On the cover of his 2008 book In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan distilled the basic guidelines of healthy eating to 3 points: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” Elsewhere he added a fourth point: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t have recognized as food” (p. 148). That’s pretty much my philosophy of eating too, though I won’t claim to be 100% pure about it 100% of the time.
Philosophy can be inspiring, of course, but sometimes one prefers one’s inspiration in a more concrete form, and that’s where Veronica Bosgraaf’s new cookbook, Pure Food, comes in. She provides the recipes to help home cooks follow Pollan’s advice by bringing clean, seasonal, plant-based recipes to the table with a minimum of effort – and cost, since the book is organized by month to take advantage of what’s in season and therefore less expensive. Just turn to the index and look up whatever there’s an especially good deal on at the market (or what arrived in your CSA box that you have no clue how to use) and you’re likely to find something you might not have thought of on your own, something that’s both simple and delicious. That’s why I was so delighted to receive a copy from Blogging for Books (http://www.bloggingforbooksorg).
Case in point: I just bought 6 ears of fresh corn for $1, but I’d like to try something beyond corn on the cob (much as I love it). Bosgraaf’s Fava Bean and Corn Salad sounds yummy, though I’ll probably substitute frozen edamame for the fresh fava beans, which can be hard to find and a bit more trouble than I want to go to. Or how about her Sweet Corn Pudding, lightly sweetened with honey and the delicious surprise of chopped fresh peaches? Hey, I may have to go buy some more corn!
Along with the recipes Bosgraaf provides pages of useful tips and interesting sidebar comments in which she reminds us that she’s just like many of us, a working mom who wants to feed her family well, both in terms of taste and clean, healthy food. (There’s also a useful section at the beginning on “The Pure Pantry” – ingredients that are good to have on hand and information about them). This is my kind of food and I’m always happy to learn about new ways of preparing it, though I may tweak a recipe because I don’t have exactly the ingredient it calls for (as mentioned above, with the Fava Bean [or Edamame] and Corn Salad, or using another fruit in the Sweet Corn Pudding if I don’t have fresh peaches. But this is home cooking, not industrial production, and a little creativity is generally welcome, at least at my house.
If I have any quibbles with the book, it’s that Bosgraaf seems sometimes to be trying too hard to have it every way possible. She touts certain recipes as purely vegan but includes eggs and/or dairy in others. I don’t really care either way; it just seems inconsistent. And she makes kind of a big deal about some recipes for baked things being gluten-free, while others are not. If she really wanted to appeal to the audience of readers concerned about those things, she could have included “gluten-free” as a category in the index, for example. And since I’m unlikely to go out and buy gluten-free flour unless I know I have a guest coming who eats that way, it would be nice if she’d included information about making, say, Lemon Poppyseed Cupcakes with regular wheat flour. But I’ll probably experiment with that one on my own, since they do sound yummy.
Overall, I like this book very much. In fact, I’m thinking about tonight’s dinner; Linguine with Tomatoes and Avocado Pesto sounds really good, with Watercress, Cucumber, and Toasted Pecan Salad (though I have arugula in the garden, so it will stand in for the watercress), and Vegan Orange Pops (a recipe created by Bosgraaf’s 15-year-old daughter!) for dessert. On the other hand, that Hummus Pizza with Arugula and Wild Mushrooms looks awfully tempting! It’s going to be fun cooking my way through this book.