors, which is evident in the striking color photos in our book. Okay, there are some recipies that might take you all day, like it does us in the kitchen, but there are also plenty that are much simpler. The recipies that are longer can also be prepared as one aspect instead of the whole dish. Such as preparing our pumpkin curry sauce on it's own with out the other four sub-recipies that make up the Thai Stuffed Pumpkin. The bottom line is what you have is a really good resource of ideas and concepts as well as recipies on how to do our vegetable based cuisine. This I hope will appeal to all, vegetarian and nonvegetarian foodies alike.
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Summary: Best vegan cookbook ever!
Review: I am always hesitant to rate anything a perfect score. With this book, I am tempted. This book transforms me into a vegan gourmet chef. With each recipe I make , my wife tells me it is the best she's ever had. One word of warning - the cost of some of the ingredients is not for the budget conscious... Enjoy.
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Summary: Carnivore Eats Green
Review: I am amazed by this book. My wife raved about the restaurant, and brought back the book for me when she returned from vacation. You never miss the dairy. You never miss the meat. And the recipes are constructed so that even a borderline-feeb like myself can come off looking like the Royal Chef. Favorites are the Vegan Paella with Garlic Tofu Aeoli, and the carrot/parsnip soups -- you make carrot soup and parsnip soup separately, pour them in the bowl simulatanously with two ladles. The soups don't mix, they look like an orange and white yin/yang. Then you drizzle the cashew cream sauce on top and it looks like you're the guy who invented the onion. Wonderful.
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Summary: Carnivore Eats Green
Review: I am amazed by this book. My wife raved about the restaurant, and brought back the book for me when she returned from vacation. You never miss the dairy. You never miss the meat. And the recipes are constructed so that even a borderline-feeb like myself can come off looking like the Royal Chef. Favorites are the Vegan Paella with Garlic Tofu Aeoli, and the carrot/parsnip soups -- you make carrot soup and parsnip soup separately, pour them in the bowl simulatanously with two ladles. The soups don't mix, they look like an orange and white yin/yang. Then you drizzle the cashew cream sauce on top and it looks like you're the guy who invented the onion. Wonderful.
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Summary: Insanely Gorgeous
Review: I first heard that the folks at Millennium were working on a cookbook over a year and a half ago, and I've waited impatiently until now. The results fully exceeded my (high) expectations -- the layout and photography are beautiful and all of the recipes I desire are there, including the divine (and surprisingly easy) plantain-cilantro torte. This should completely dispel the myth that vegetarianism necessitates asceticism and the corollary that animal products are necessary to create tasty food or even a decadent dining experience (ask my friends who've tasted the pumpkin cake with chocolate-hazelnut ganache). A good set of cookware and a craving for challenge are indispensable, however. Some of the recipes are indeed quite complex -- even daunting in the sheer number of cross-references -- but making and serving them is pure joy, and the intermediary steps can be extracted for use in simpler dishes. The range of dishes is good, and the "Basics" section is very cool. Altogether, a nice counterpoint to the Green's style of egg & cheese laden vegetarian cooking. Buy this book and throw a dinner party for a group of omnivorous foodies- then tell them no animals were abused in the process - they will be amazed. I'm devoting the year before the calendar millennium to mastering the entire collection of recipes - one Sunday dinner at a time.
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Summary: Taking vegetarian dishes to new heights...
Review: I happened upon this book during one of my cookbook browsing moments. I was immediately struck by the visual beauty of the dishes presented in the photos. I read on only to be surprised by the recipes themselves--their lavish blend of flavors and textures. All that being said, I purchased the book as a gift for a vegetarian friend of mine (since I have purchased it for my collection). Though my friend is a serious home cook, her initial reaction to the complexity of the recipe--taking multiple steps with references to other recipes to complete one dish--caused her to initially shelf the book. It was upon my prodding--and a promise we would cook together--that she finally began to use it. Between us we have made many of the recipes in the book MOST of which we have liked very much. My advise to someone purchasing this book: Have time set aside to enjoy the process as well as the product and use your own creativity to substitute. I confess to substituting commercial plum sauce for one recipe rather than make the one from the book. Though less than authentic, the dish was delicious and completed in half the time! This book would attract serious cooks who have a working knowledge of food and a love for combining things--that being the case use this book as a solid base and spring board for creative food preparation.
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Summary: Self-flagellations of the Vegetarian Orthodox
Review: I have a vegan friend, who likes this restaurant, which I have never been to. Knowing I'm a near-pro cook, she asked if I had this cookbook, so I went out and bought it and thought I'd finally be able to treat her to some fine cooking here at home. Well scratch that thought. This book is full of what I call "adventurous craft cooking" which is where people who don't really know how to cook take humdrum recipes and throw all sorts of flavors into them willy-nilly thinking that's so exciting. Well, one of the cardinal rules of cooking is if it doesn't add, it subtracts. This book is deep into the negative reaches from all that subtraction. Worse still, they have to go through all sorts of horrifying contortions to satisfy their severe dietary (and sartorial) restrictions...as severe as any other orthodox sect I'm aware of. This even though their organic produce is fertilized with dried blood, bone meal, and waste from caged animals, and the livestock they are adamantly opposed to exploiting are living far better lives than their handlers or the wage slaves who pick their vegetables. The vegans are mercilessly cruel to plants, most of whom have no ability to run away. One wonders if they would eat Julia Butterfly's Luna tree, perhaps perched on a mound of smoked seitan with a soy milk-succanat reduction and forty clashing spices. The cruelty to plants is raised to another level entirely with the recipes in this book, however. At least I endeavor to make the absolute most of every animal product that comes my way, leveraging millennia of culinary wisdom and discipline. These poor plants are dishonored by the flailings of people who think they can cook but obviously were unable to learn due to their religious or phobic avoidances. Their guests may not know much of the difference given their shared syndrome. But for me, this book amounted to a clever means of tricking me into putting something disgusting into my mouth. How fortunate I only had the one vegan guest (and even she was quite disappointed). And yes, I very much DO know how to cook and I followed the recipe absolutely to the letter. The tree products used to make the book are being honored by being recycled, hopefully into something more enlightening.
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Summary: A milestone in vegan cuisine
Review: Overall, this is one of the best cookbooks I own, and I make that claim as a former meat-eater and a recent most-of-the-time vegan. I have been using "The Millennium Cookbook" since February and have made roughly half of the recipes in the book, including nearly all of those for pasta and pizza. I use this book all the time. My husband--a sometimes meat-eater with an open mind and palate--says nearly always that our Millennium meals are "exquisite." I certainly concur. Here are some stand-outs, in our view: Appetizers: Roasted Tomato and White Bean Galettes; Plantain Torte; Grilled Portobellos with Herb-Tofu Aioli and Red Onion Marmalade Salads: Oil-Free Caesar Dressing; Millennium Warm Spinach Salad; Curried Almond Dressing; Ruby Grapefruit, Avocado, and Pickled Red Onions with Baby Spinach and Grapefruit Mojo Dressing; Moroccan Eggplant Salad Soups: Yellow Split Pea Soup with Sage and Smoked Dulse Gremolata; Brazilian Black Bean Soup with Coffee and Orange Pasta and Pizza: Pasta with White Wine-Marinated Tomatoes and Basil; Mushroom, Fennel, and Dill Cream Penne; Marinated Fig, Onion, and Black Olive Pizzas with Herb-Tofu Aioli; Caramelized Garlic and Smoked Portobello Pizzas; Tempeh Pizzas with Puttanesca Sauce Sides: Millennium Fat-Free Mashed Potatoes Entrees: Baked Madras-Glazed Tofu with Saffron Basmati Pilaf, Sauteed Vegetables, and Peach-Lime Chutney; Rosa Bianca Eggplant Torte with Smoked Onion Ratatouille and Flageolet-Sage Sauce; Seitan Piccata; Grilled Jerked Seitan with Coconut Mashed Yams; Spring Onion, Morel, Fresh Pea, and Lemon Thyme Risotto Brunch: Smoked Tempeh and Potato Sausages; Flaxseed-Apple-Battered French Toast with Warm Apple Compote; Millennium Oat and Walnut Pancakes with Blueberry-Orange Sauce Desserts: Mocha Mud Slide; Mad Good Chocolate Cake; Pine Nut and Anise Cake; Brownies a la Mode; Chocolate-Almond Midnight; Meyer Lemon Bundt Cakes with Blackberry Sorbet and Meyer Lemon Sauce; Fig and Almond Tart with Red Wine and Pear Cream The desserts are "to die for," especially the fat-free version of their brownies. Overall, the meals are delicious, filling, and very satisfying. We don't hesitate to accompany them with a good bottle of wine. Another plus is that with time, you get a feel for using fat substitutes (e.g., braised garlic, stewed prunes, and the amazing silken tofu) and can soon come up with your own novel creations. Readers should be aware that this book does have its drawbacks. While many of the recipes can be made easily and quickly (pasta and pizza, mostly), many others require considerable time and effort. Close inspection reveals that there are a certain number of errors (sometimes of omission, e.g., saffron-cream sauce that leaves out the saffron ..., or even lack of directions). It should be noted that these can be attributed ultimately to the editors and not to the authors. I'm sure the second edition will clear these up. I've also found that many of the recipes work better with a little less liquid than called for (I don't know if this is a question of personal preference, altitude, or something else). For the above reasons, the "Millennium" is not for beginning cooks, in my view. But if you know how to cook, want to be a vegan, and are tired of searching "Gourmet" for the odd recipe that doesn't contain animal ingredients, this book is for you as much as it is for me--an inveterate "food snob" of the first order. Given rising rates of population and chronic disease, along with diminishing resources, vegan cooking is inevitably the culinary wave of the future. Compared to the other vegan cookbooks out there (even "The Vegan Gourmet"), the "Millennium" is the best. It's certainly worthwhile to join its celebration of great plant-based food. This is the best investment I've made in a cookbook in many years.
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