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Apetyczna Panna Dahl (2011)

by Sophie Dahl(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Filo

review 1: I just have to rate this cookbook so I can say.. um... what?Simple recipes and lovely photographs aside, Sophie Dahl is weird. I'd never heard of her before I grabbed this book but it seems like she might be insane. Not that insane is a bad thing. I just.. she makes me uncomfortable. There is a lot of autobiography to this book, most of which I skimmed, particularly after the beginning when she told a tale about her pet bunny who raped her guinea pig and then ran away and was eaten by a fox. It was supposed to be funny, or charming, or quirky or something, I think, and it just did not sit well with me. The recipes are pretty standard. I realized, after paging through the book, that I could have come up with most of the recipes myself. They seem largely thrown-together, lik... moree they're comfort food designed for people who would rather not be cooking. I can respect that. Truly. But there's only so much to be done with goat cheese and greens. I did like that the recipes were grouped by season and then by meal. That's what attracted me to the book. Also many of them are vegetarian. It seems like Dahl has had a long-standing flirtatious relationship with vegetarianism, based on her long autobiographical meanderings. It also seems like she has a very unhealthy relationship with food in general, and with weight. I won't get too analytical about it but it did reek of cray.Altogether I bookmarked two or three forgettable recipes and found the others too simple and intuitive to try to reproduce. The pictures are nice, but, y'know, I own enough cookbooks that I can do much better.
review 2: I really wanted to like this collection of recipes as I admire Sophie Dahl, former 1990s poster-child for the larger model, but everything I tried (unlike most of the raving reviewers here who I'll wager have not!) turned out to be disappointing, especially the Carnation milk jellies which were yuck! While the little anecdotes and prefaces to the recipes are charming and well written, I'm afraid the book is very much style over substance. For one thing, Dahl seems to have acquired an inordinate number of recipes from family and friends. So I don't think it's unfair to say that she may have got the book and tv cookery show deal because of her connections, and I highly suspect it must have been the case. The recipes are presented as voluptuous, however, they are in fact aimed at girls like Sophie who are watching their weight. Perhaps this is why they didn't work for me - when I want to eat cake, I don't feel 'disgusting' about adding the odd dollop of creme fraiche! less

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