cover image The Artful Vegan: Fresh Flavors from the Millennium Restaurant

The Artful Vegan: Fresh Flavors from the Millennium Restaurant

Eric Tucker, Bruce Enloe. Ten Speed Press, $25.99 (240pp) ISBN 978-1-58008-207-5

In stark contrast to some traditional vegan cookbooks, which feature dishes like lentil burgers and bulgur salad, the Millennium Restaurant's second cookbook pushes the boundaries of vegan cuisine, offering extravagant recipes for dishes such as Stuffed Poblano Chilies over Forbidden Black Rice Risotto with Roasted Corn-Avocado Abdi. Though Tucker, Millennium's executive chef, encourages readers to""dissect our dissections... to take apart our dishes, simplify them,"" his recipes are often too complex to be realistic for most home cooks. Caramelized Three Onion and Porcini Cappuccino with Truffled Soy Foam calls for an espresso machine, for example, and Quick Pickled Oranges requires access to impeccable produce; the recipe did not work well with standard supermarket citrus. What the San Francisco restaurant really offers is inspiration to readers interested in cutting-edge vegan and raw-food cuisine. Recipes like Portobello Carpaccio over Carrot and Parsnip Fettuccine with Raw Pumpkin Seed-Ancho Chile Pesto should delight vegetarians looking for new flavor combinations. And Pearce's desserts shine--her lavish use of cashews and coconut milk offers a richness usually absent from vegan treats. The authors also provide information about organic wines and vegan substitutes, detailed nutritional information for each recipe and translations of traditional high cuisine dishes, like steak au poivre, to vegan, seasonal styles (e.g. Fauxlet au Poivre). With its complex recipes and enticing color photographs, this book is a welcome and needed addition to any library of modern cuisine.