A Slob in the Kitchen

Rating:
Summary: You need to own this book
Review: Duff rocks as usual! This is such a great book. Again, Duff uses her hysterical sense of humor, but this time in a cookbook....a perfect gift for anyone!...love it!

Rating:
Summary: The Duff is Tuff!
Review: I had the pleasure of briefly speaking to Ms. Duffy this morning in a neighborhood eatery. I approached her to compliment her on her creative recipes and she just lit up like a beautiful Christmas tree. She couldn't have been more gracious about being interrupted during her repast. I've been a fan of hers since her early days and am happy to know that at least we have kitchen-slobbery in common.
Copies of this book are going to be my gifts to all my friends until everyone has one or I run out of friends, whichever comes first.

Rating:
Summary: buy one for every friend you have
Review: I have long been an admirer of Karen Duffy's. She is smart, gorgeous, funny, brave and....apparently also a domestic diva! I devoured this book. It is phenomenal. It is practical and fun, and has produced some great meals in my house. My teenaged sons have enjoyed cooking with me from it too. Whether you are an accomplished cook, or just someone who has to put food on the table, this book is a must. Nigella Lawson---move over!!!!

Rating:
Summary: buy one for every friend you have
Review: I have long been an admirer of Karen Duffy's. She is smart, gorgeous, funny, brave and....apparently also a domestic diva! I devoured this book. It is phenomenal. It is practical and fun, and has produced some great meals in my house. My teenaged sons have enjoyed cooking with me from it too. Whether you are an accomplished cook, or just someone who has to put food on the table, this book is a must. Nigella Lawson---move over!!!!

Rating:
Summary: An every day help!
Review: I'll admit - I'm a good cook. I can grind my own meats, make my own jams and even make my own potsticker wrapers from scratch.

But geez, I don't want to do that EVERYDAY!

This book, while not for professional chefs, gets kudos from me as it addresses a huge fact of life - you need to feed people everyday, sometimes three times day, while doing things other than cooking. You need easy tasty recipes. This book has 'em.

So for the reviewers who are concerned it's not "haute" enough - it's not. That's not it's job. But it will get you through life and kids and husbands and work without resorting to mixes or prefab junk. It's real. Nuff said!

Rating:
Summary: duck soup is good food
Review: she's funny. no, really. and the recipes are easy to make and delicious. I'm eating the guacamole as we speak. The only thing I really like to make is a phone call for restaurant reservations or delivery service. the tone makes it less intimidating to try the dishes, and the book is fun to read. i have about eleven high end cookbooks in my kitchen collecting dust. highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?
Review: Wanna have a few laughs in the kitchen? Get this book by Karen Duffy (my hero)! In the books introduction she says, " This is for people who have better things to do than cook." AMEN! (that's just the start of Duff's off beat sense of humor)
My husband was always a huge fan of her, now I am. He bought me this book because she was on the cover and because he thinks I'm a slob in the kitchen. It's actually a cheaters guide to cooking (Perfect for me). Duffy makes it so much fun for the reader/cook, and the recipes (I've only made three so far) are fairly easy. Plus with Duff's recipes, you look like you tried much harder than you did (i.e., gravy scented candles). Great quotes, great tips for cooking in a snap. Duffy is such a wise ass. Her cute stories prefacing almost all of the recipes (about friends and her life) are witty, fun and interesting (things that never come across in cook books). The "Slob Smarts" are the best. Duff's book is also a great gift.

P.S.My favorite story is on the tail end of the peanut butter and jelly sushi recipe.

Rating:
Summary: Hungry, need a laugh? BUY THIS BOOK!
Review: Wit, wisdom, and great looks - Ms. Duffy has it all. Her latest book will make you laugh AND make your place smell great. Stop reading and buy this damn book!



Rating:
Summary: A MUST-HAVE FOR THE KITCHEN
Review: `slob in the kitchen' is a witty collection of easy recipes and effective entertaining tips by writer (and other things) Karen Duffy, who is neither a chef, culinary teacher, or culinary journalist. There are so many little things that are wrong about this book that it seems difficult to know where to begin. On the other hand, there is one very big thing right about the book. The single reason for buying this book in place of hundreds of other books on cooking and entertaining is that you are more likely to make the recipes in this book if you are, like 95% of you are, not a foodie or food professional, and have no interest in becoming one.

I recently reviewed two books on entertaining recipes by a major culinary magazine and a NY chef superstar that had lots of very delicious, but very complicated recipes, even for appetizers and snacks. They really were great recipes, but most people simply would not consider making them. Ms. Duffy starts with sixteen (16) very simple versions of some old classics such as guacamole and hummus, plus one utterly outrageous recipe which combines two truly dangerous things, processed American cheese and fireworks rockets.

Ignoring the cute titles, the remaining recipe chapters follow a pretty conventional layout, covering soups, salads, pastas, single dish meals, chicken and other poultry, meat, fish, sauces and marinades, vegetables, breads, desserts, and breakfast foods. All recipes are rated by means of a clever little chimpanzee face icon capped with a dunce cap, a mortarboard, or a chef's toque. The dunce cap recipes, which include at least 80% of the recipes in the book, are easy, and they are almost all very easy. The mortarboard recipes are somewhat more advanced. Chefs with a fair amount of experience and confidence best do the toque recipes.

Most recipes are so simple, it is hard to imagine anything can go wrong with them; however, my sense is that many recipes overlook enough details that a true novice in the kitchen will encounter problems with several of the recipes, even if there are no land mines, and there are land mines. Two that stand out in my mind are the recipes for waffled French toast and cheese crisps, known in Italy as Frico Croccante. In the `French toast' recipe, it calls for either challah or `French Bread'. Now I am virtually certain Ms. Duffy is thinking of brioche when she calls for `French Bread' as brioche is very similar to challah and is a well known basis for `Pain Perdu' (French Toast in French). But, if the unsuspecting reader following these instructions purchases a nice, crusty baguette or batard, they will definitely be disappointed with the outcome of the recipe, as neither of these `French' breads will work well in a waffle iron, as their crusts are entirely too stiff, and a sliced baguette will simply be too small to make the whole thing worth the effort. The recipe for Frico calls for either grated Parmesan or Provolone cheese. Every recipe and every demonstration I have seen of this recipe calls for Parmesan, Romano, or Montasio cheese. That is, some type of hard grana cheeses. Provolone is definitely not a hard grating cheese and, although using Provolone will result in an edible product, it will be quite different from the result with Parmesan.

What these and other examples tell me is that Ms. Duffy should have retained the services of a very good culinary co-author such as Dorie Greenspan or Melissa Clark. These professionals would have spotted these misleading directions in a thrice, and would have happily taken a decent retainer for a few days of editing and prominent mention in the acknowledgments. In spite of this, Ms. Duffy really did very well on her own. She has not only read widely in a great variety of culinary sources, but she has obviously done an excellent job of applying what she has read to entertaining her family and guests on a regular basis.

I have never read Peg Bracken's `I Hate to Cook Book', but I was totally unsurprised to find Ms. Duffy citing it, rather than Martha Stewart or Ina Garten or Nigella Lawson or Julia Child as her favorite author, since it was the idea behind Ms. Bracken's book which immediately occurred to me as I began reading this book. It is even meet and right that Ms. Duffy knows Al Roker, the foodie amateur extraordinare, as Roker is also the author of two books by a culinary nonprofessional.

There are significant lapses in other parts of the book as well. The glossary goes from `grill' on the bottom of page 264 to `saute' on the top of page 265. Either the author got very tired by the time she reached page 264, or publisher Clarkson Potter dropped the ball. The definitions which are present are dreadfully obvious or mistaken, as when boil is defined at cooking at a temperature greater than 212 F. It is physically impossible to boil water at greater than 212 F at sea level. The following produce notes are also misleading, as when the author says apples should have a rich deep uniform color. Most good apple varieties generally have a mix of red and green in ripe, tasty specimens. Only the popular but bland red delicious apple completely fits the description.

I must also object to the pervasive use of the term `slob'. It made me wonder why I am reading this book, as I did not want to become a slob in the kitchen.

For a list price of $23, this is an entertaining read with lots of sound, offbeat advice for entertaining. Please do not interpret my four stars to mean I think Ms. Duffy's recipes are comparable to works by Bobby Flay or Mario Batali. They are not. But, the non-foodie will simply be much more likely to make these recipes than to copy Bobby or Mario.