For Christmas this year, my mom bought me this terrific little cookbook, The Pleasures of Cooking for One. In the introduction, the author, Judith Jones, describes her efforts to return to the kitchen after the death of her husband and cook effectively just for herself, without waste and without eating the same meal 4 days in a row.
What she presents in this gorgeous little volume is a cooking strategy. Start with X on Monday. Tuesday, take this and this, and make Y. Then for breakfast one Wednesday you can have Z by adding bits from last week’s efforts. This strategy makes a lot of sense to me, and her recipes look fabulous and completely possible on a Tuesday if I shop correctly on Sunday.
So, without further ado, here is my first effort from her cookbook to test out her process and see how it meshes with mine. I chose to start with the pork tenderloin series because, well, I like pork tenderloin.
In brief, this is a terrific idea for a cookbook. Her recipes sound fancy, but turn out to be completely manageable on weeknights. This is a big win for me. All-in-all, I am pleased as punch about this cookbook & look forward to trying other recipes (baked polenta with vegetables, I’m lookin’ at you). And really, when a cookbook explains how to make Hollandaise just for you (for those nights when you just want an artichoke for dinner!), how bad could it be?
Specific recipes & reviews to follow!
PS: Google Judith Jones. She’s a senior editor and VP at Knopf publishing, the recipient of the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement award, was Julia Child’s editor and has worked with pretty much everyone including Lidia Bastianich who I could listen to discuss gnocchi for quite some time. In addition to her considerable ties to the culinary world, she’s been a part of publishing everything from The Diary of Anne Frank to English translations of Camus. Very neat lady.
What an impressive bio! Jez. And an artichoke for dinner is just what is needed sometimes. I heart them.