My Irish Table is an internationally recognized chef's homage to family dinners, Irish food and a father who inspired a son's love of cooking.
Cathal Armstrong, owner of several Washington, D.C.-area restaurants (Restaurant Eve, Eamonn's), is from a large Dublin family. His father grew more than 60 kinds of produce in a backyard garden that became the family's primary food source. He cooked dinners that stretched into the night and influenced Armstrong's culinary style, which combines Irish farm-to-table standards with sophisticated French culinary technique. Armstrong captures the current preference for traditional recipes prepared with rustic elegance and adds a few surprising twists. Spanish Omelet with Aioli may not be classically Irish, for instance, but it reflects those values.
The cookbook itself is beautiful. It is logically organized by menu type--breakfast, snacks, main courses, more ambitious recipes from Restaurant Eve and, of course, dessert--with plenty of photographs. The layout is thoughtful; you won't have to turn a page while cooking a dish, which makes the book easy to use in the home kitchen. Armstrong introduces most recipes with personal anecdotes, which adds a warm, celebratory note.
Armstrong is justifiably proud of his accomplishments as a successful restaurateur and leader in the sustainable-food movement, but he recounts his memories of hosting President Barack and Michelle Obama's anniversary dinner and his mother's simple cheese on toast with equal reverence. My Irish Table is a reminder of how central food is to memory and celebration, and that food, carefully prepared from the best ingredients, is a gift. --Jeanette Zwart, freelance writer and reviewer