Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that I am increasingly running across ethnic, regional or general cookbooks where 3/4 of the cookbook is summertime recipes and only 1/4 is the rest of the year.

For example, I recently borrowed My New Orleans from the library. It has 16 chapters, each focused on a specific holiday, ingredient or season. Of these, 11 were summer-focused and contained recipes requiring ripe, peak-of-summer produce. Nigella Lawson really hopped this trend a couple years ago with her cookbook Forever Summer ... an amusing concept from a country where summer lasts at most 6 weeks.

I feel like this is a cop-out by cookbook authors. I don't need recipes for ripe heirloom tomatoes, peak corn and fresh peppers. All I need for those is olive oil. I need recipes to help me be creative with off-peak or limited ingredients.

Is this just me? Or are other people seeing this?

Roast Figs Sugar Snow: Winter Food to Warm the Soul by Diana Henry

This was featured on The Splendid Table awhile back. It's on my list, but I haven't read it, yet.

That title reads like something found at Alinea or Per Se.

JB:

Thanks. I also picked up Emeril's Creole Christmas at a used bookstore for $5.

I know I go on (and on) about Canadian Livng but they really do do seasonal recipes. And Lucy Waverman's cookbooks are based on seasonality. i have one that she does that is split into Fall/Winter/Spring/Summer and it's a great book for winter months especially.

I eagerly await the review.