Tag Archives: vegetarian

The Moosewood Cookbook: How I Broke My Oven and Learned to Cook Again

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Remember a while back when I tried to write a cookbook review and ended up breaking the oven? (and coining the new cuss word FOCACCIT!)  Well, I’m proud to report that just 6 months and $1200 later, we have a new oven! And I STILL haven’t made that focaccia.  But I am ready to write a review of the The Moosewood Cookbook: 40th Anniversary Edition.

Short Review: Buy yourself one today! Or get one for the mama in your life for Mothers Day! If you use that Amazon link, it will be here in time for Sunday. Probably. Wedding gift, graduation gift, Treat Yoself gift…this book belongs in every kitchen.

Being without an oven meant I had to do some re-engineering in the kitchen. Loooots of Crock Pot cooking. Also more salads and stir frys. I feel like this beautiful book helped me fall back in love with the basics of cooking–the sensual, spiritual creation of concoctions that nourish us.

(Does that sound sufficiently Hippie enough for ya? Good, let’s continue.)


I was unfamiliar with the story of the Moosewood Cookbook. It’s one of the best-selling cookbooks of all time, a classic of vegetarian cooking. Mollie Katzen, one of the founders of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York, compiled and illustrated this collection of recipes 40 years ago. The cookbook started as a binder of recipes used by the cooks at Moosewood–none of them professional chefs. The collection includes recipes from grandmothers, restaurant diners, international adventures. A little of this, a little of that.

Yes, it’s packed with exotic flavors from around the world, but what I loved most about this book was that it helped me get back to the basics. Over the past couple of years, I’ve fallen into the trap of the working mother–convenience foods and a boring routine of proven, easy recipes. Seriously, we are one taco salad from oblivion up in here.

When I prepared the Moosewood recipe for French Onion Soup, I remembered the simple pleasure of caramelizing onions on a Sunday afternoon (and G even ate it too!). Just below the recipe for onion soup are instructions for making croutons. I didn’t need a recipe for croutons–I just needed a reminder that I COULD make my own croutons. And I did.

This book reminded me that I can make my own vinaigrette instead of relying on Paul Newman’s. As I mixed the ingredients, I remembered how my sister taught me to smash the salt and garlic together with a fork to release the flavors. I shook my dressing in a cruet that reminded me of Big Gay and the homemade salad dressing she keeps on hand. I got back in touch with the act of cooking.

Instead of cracking a bottle of LaChoy, I cracked open the Moosewood Cookbook and taught myself how to make stir-fry sauces from scratch. Again–not complicated things to do, but a return to the basic joy of making foods with my whole brain instead of a jar.

moosewoodIt’s not only an interesting and varied cookbook–it’s beautiful and playful. Katzen hand-lettered and illustrated each page. It’s a completely different feeling from the Pinteresty, food stylist, soft focus filter world of today. The simplicity of the pages reminds me of the Flint River Favorites cookbook that my school put together in the 1970s (except there are a lot fewer recipes that call for cream of mushroom soup). I remember my mother helping to collect and type all those recipes. The cookbook fell open to the page with the brownie recipe, which was smearing and smudged with so many drips that it smelled like brownies.

I’m looking forward to working my way around to the jicama salads and spanakopita and Ukranian poppy seed cake, but for right now, I’m so glad I have this rich book to explore, one taste at a time.

It’s a marvel!

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I received a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Check out Blogging for Books if you’d like to know more about the program!

Fartbuster’s Red Hot

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Back in the day, Fartbuster went through a vegetarian phase.  It didn’t really work out the way he had planned it.  As one of our coworkers put it, “Don’t get me wrong, but you’re the BIGGEST vegetarian I’ve ever seen.”  Basically, we just replaced meat that we had been eating with an equivalent portion of cheese and gained a bunch of weight.  But this was back when he was being all Zen so I guess he didn’t mind looking like the Buddha.

That year on Christmas Day, we went to Pop and Grandmama Irene’s house for breakfast–homemade biscuits with blackberry jelly, scrambled eggs, chow chow, and red link sausages from that little gas station up the highway in Brooks.  Deeeee lish.

We’re all fixing our plates and filling coffee cups and passing bowls around.  Grandmama looks over Fartbuster’s plate of eggs and biscuits and says, “There’s plenty of sausages.  Get some.”  She holds the bowl out to him.  He tells her “No, thanks” and keeps on eating.

A couple of minutes later, she says, “I’ve got more on the stove, go on and have some sausage if you want.”  He got kind of nervous at all the attention and stammered, “Oh, I’m OK, I’m fine.”  Grandmama Irene pops my grandfather on the arm and says, “Dick!  Pass him the sausages!”  But Pop had his hearing aids on the “holiday” setting.  Off.

Finally, my mom cuts in and say, “Mama!  He doesn’t EAT sausage!  He’s a vegetarian.”

Grandmama throws her hands up in the air and huffs, “Well why didn’t anybody tell me?  I could have made HAM.”

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