the pollan family table by corky, lori, dana and tracy pollan {cookbook review}

title: The Pollan Family Table
author: Corky, Lori, Dana, and Tracy Pollan

publication date: October 28, 2014
publisher: Scribner

…this book helps cultivate kitchen traditions where they may have lapsed under the pressure of modern life or were never established to begin with. We believe that these traditions are vitally important to everyone’s health and happiness — and that it is never too late to find your way in the kitchen.
— Corky, Lori, Dana and Tracy Pollan (The Pollan Family Table)

I did not grow up in a large family, so ‘family dinner’ was just me, my parents, and my sister, but it happened, every day without fail. Now that I’m older, ‘family dinner’ rarely happens anymore, although, once in a while, we do join Paul’s family for Sunday dinner.

In this day of hectic schedules and general busy-ness, it’s tough to get everyone together for dinner on a regular basis, and when our families do manage it, it’s usually at a restaurant rather than at someone’s home. But I love the idea of gathering the family and cooking (and enjoying) a great meal together.

When I was asked to review The Pollan Family Table cookbook, I was a little wary that this was another cookbook that was published based on the ‘celebrity factor’ (the Forward is by food writer Michael Pollan and one of the authors, Tracy, is an actress and the wife of actor Michael J. Fox), but I liked the angle that they were coming from – uncomplicated family meals.

the first nibble:

The book starts off with some useful basics that are a great intro to cooking for any beginner – pages on key ingredients (if you follow their advice and sstock your pantry as they recommend, this comes in handy later on in the book), cooking tools, common cooking terms (knowledge that many other cookbooks take for granted) and ‘sage advice’ (tips, tricks and shortcuts).

On my first pass through the book, five recipes that jumped out as ‘must try’:

• Sweet & Hot Sausage Hero, pg. 78
• Jalapeno-Flecked Golden Cornbread, pg. 236
• Jack’s Brownie Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches, pg. 288
• Esme’s S’mores Cookies, pg. 291
• Key Lime Pie with Walnut Oatmeal Crust, pg. 315

 
the nitty-gritty:

number of recipes (as stated by book): “more than 100 of their family’s best recipes”

recipe list? Yes, at the start of each chapter, there’s a list of recipes contained in that chapter

table of contents: The Table of Contents is unfussy and recipes are grouped into standard cookbook categories.

photography:  The photography has a really fresh, outdoor feel to it (not surprising since many of the photos are staged outdoors) and there are lots of photos of family members, both cooking and eating. I would have preferred more photographs of the dishes, but the candid, family photos added a warm touch to the cookbook.

None of the family shots are ‘posed’ – in fact, most of the time, the people aren’t even looking at the camera, but are laughing, enjoying the food or playing with ingredients. There are also lots of fresh ingredient shots, adding to the feel of the uncomplicated, simple and fresh food philosophy the book follows.

photo to recipe ratio*:  out of 120 total recipes**, 63 recipes had at least one accompanying ‘finished dish’ photo or step-by-step photo (photo : recipe ratio = 1 : 1.9)
notes:
* this is a manual count, so numbers may be slightly off due to human error (mine)
** only ‘main’ recipes are counted – recipes that appear as part of another dish are not counted

recipes:
– separate ingredient list? yes
– serving info given? yes
– prep/cook time given? no
– recipe format: paragraphs

One feature that is a little different about the recipe layout of this book is the ‘shopping list’ for each recipe. At the start of the book, there’s a list of recommended items you should have in your pantry (most of which a well-stocked kitchen will already have). Then, at the start of each recipe, the ingredients are listed twice – once in a regular ingredient list and once in a ‘shopping list’ which is broken up into two parts – ‘from the pantry’ and ‘from the market’. Very handy!

A quick blurb introduces each recipe, sometimes written by the authors, and sometimes written by other members of the Pollan family.

The recipes don’t seem to require too many ingredients and almost everything the recipes need are easily in a grocery store or is probably already in your kitchen – none of the ingredients are really expensive and there are no overly-complicated recipes

the last bite:

I love the ‘shopping lists’ included with each recipe – it makes meal planning and shopping easy and makes this a really practical cookbook with a busy family in mind.

The distribution of recipes amongst the chapters is a little uneven – for example, there are 10 chicken recipes (under the chapter ‘Poultry’) but only seven recipes using other ‘Meat’ (a combination of beef, lamb and pork recipes). There’s also a whopping 19 dessert recipes (not that I’m complaining about that part!), but there is enough of a variety that everyone should be able to find something that they want to cook in this book.

I have to admit that my first impression of this as a ‘celebrity’ cookbook was incorrect – this book is real and authentic and I have to admit that this is one book that wouldn’t just sit on my bookshelf – it would be in the kitchen, being used on a daily basis. Now… I just have to wait for the summer and then find a beautiful outdoor dining table so that I can invite the family over for a real Family Dinner!

Click here to purchase The Pollan Family Table from The Book Depository (free worldwide shipping) or Amazon.

Disclosure: I received a copy of PDF copy of The Pollan Family Table from the publisher for review purposes. I did not receive any financial compensation for writing this post and the post was not reviewed by the publisher prior to publication. All opinions expressed are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.

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