A new cook book by upstart, millennial Julia Turshen has the right idea. I say that unre-servedly, and not just because she agrees with me on so many aspects of contemporary home cooking. Her break-away idea of cooking by associations simply rings true…
I’ve long asserted that flexibility, intuition and imagination are more important than following any specific recipe to the letter when seeking success in the kitchen. I’ve also said mastering classic techniques that are applied across a range of dish types – even across cultures and cuisines – is more important than the ability to measure out the perfect teaspoon of vanilla extract…
Common sense prevails!
I’ve finally found someone who feels exactly the way I do about what’s most important to successful home cooking. And staying sane while achieving chasing success!
The key – as I’ve always maintained – is to do the best you can, with the ingredients and tools at hand, in the time available. And that’s the core idea behind Turshen’s new cook book What Goes With What. It’s based on her fresh new theory about the natural associations between various ingredients – and how to think ‘chart-wise’ about mixing and matching for variety and optimal nutrition.
Whence the charts?
“Where did the charts come from?” I hear you saying. Turshen started to introduce them in her blog just last year, as a new way or organizing your menus to minimize food waste while maximizing audi-ence ‘engagement’ with your day-to-day menus. But she quickly realized her basic idea was bigger than she first thought it would be. And decided early on to start compiling content for a new cook book.
Turshen’s charts are simple. You could make your own. And you undoubtedly will, eventually, using your own fave ingredients and family/cultural roots as a guide. They’re simply 5- x 6-square grids with a single theme/ingredient idea running across each row and another running down each col-umn. She writes whatever recipe/combo idea comes to mind based on which ingredient and theme land together, in the same box.
“The charts have given me a way to show how I think about cooking rather than tell you how I think about it,” Turshen itold. “This isn’t just a collection of recipes but also a blueprint for how the recipes work. Understanding that is empowering and unlocks so much space to explore.”
What you get
The new cook book embodies 20 sample charts and more than 100 recipes to get you started ‘think-ing chart-wise’. That combination, Turshen says, should suggest ‘endless possibilities’.
Of the 110 recipes, 87 are vegetarian, and 42 of those are vegan. But I also appreciate that Turshen doesn’t get preachy, much less ‘holier than thou’, about her vegetarian preferences. there’s also a chapter on chicken dishes, plus a selection off egg-free and gluten-free options. The recipes require no hard-to-find ingredients nor the mastery of complex or difficult techniques.
“What concerns me is that I think a lot of people see more difficult, more time-consuming, more expensive ingredient cooking and think that is somehow the goal,” Turshen emphasizes. “Food doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated to be good.” I’m with you all the way, there, sister!
A bit of herself…
Turshen is known by her fans as someone who shares, rather than instructs in her books. And she shares a little of herself providing contest for each recipe in What Goes With What.
“I always want to give a little extra,” she told The Edge. “It’s kind of how I approach cooking. I always cook a little bit more than I think my wife and I are going to eat so we can always have a little som-thing extra for the next day.”
Accordingly, Turshen includes deeply personal essays about body image, fat phobia and anxiety. “They felt incredibly cathartic to write,” she says. “It’s the kind of reflection I hope to see in many cookbooks because I think talking about how we feel when we eat and how we feel about our bodies is obviously incredibly tied to what we cook.”
My take
I think we all – at one time or another – have stood in front of the stove or cutting board and won-dered how what we were preparing was going to affect us, our family or our guests. And I’m glad Tur-shen received the catharsis she obviously sought writing about her body image issues. Though I’m not sure a cook book is the best place to share them.
Nevertheless, I love her fresh, new culinary ideas and her youthful enthusiasm for them!
~ Maggie J.