Inspired by Ingredients : Market Menus and Family Favorites from a Three-Star Chef

Rating:
Summary: Another New York chef's Cookbook. Yawn.
Review: `Inspired by Ingredients' is by a wannabe New York City celebrity chef Bill Telepan, assisted by major culinary assistant writer Andrew Friedman. The author extols fresh seasonal cooking, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, has staged with major American and French star chefs, and organizes his dishes by season. Alert the media! My hackneyed sarcasm here is based on the fact that this book is so much about nothing new. On top of these tired assets, there is the fact that Telepan assisted in restaurants under both Daniel Boulud and Albert Portale. As I already own a half dozen books by these major chefs who are known for both the skill and innovation in their recipes, so why do I want a book by one of their apostles? I will be really happy when restaurant chefs gild their books with praise for using fresh ingredients and for extolling their illustrious career path and success with important reviewers such as Ruth Reichl or the Michelin guide. Both of these are legally purely circumstantial when it comes to how good their cookbook may be.

There are some things in Telepan's book which redeem the picture of mediocre copycat painted in the previous paragraph. The first evidence of quality is co-author Andrew Friedman. Friedman is credited with assisting in the writing of Albert Portale's books, but he was also co-author on Tom Valenti's two books, both of which I found to be of a high quality in writing and recipe composition. The second is the fact that Telepan's family background is Hungarian and several of his recipes are interpretations of classic Hungarian dishes. This may not mean much to a person with an Italian or French or Spanish, or even German or English heritage, but to us poor scions of Hungarian grandparents, this means a lot. The index to this book cites four (4) Hungarian influenced dishes. These are an apple pie with caramel sauce, a cabbage and potato soup with kielbasa, cabbage and noodles, and lemon-poppy seed bars. After my initial anticipation upon reading about the Hungarian influence, I was really disappointed to find but four Hungarian influenced dishes, two of which are desserts and one of which is not really a recipe from an accomplished chef, but just a contrived interview between chef and Hungarian mother about how she makes the dish. In contrast, there are ten (10) recipes based on Italian influences. I really don't need another book by a New York chef with Italian influenced recipes. I can get all I want on this theme from Mario Batali, Rocco DiSpirito, and Tom Colicchio. At least they are Italian.

I did find one other thing to interest me, in that the chef-author includes a lot of recipes for fresh peas, which happens to be one of my favorite vegetables, and, he has several good tips on getting the best from this ingredient. Otherwise, most of his tips, such as how to find the best point at which to trim asparagus and how to do a perfect hard-boiled egg seem pretty tired to anyone who dotes on the Food Network or has read more than two good general cookbooks. Note that the author makes heavy use of some very uncommon ingredients such as ramps, fresh morels, and purslane. My generally very well stocked megamart has never carried any of these ingredients, and since I live 90 miles from the Union Square market, I have a hard time determining where I may find these ingredients. Also, the book's design and photography have nothing whatsoever to distinguish it from a good buy from the discount stacks. As even Alfred Portale's books have found their way to the discount lists, I do not expect much from this book. I am inclined to believe Simon & Schuster simply decided not to commit many resources to this project.

My final comment is that these recipes are well written, quite obviously tasty (the amount of heavy cream in play alone will guarantee this), and are well chosen for anyone who does not already own 300 cookbooks. If you are especially fond of cookbooks by New York chefs and already own the collected works of Eric Rippert, Alfred Portale, Tom Colicchio, Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, and Tony Bourdain, this book will fit right in.