| | |  | NY Times Holiday '09 | Home » » » The Pleasures of Cooking for One | | | | | | | Description: | | From the legendary editor of some of the world’s greatest cooks—including Julia Child and James Beard—a passionate and practical book about the joys of cooking for one.
Here, in convincing fashion, Judith Jones demonstrates that cooking for yourself presents unparalleled possibilities for both pleasure and experimentation: you can utilize whatever ingredients appeal, using farmers’ markets and specialty shops to enrich your palate and improve your health; you can feel free to fail, since a meal for one doesn’t have to be perfect; and you can use leftovers to innovate—in the course of a week, the remains of beef bourguignon might be reimagined as a ragù, pork tenderloin may become a stir-fry, a cup or two of wild rice produces both a refreshing pilaf and a rich pancake, and red snapper can be reinvented as a summery salad. It’s a fulfilling and immensely economical process, one perfectly suited for our times—although, as Jones points out, cooking for one also means we can occasionally indulge ourselves in a favorite treat.
Throughout, Jones is both our instructor and our mentor, suggesting basic recipes—such as tomato sauce, preserved lemons, pesto, and homemade stock—that all cooks should have on hand; teaching us how to improvise using an ingenious strategy of building meals through the week; and supplying us with a lifetime’s worth of tips and shortcuts. From Child’s advice for buying fresh meat to Beard’s challenge to beginning crêpe-makers and Lidia Bastianich’s tips for cooking perfectly sauced pasta, Jones’s book presents a wealth of acquired knowledge from our finest cooks.
The Pleasures of Cooking for One is a vibrant, wise celebration of food and enjoying our own company from one of our most treasured cooking experts. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780307270726
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Judith Jones | | Hardcover:
| 288 pages | | Publisher:
| Knopf | | Publication Date:
| September 29, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0307270726 | | Package Length:
| 8.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.1 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.45 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 33 reviews |
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| $14.07 | New | | | $16.10 | New | | | $16.14 | New | | | $16.14 | New | | | $17.68 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $17.77 | New | | | $18.41 | New | | | $18.70 | New | | | $19.06 | New | | | $19.56 | New | | | $19.65 | New | | | $19.70 | New | | | $19.92 | New | | | $20.02 | New | | | $20.05 | New | | | $21.01 | New | | | $21.10 | New | | | $22.00 | New | | | $22.01 | New | | | $22.36 | New | | | $22.95 | New | | | $24.84 | New | | | $25.33 | New | | | $27.00 | New | | | $27.95 | New | | | $27.95 | New | | | $27.95 | New | | | $27.95 | New | | | $27.95 | New | | | $27.95 | New | | | $27.95 | New | | | $28.38 | New | | | $28.95 | New | | | $32.93 | New | | | $32.95 | New | | | $56.51 | New | | | $699.75 | New | |
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| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 Judith, Thank You!Mar 08, 2010
I've always enjoyed cooking for others, but over the last few years, cooking for myself has become more of a chore than a pleasure. With this book, Judith has reminded me of the fun and joy I used to have and that it's good to do something nice for me.
The book is a nice combination of sets of recipies for an initial dish and followup incarnations for leftovers (the pork tenderloin set is my favorite so far), plus single sized basics (mayonnaise, quiche, pilaf + others -- this is the first time I have ever seen a recipe for cheese souffle sized for one!). None are very complicated -- all are well within the capability of the average cook, and the results are delicious. Admittedly, there are some recipies that I doubt I will ever use since I don't care for shellfish, but the majority are well written and easy to understand and follow. As good as the recipies are, Judith's musings and her anecdotes about times with Julia Child are just as good.
This isn't a book that will set the world on fire, and it wasn't intended to be. But it's solid, well-thought out, and the food is luscious. I highly recommend it.
Practical and TastyMar 05, 2010
When got my first apartment, I went on a cookbook shopping spree, purchasing all the classics: "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," "Joy of Cooking," "New York Times Cookbook," etc. Everyone seems to have these in their kitchen, so it seemed like a sensible place to start.
Ultimately, I found them to be useless for day-to-day cooking. The problems with the recipes in the books were:
-The serving size was typically four to six people.
-Recipes not only called for lots of ingredients, but often for very small quantities of spices or vegetables that would not bee needed for any other recipes, which would make recipes relatively expensive. This is a particularly important point for me because I wanted to learn to cook for myself because eating out is so expensive.
-Preparation and cook time was quite long.
I'm sure this makes me sound lazy, but when I'm cooking just for myself on a weeknight, I'm not looking to spend over an hour making dinner.
As the title hints at, "The Pleasures of Cooking for One" is the ultimate practical cookbook for people looking to make meals for one to two people in only 30-45 minutes of preparation and cook time.
The major selling point of the cookbook is that you don't have to take a recipe designed to serve four to six people and calculate how much the ingredients need to be reduced in order produce a serving size for one to two people.
But what I find most useful, is that Jones minimizes the number of ingredients needed, and that the ingredients (vegetables and spices) are common enough that if you're forced to buy them in large quantities, they can be used in many other recipes.
She also describes the fastest and easiest way to cook something like fish, chicken, shrimp, etc., and then further details how you can take that base recipe and turn it into a more elaborate entrée. Or to think of it another way, her recipes are starting points - she leaves it up to you to determine how much time you want to invest, telling you more than enough about how to make sure it tastes good. So for example, she provides a simple and straightforward way to sauté shrimp, and then suggests how the shrimp can be added to a vegetable dish, salad, pasta, etc.
Jones's practicality extends to recipes that take leftovers and incorporates them into new entrées.
Despite the title, indigents can easily be adjusted to expand the number of servings.
The most important question is how her recipes taste. I think they're pretty good. I've thrown the word practical around a lot in this review, and I hope I don't give the impression that she merely tells you how to cook food so that it can safely be ingested for its nutritional value. The recipes are not only flavorful, but for many of them she provides instruction how to make their presentation visually appealing.
Throughout Jones' directions are straightforward and easy to follow.
My only complaint is that there are not enough poultry recipes - Jones is heavy on the meats. I know that chicken is generally looked down on by chefs, and that the chicken breast is particularly despised, but it's a lot healthier than meat (assuming you're buying chicken that isn't pumped full of hormones).
Besides this one qualm, I've found the book to be of tremendous value, especially as someone who is just beginning to cook for myself.
the pleasure of cooking for oneFeb 25, 2010
very informative
and put together perfectly
very good meal ideas and practical
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Enticing and UsefulFeb 22, 2010
I found this cookbook to be delightful. I am a great cook, but being alone and working 11+ hrs a day I seldom cook on weekdays. It is usually a bowl of cereal or some cheese and crackers. This is a pathetic existence. Last week, I made a souffle and had a green salad, it was heaven. I never would have thought of doing it just for me and it only took 30 minutes. I read some of the more critical reviews and quite frankly don't understand them. Since when is classic cooking old fashioned. I don't eat tongue (yuck) and don't eat veal unless I can find it free range which is difficult. But I use a cook book as inspiration. I can always redo a recipe to my preferences. How incredibly boring to have to follow a recipe exactly, Ms. Jones encourages you to deviate as do I. As for leftovers, I love them and like new ideas. I have no problem giving this book 5 stars.
Simply WonderfulFeb 20, 2010
I am almost never moved to write a review. It always seems like a lot of trouble. However, my mother heard about The Pleasures of Cooking for One on NPR and immediately thought of me. She bought this book for me as a present. I told her later that in my kitchen, you can always tell which cookbooks are loved, since the pages stick together, and The Pleasures of Cooking for One was sticking after about 3 weeks of use.
As a single woman, living alone, who cooks dinner for herself every night, I am always on the lookout for cooking-for-one-or-two type cookbooks. I am not into eating chili for 5 days straight, I like variety. Judith Jones does a wonderful job of showing you how to take larger cuts of meats and reinventing them throughout the week to have completely new meals. Another reviewer mentioned "leftovers" and I don't think this is really accurate. You use the leftovers to create something new and different. I don't think I have had a single recipe that has turned out poorly. I will grant you (after reading other reviews) that there are some recipes I will probably never make (veal kidneys come to mind). This is because A) I wouldn't know where to find a veal kidney B) I am kind of afraid of kindeys and C) I am not so happy politically with eating veal. That said, most of the recipes in this book are NOT veal kidneys. They are fish and chicken and pork and eggs and steak and veggies. Don't let a couple kidney recipes put you off.
I think the thing I like about this book is how much I have been encouraged to experiment and how many basic techniques I have become comfortable with. I am much more at ease just splashing a little wine into a pan to make a pan sauce instead of carefully measuring out 2 tablespoons of it. I am not a great cook. I am a practical, get-it-on-the-table type cook. During the week, if I can't have it on the table in 30 minutes, it probably won't get made. This book has fed me now, nearly every night, for two months. Always something different, generally easy to put together, and at the end of the week, I don't have mounds of leftovers rotting in the fridge because I didn't feel like eating them. This is a wonderful cookbook.
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