Nina Simonds

One cannot truly understand the wonder that is Asian food until they have had it homemade. There is something about the complexity of flavors and smells that is lost in most dining experiences. Nina Simonds offers simple and yet delicious alternatives to eating out. Her meals are easy enough for the least experienced cook. The book is filled with flavors that inspire a handful of recipes.
I like that she doesn’t offer tons of recipes but instead offers ways to alter the recipes she has show more listed. Cooking becomes comfortable when we are invited to experiment. I loved that she encouraged spices and that most of her flavors are easily attainable for those in the United States.
She finishes the book with Asian inspired desserts that complete the simple design. They are not overly sweet and most require little time to make them (she offers a recipe to make your own ice cream bon bons – I know what I am making this summer).
The last thing she did that I liked was dot the book with little trivia about the nutrition of the foods and Chinese medicine. It completed the whole picture of what the dish would be like for me. My ARC was in black and white which made me a little sad because the book is filled with beautiful pictures that could only get better in color. show less

I bought this book because it was recommended in Nigella Lawson's How To Eat, where she said it had given her many ideas about different ways to put together Asian-inflected dishes. That might be true for someone who doesn't cook a lot of Asian food. I make noodles more often than I make anything else, and I found the recipes in this book fairly bland in flavour. Also, (contradictorily), some of the recipes were incredibly salty - there were times when I had to throw the result away. show more

Disappointing, especially since the pictures are lovely and the recipes sound as if they are going to be very nice. show less

I used the book, “Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes”, as one of my best examples for my multicultural text set. I absolutely adored this book! I enjoyed reading this book for many reasons but I will share my top two reasons I found this book entertaining. This book is intertwined with different recipes for traditional meals, passed down Chinese tales, and directions on how to make items seen in festivals. For example, one part show more of the book gives directions on how to create a paper lantern. Before the book gives directions on how to create the lanterns, the authors explain why these paper lanterns are important and how they correlate with the Chinese New Year. I also liked this book because the authors used Chinese terms to refer to a name of a traditional food. For example, tanggua, or candied melons, are made for special occasions. There are also other recipes for jiaozi (dumplings) or yuanxiao (sweet rice balls). The main idea of this book is to spread the knowledge of Chinese culture, tradition and customs through the cuisine and passed down stories. show less

I LOVE this cookbook...the recipes look nearly universally tasty and information on the Asian way of using food for health is gently given in abundance. One of my new favorites!