Julia Turshen is a "home cook just like you," a fact that is evident on every page of Simply Julia: 110 Easy Recipes for Healthy Comfort Foods. She promises recipes with easy-to-source ingredients, dishes that won't generate more clean-up than absolutely necessary and menu ideas that are as inspiring as they are easy to execute--and she delivers.
Turshen starts with the basics: short (only five items!) lists of staple ingredients, kitchen utensils and things to keep on hand for "good kitchen vibes." She then groups recipes into large, general categories ("Easy Weeknight Go-tos" and "Eleven Chicken Recipes"), each full of dishes that look as delectable as they are approachable in a standard home kitchen--no sous-chef or cleaning team or fancy equipment required. Simply Julia is more than "just" recipes, however, as Turshen has packed the pages of her elegantly designed book with stories, photographs and memories associated with each dish: "Almond Chicken Cutlets for Grace" recalls when Turshen's wife was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes; "Coffee Crumb Cake for Georgine" is a memory of Turshen's late friend Georgine, met while volunteering together; "Sweet and Salty Sesame Peanuts" recalls her years spent eating Nuts4Nuts on the streets of New York. These anecdotes--in combination with an assortment of personal essays through which Turshen reflects on food and life--injects energy into Turshen's deceptively simple recipes. With stunning photography by Melina Hammer, Simply Julia pays homage to the role food plays in connecting people to history, to communities and to one another. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm