cover image Menus a Trois: The Soup, Bread, and Salad Menu Cookbook

Menus a Trois: The Soup, Bread, and Salad Menu Cookbook

Julia Older. Stephen Greene Press, $0 (249pp) ISBN 978-0-8289-0599-2

The authors of the Soup and Bread Cookbook here take a fresh approach to a classic menu concept. Soups, the focus of the meals, range from consommes to hearty Italian fish stew. The breads include traditional favoritespopovers, pretzels, yeast breadand ethnic recipes like Armenian flat bread. Soups and breads are frequently time consuming and require specialty ingredients, but complicated recipes are made accessible with clear instructions. Salads are the simplest component of the meals, often a single vegetable with dressing. Among the book's many strengths is the diversity of the 50 meals: vegetarian (carrot-apple soup, apple-raisin loaf, banana salad), French (onion soup, baguette, red-leaf lettuce with tarragon vinaigrette), Middle Eastern (pomegranate soup, feta crescents, lentil salad), Spanish, Chinese, Russian and moreincluding a strong selection of light, sophisticated offerings. BOMC/Cooking & Crafts Club main selection. Illustrations. (May 5)