Dana Cowin

Surprisingly Frank Amidst the Holiday Cheer
Review of the Audible Originals audiobook edition (2019)

You would expect this 1-hour podcast of short interviews with various celebrity chefs to be fairly light and full of forced holiday cheer, but some of the interviews are surprisingly candid about how the holidays can often be a time of grieving for relatives and loved ones that are no longer with you to enjoy them together. Alex Guarnaschelli's "The Anti-Christmas" was especially honest in this show more respect.

Overall this was a very enjoyable listen with some very passionate and enthusiastic tales of holiday meals and gatherings. Each chef provides details of a favourite recipe in a pdf add-on, all of which look reasonably easy to assemble (even if the ingredients list can be very long in a few cases).

The recipes are available in a pdf file at: http://download.audible.com/product_related_docs/OR_ORIG_000964.pdf
This looks like it is available to everyone regardless of whether they are an Audible member or not.

How Chefs Holiday was one of the free Audible Originals for members in November 2019. show less

Simply fantastic and quite entertaining. Cowin, the editor-in-chief of Food & Wine Magazine, outs herself as "Irma", a hapless cook whose tales of disasters and pleas for help regularly appeared in the magazine. I would've bought this book for the anecdotes alone, because they're utterly hilarious (I can still imagine her running away from the poor lobster trying to claw its way out of the pot of boiling water she just dropped it into). But instead of doing a memoir, she has incorporated show more these stories into a book of over 100 recipes that she has managed to learn with assistance from an all-star roster of chefs. The recipes themselves look tasty and are described very clearly, and the chefs have provided explanations of techniques, suggested variations, and lots of other advice. Above all, this gives me hope that I too can learn my way around a kitchen if I can just keep at it and get the right help! show less

This is a very American contemporary cookbook, which extolls the American virtues anti-intellectualism--of being not difficult (i.e. simple)--and creative (results in questionable fusions). These are two values that help ruin the possibility of American cuisine becoming great and singular in the near future along with the value of comfort. However, Dana Cowin of "Food & Wine" fame is a good if colorless editor, and the book should be enjoyed for its utter banality like a 60s ranch house, show more which can also be fun. show less

cookbook. Very approachable and good advice for anyone who's ever had a recipe attempt not turn out as well as they'd hoped. I bookmarked several of the poultry, meat, and veggie dishes to try (immediately!) and in general found the content to be very useful as various techniques are explained and demonstrated through the recipes.