Kitchen Suppers: Good Food to Share with Good Friends

Although she is famous for the dinners she serves in her stylishly romantic New York restaurants (Gotham Bar & Grill, Alison on Dominick Street), Hurt likes nothing better than gathering friends and family around her own kitchen table for cozy, casual food. Readers will find her passion infectious when putting together her mint-scented Lamb Shepherd's Pie, Corn Pudding, Popovers and Tarte Tatin. Hurt is cheerful, reassuring and full of the kind of advice worried cooks like to hear: ""Simple food is always the best"" and ""If it causes anxiety, don't do it!"" Through 18 chapters--which cover specific foods (Chicken, Roasts), cooking methods (Everything in a Pot), courses from appetizers to desserts and suggestions about wine, cheese and stocking the pantry--Hurt manages to impart a great deal of essential information clearly and amusingly. Her ""What to Do When All Else Fails"" chapter will enable even the most frantic of hosts to make the best out of almost any ruined dish. By the book's end, the cook won't want to waste time bringing Duck Stew with Prunes and Apricots to the dining room table, opting instead to pull up a chair to the kitchen counter. (Oct.)