WITH her first compilation of recipes, Hiroko Shimbo proves that you can't always judge a cookbook by its title.
The result, written with Catherine Price, is this beautiful cookbook, a compilation of recipes, history, and Big Sur personalities.
But the book, written by Lulu's American neighbor, the renowned food writer Richard Olney, enchanted me because it is so much more than a compilation of recipes.
It was a curious production, a cut-and-paste compilation of recipes, medical advice, rules of etiquette, procedures for cleaning and essays on natural history and chemistry.
This one is described as a "practical and unusual guide to mastering both cooking and life," and is a compilation of recipes from famous people from all walks of life, glued together by Ferriss' narrative.
But when you look at the culinary side of his books or the ingenious compilation of recipes in "A Feast of Ice & Fire: The Official Companion Cookbook" (Bantam: 225 pp., $35), you realize another moniker that's just as apt for the stocky little fantasy master from New Mexico: the medieval Dr. Atkins.
Restaurant cooking is often the opposite of home cooking, especially as put forth by celebrated chefs in compilations whose recipes are so disastrously calibrated as to be daffy.
Then there was "Our Favourite Dish: The Theatre Recipe Book," a compilation of 250 recipes contributed by members of the "British Theatrical Profession".
It is a compilation of ephemera — recipes, magazine pieces published and unpublished, catalogue copy, letters — of the sort that attests to the presence of a worshipful following.
