THE COOKBOOK TEST #0048: REPERTOIRE

INSTALLMENT #0048 (PAID) IT WORKS FOR HER / A MODEL TO LIVE BY / NOW THAT'S A SPICY MEAT... FLAT THING, WHATEVER YOU'D CALL A CHICKEN THIGH / GOING GREEN

Dear Subscribers,

This week's installment of THE COOKBOOK TEST is the kind of book we need a lot more of. And while I disagree with 50% of its premise (that this specific book is "all the recipes you need") I strongly and passionately agree with the other 50%, which is that we all should have a core repertoire of recipes that we can crush, adapt, and completely rely upon.

REPERTOIRE: ALL THE RECIPES YOU NEED is more accurately described as Repertoire: All the Recipes Author Jessica Battilana Needs. Your taste, budget, family size, personal style, and kitchen situation are likely to vary from those of San Francisco Chronicle columnist Battilana, and that's OK. What Repertoire does effectively is model the way an ambitious home chef can build a covers-all-the-bases-for-all-the-seasons collection of go-to meals.

The food of Repertoire is utilitarian without being boring. A sausage bake, a variety of fresh salads, fried rice, chocolate chip cookies, roast chicken, lamb ragu - nothing more exotic than twice-baked soufflés and pavlovas. The distinguishing thing about these recipes is how thoroughly Battilana owns them - she knows when and how to use them, what makes them better than the off-the-rack version the reader probably already has, and what the possible pain points are. 

This approach - practical, pragmatic, eclectic, personal - is pretty much the opposite of what I personally look for in a cookbook. (I think that on some level I probably want everything to be geographically specific deep cuts from the Middle East or Japan or India or Persia.) But I found myself really respecting both the approach and the contents, and I think anyone picking up Repertoire will find a recipe or two that will suit their own personal lifestyle, whatever that might be.

at your service,

James

REPERTOIRE: ALL THE RECIPES YOU NEED
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
JESSICA BATTILANA | 2018 | $32

One of the things I liked best about Repertoire is that it reminds me of the CODEX CULINARIA, the Dilley-Norton house cookbook narrated in part by our cats that is our family's bible of good eats. If we make a recipe more than a few times and/or we fall deeply in love with something, it goes into a Google doc sorted by type of recipe, and every time we make a recipe again, any changes or adjustments or successful substitutions get added to the document. Over the years, recipes that started as simple steals of stuff we got from Epicurious or the Washington Post become increasingly "ours" as we alter seasoning and cuts of meat and cook times and more. And the collection as a whole is a snapshot of how we live - everything from weekday breakfasts to celebration meals that we enjoy once or twice a year.