In Jam Today Too, Tod Davies picks up where she left off in Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking with What You've Got, using her intimate, warm, conversational tone to share wisdom on cooking in the best and worst of times. Not only does Davies dish on her favorite foods and recipes, but she meditates on the role food plays in relationships and in nature; she believes cooking reinforces autonomy by joining together the sides of life that get artificially separated, allowing individuals to engage directly with their environments.
Though Davies has advanced kitchen skills, her infectious enthusiasm and cheerleading make even the most difficult New American recipes accessible to the average cook. Her culinary repertoire is vast: barbecued sausage sandwiches stand alongside duck soup with wild mushrooms and sweet onions, braised oxtail and paella. In addition, she offers practical advice on setting up a home kitchen after natural disasters strike (based on her experiences cooking in vacation rentals and an RV after the flooding of her home), adapting existing recipes to suit personal tastes and maximizing pantry ingredients to create delicious meals for groups of all sizes.
"What we do in our everyday lives reflects the structure around us," writes Davies. "What we choose to eat, how we choose to source it, cook it, serve it, enjoy is, is more than a statement about our individual lives." Jam Today Too, a delicious bite to be savored over and over again, teaches us how to live and enjoy life one day at a time. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant