The Pleasure is All Mine: Selfish Food for Modern Life
by Suzanne Pirret
(William Morrow Cookbooks, 2009, 256 pages)
I don’t even remember how I found this book but I’m glad I did. The premise of The Pleasure is All Mine is how to make the time and effort to make and eat quality meals – for ONE. Pirret explains how eating alone can be considerably better than eating with others. Think about meeting friends who constantly bemoan their lives, thus ruining your dining experience; or imagine trying to throw a dinner party only to be put off or “ordered” to change the menu to suit the restrictive dining needs of others. Eating alone is all about eating what YOU want and enjoying it how you want. Pirret’s book is a collection of recipes organized around different categories – everything from “take-out” menu items to brunch items and desserts.
Each section starts out with an entertaining short essay by Pirret. From here she goes into her recipes which are presented in a unique way. The recipes are conveyed in paragraph form – she makes it clear what needs to be done, but there’s no list of ingredients at the beginning and the directions are conversational rather than technical. I appreciated her style and there were a number of dishes I wanted to try (but for two, not one). My only deterrent was that some of the ingredients seemed a little pricey – which is fine. This book is all about taking time for yourself to appreciate food at its best.
Pirret is a trained chef so she knows her stuff. I enjoyed getting to know her through her essays and recipes and appreciated the sass she had to offer. Fun, light read for the foodie. Plus, she got a blurb from Bobby Flay on the back cover… That has to speak for something 😉
SCC Library Reads 