Book Review: A Pig in Provence

Photo Credit: Chronicle Books 

The publisher of Under the Tuscan Sun brings you this title celebrating life in Provence. Written by award winning cookbook author and part time Provence resident Georgeanne Brennan.

It’s the story of her long time love affair with the region, starting when she was a young mother learning to make artisan goat cheese. Each chapter celebrates a particular food topic, such as garlic, long summer meals, goat cheese or wedding tarts. From there Ms. Brennan shares fond memories of that topic based on her many years spent in the region.

Some notable references? Gathering with friends to harvest grapes and the incredible farm lunches that were served for the event, the quest to learn to make artisan-style goat cheese,  and some wonderful truffle and mushroom secrets, including slicing the mushrooms to string and dry behind the wood stove, similar to how I saw apple slices done by some family friends in my childhood.

Included after each chapter was a topical recipe with preparation and serving instructions. Did I mention the author runs a seasonal cooking school in Provence as well? A fact that has me extra motivated to try a few.

Personal verdict? A decent read. Recommended for culinary tourism enthusiasts, lovers of southern France, or those enamored with embracing cultures in depth as opposed to racing through the tourist stops.

Photo Credit: Chronicle Books

Dying to experience the wine country from your own home while saving up to actually take the trip? This book featuring recipes from one of its well known restaurants will get you started. The Travigne Cookbook, celebrating the restaurant of the same name, features the creative culinary works of Michael Chiarello.

Slick pages, full color photos and sexy recipes with serving suggestions, this title was certainly a fun one to curl up with. It celebrates seasonal ingredients such as asparagus, garlic, corn and bell peppers.  Some of the menu items featured? Winter squash ravioli, potato gnocchi, steak-style portabella mushrooms,  and crispy onion salad.

If you are looking for some affordable restaurant quality ideas to serve at home, and want to celebrate the feeling of Napa Valley at the same time, I recommend picking up a copy.

Photo Credit: Amazon.Com 

In short, this title by Anne Willan is one of the most substantial cook books I’ve seen in a long time. More of an experience than a mere book, really. While I adore books in general, and always enjoy curling up on the couch with a cup of coffee to check out a new cook book, it’s rare to find one that leaves me with an overwhelming feeling of reverence.

Why such an emotional reaction to a recipe collection? Well, to be quite honest, I just didn’t think they wrote ‘em like this anymore.  Thoroughly and exquisitely done in grand style, you’ll definitely want to take your time and savor this one, discovering it section by section. A massive hard cover tome with slick pages, glossy full cover images and a book jacket that’s a piece of still life art in itself, it’s truly a site to behold.  

And that’s just the frosting. Not to worry though, this book is loaded with meat and potatoes information, resources and recipes. Each topic section begins with a detailed intro on the subject (usually an ingredient or type of food), and information on how it is prepared regionally around the country. From there, individual recipes start with an explanation on the history of the dish, a clear list of ingredients, and detailed preparation instructions.

As a collection? Beyond thorough. Featured recipes include Burgundian roast turkey with chestnuts and wild mushrooms, sea bass in a salt crust, boule de neige, winemaker’s steak, coq au vin, and mussels in white wine.  

With an SRP of around fifty USD, this is clearly an investment purchase. You definitely get a quality product however, as this title has all the elements of a true classic. A book for the serious collector, culinary tourism enthusiast, cooking student, or lover of French cuisine, this one has serious gift potential.

Flickr Photo Credit: Serene Journal

Celebrate the taste of Greece with this simple, low ingredient vinaigrette.

1 part olive oil
1 part (slightly less, actually) red wine vinegar
2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 handful of chopped, fresh oregano leaves
sea salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together with a fork or whisk in a spouted container. Or dump it all into a cruet and shake the heck out of it. Either way, it’s quick and easy. I remember finding 1 quart bottles of red wine vinegar at the ninety nine cent grocery store in Tucson. They had sea salt as well. Since I grew my own oregano and bought my lemon juice in bulk at Costco, this was always a simple, affordable and elegant salad addition for me.  Got some pre-packaged rinse and dump mixed greens and some no-need-to-chop grape tomatoes?  Throw a simple dinner salad together with some twenty minute broiled salmon steaks and you’ve got an elegant dinner in less time than it takes to order take out! Have a taste for more Greek flavor with a twist? Check out a Greek cole slaw post I did a while back. Yum!

Flickr Photo Credit: Tina Raval

I’m always looking for ways to save on time and kitchen stress. So when I ran across this simple idea on low carb diets, I first gave it a slight twist to make it my own, and then brought it here to share with all of you. For me, simple needs to include as many “eyeballing it” options as possible. This definitely applies. Here’s what you need:

• A number of ripe avacados that suits the size of the crowd you are cooking for.


• Salsa


• Minced garlic (pre-done in a jar)


• Lemon juice concentrate


• Dash of salt


• Chopped fresh cilantro (if available)

Now, if you still prefer chopping the tomatoes and onions by hand, go for it. But this really speeds things up. Just mash up the ripe avacados, and add amounts of the remaining ingredients to fit the size of the batch you are making. Serve with some super cheap restaurant style tortilla chips from your local box warehouse store and bring on the beer and margaritas!

Photo Credit: Traveler’s Tales

Written by women for women, this humorously titled collection of feminine travel shorts will get you chuckling in a hurry. Yes, the panty humor that Traveler’s Tales is famous for continues in Vietnam, Mexico, Peru and right here at home in the good old U.S. of A. Get your girl giggle on.

This is a tasty soup recipe from Poland that a friend sent me. Ethnic and inexpensive! 

1 pound kielbasa or other cooked, smoked sausage,cut into 1/2-inch slices
4 cups chicken stock
2-3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small head of cabbage, cored and shredded
1 large onion, chopped
2 tsp caraway seeds
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker or large pot.  Cook tightly
covered on high heat or simmer over a very low flame for 5 to 6 hours.
Serves 4 to 6.

This would be great with some homemade crusty bread and whipped herb butter.

Photo Credit: Bumbleybee

Photo Credit: Traveler’s Tales

What do you get when you take thirty separate travel stories from thirty separate writers, all focused on one of the romantic destinations in the world? A very objective snapshot of what it’s like to live there.

Having done so for two years myself, I enjoyed this book on a personal level. I think Italy is an absolutely magical place to live. Which is probably why my favorite excerpt is the interview with Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun.  Hearing my own thoughts echoed by a fellow expat made me long for an afternoon of wine tasting in the countryside again.
Other shorts that stick in my memory? One person’s dunk into the Grand Canal (nearly did that myself once) and the excerpt on what standing in line means in Italy. If you are planning a trip and want to get in the mood, or are interested in taking a stroll down an Italian memory lane, 30 Days in Italy just might be for you.

Want to celebrate seafood on a shoestring budget? With this entrée you’ll be dishing up romance and building up your travel account at the same time. Bonus? This is another one of those recipes you can basically eye-ball in order to come out with the batch size you want.

Two main keys to saving money on this meal? Bulk canned clams and DIY white sauce mix. Bulk canned clams can be purchased at either Sam’s Club or Costco. If you don’t have a large warehouse store near you, you can at least get the 28 ounce size cans of clams on Amazon. One large can get yield a large batch of creamy clam sauce from which the leftovers can be used for either chowder or dip. Talk about a multi-purpose recipe.

Here’s what you need: one giant can of clams (juice reserved), one package of reduced fat cream cheese, an amount of white sauce mix suitable for the size of the batch you are making, olive oil, dried Parmesan or Romano to taste, an optional amount of skim milk or fat free half and half,  sea salt and cracked pepper corns.

Mix the white sauce mix with the clam juice instead of water. This will really nail the flavor element without unnecessary salt additives from standard seafood bases. Add in the reduced fat cream cheese and allow to melt, along with any amount of the milk you feel is necessary to give you the desired “weight” to your sauce.  Too much sauce mix can easily result in a wall paper paste type of consistency, and if this happens, it is easily thinned out with milk. Add in the clams, a bit of olive oil and seasonings. You can either make this on the fly, or slow simmer in a crock pot, providing you don’t over-cook things until the milk solids separate. 

While certainly suitable for a fettuccini or linguini noodle, I feel penne is an often overlooked option for medium weight sauces. With this in mind, I served my most recent batch of white clam sauce with Garofalo’s new addition to their signature line, the whole wheat penne rigate.  The ridges as well as the hollow space inside the pasta make for an excellent vehicle of flavor. 

Looking for an affordable way to sex it up and take the entrée to the next level? Consider some chopped scallions or fresh parsley for a garnish, along with some freshly grated specialty cheese.  Serve with a nice organic white wine or a decent boxed blush spritzer. Then, meander out to the patio for at-home al fresco dining on the cheap.

When a colleague turned me on to Garofalo’s schiaffoni pasta as something to try out, I thought, how different can it be? In a word? Hearty. Even at a full 15 minutes in boiling water, this stuff was just reaching al dente. While the recommended sauce pairing was a tomato basil, I took one look at the size and shape of the noodles and knew it was going to require something way more hard core.

My answer?  A heavy meat-based vodka sauce with crushed tomatoes, olive oil and a liberal dose of Italian seasoning. Basically the kind of sauce you can eyeball, but if you need the full specifics, here’s a link. Just scroll down to the bottom of the article.  I also served a homemade rosemary-thyme seasoned batter bread with a bottle of Our Daily Red, a decent organic wine we drink a few times per week.   

Between dinner and desert, we could barely walk. I’m telling you, this schiaffoni is certainly not for the faint of pasta heart. My husband’s just about the most hard core spaghetti fan I know and usually has no problem inhaling a couple or three plates of even the heaviest pasta dinner. He was hard pressed to finish plate one, even as much as he loved it.

The oval shaped tubes are already quite large, and cooking of course enlarges them a fair bit. We ended up with individual noodles that were about the size of traditional raviolis only much sturdier as I mentioned. Yummy for sure, and definitely for the heartier sauce recipes in your repertoire. So the next time you’re having some serious eaters over for dinner and want to make sure you’re on you’re  “A-game”, try out the schiaffoni. They’ll notice for sure.