Cindy M. (RenascenceC) reviewed on + 77 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I first learned of (Episcopal)Father Capon in a reference to his old book *Bed and Board,* in another book I was reading at the time. He had a wonderful celebratory approach to marriage and parenthood and cooking. But his books are fairly hard to come by and I couldn't find that one easily (out of print). I managed to get *Bed and Board* through PBS a year or so ago.
I did find another, *The Supper of the Lamb,* a distinctly "sacramental" approach to cooking from a Christian point of view, but even apart from that another celebratory book. This man loves food, and life!
Finally I got *Capon on Cooking* recently from a PBS member, and I am enjoying it as well. An older Capon seems to be enjoying his empty-nest life with his wife and friends they invite over to share his cooking, and the book deals first with kitchen equipment--a dead-on take on the uselessness of some things and great importance of others. My family loved his easy recipe for a fruit tart: open a stick of butter and use the box to measure 5/6 full of flour and the rest of the space with sugar, adding a tablespoon of baking powder (measured in the cupped fingers of one hand) and an egg and mixing it all up by hand, pressing it into a pan, adding sugared fruit on top, and baking for a while in a moderate oven.
Later in the book he covers whole feasts of one sort or another--German Christmas, Swedish Easter, Japanese barbecue, and an assortment of Thai recipes he discovered in a neighborhood restaurant shortly before Thai became "the thing" in America. He even has a group of recipes designed to handle a glut of the gardener's eggplant overabundance. Capon loves cream and odd organ meats more than I do, but his adventurousness inspires me, and my family has eaten well this week! :-)
I did find another, *The Supper of the Lamb,* a distinctly "sacramental" approach to cooking from a Christian point of view, but even apart from that another celebratory book. This man loves food, and life!
Finally I got *Capon on Cooking* recently from a PBS member, and I am enjoying it as well. An older Capon seems to be enjoying his empty-nest life with his wife and friends they invite over to share his cooking, and the book deals first with kitchen equipment--a dead-on take on the uselessness of some things and great importance of others. My family loved his easy recipe for a fruit tart: open a stick of butter and use the box to measure 5/6 full of flour and the rest of the space with sugar, adding a tablespoon of baking powder (measured in the cupped fingers of one hand) and an egg and mixing it all up by hand, pressing it into a pan, adding sugared fruit on top, and baking for a while in a moderate oven.
Later in the book he covers whole feasts of one sort or another--German Christmas, Swedish Easter, Japanese barbecue, and an assortment of Thai recipes he discovered in a neighborhood restaurant shortly before Thai became "the thing" in America. He even has a group of recipes designed to handle a glut of the gardener's eggplant overabundance. Capon loves cream and odd organ meats more than I do, but his adventurousness inspires me, and my family has eaten well this week! :-)
