The Accidental Gourmet Weekends and Holidays: Festive Meals for Family and Friends

Paired up again for their second Accidental Gourmet title, Sondheim and Sloan expand on their attempt to make home-cooked meals accessible to all, focusing on special dinners for weekends and holidays. This volume lays out 127 meals, each with at least three components: a main dish, sides and dessert. The dishes, which often have cutesy titles like Rambunctious Ravioli Soup, Rapscallion Salad, Boisterous Bread and Disorderly Dessert, employ familiar cooking techniques and ingredients available at mainstream grocery stores. Accessibility and ease are the strengths of this cookbook. Each meal is presented in step-by-step fashion with a shopping list and a checklist of staple foods, a list of necessary kitchen equipment and a countdown of ordered cooking steps to ensure that all the components of the meal will be ready and hot at the same time. According to the authors' introduction, all of their meals can be prepared in less than a few hours. The recipes are targeted to emulate the dishes that""used to take our grandmothers days to prepare"" and, as such, are unassuming--no fusion cuisine here. Good ol' American cooking is emphasized: gelatin makes a frequent appearance in desserts, for example, and cheese and cream are often added to vegetable side dishes. That said, Sondheim and Sloan do integrate fresh fruits and vegetables into every meal and encourage lavish use of flavor enhancers such as fresh herbs, wine and liqueurs. While this cookbook may not push or inspire an advanced or curious cook, it does a terrific job of breaking down good home cooking into simple steps, making tasty dinners accessible to even the most hurried families.