Cookbook Profile: The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen

The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen
Recipes for the Passionate Cook

by Paula Wolfert

Slow Mediterranean
Paula Wolfert has held the title of "Queen of the Mediterranean" for the 30 years her award winning books have been in print. Long a favorite with dedicated food lovers, Wolfert divulges the secrets of Slow Food to her loyal and growing audience. With recipes that Publishers Weekly praises as "paragons of simplicity," Wolfert braises, simmers, marinates and slow roasts her way through 150 recipes which are interspersed with 32 color photographs by acclaimed photographer Christopher Hirsheimer.

In her latest cookbook, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook, she evokes the almost mythical experience of leisurely cooking and voluptuous eating in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia. Supposedly born in Rome, provoked by a reporter's outrage at a proposal to build a McDonald's on the Spanish Steps, the Slow Food movement has found a welcome home in America. These days, people are making time to savor cooking sumptuous, comforting meals-and take pleasure in living as well as eating.

"This is a book for people who truly enjoy cooking," Wolfert says. "It's for those days when you really feel like cooking and want to handcraft a dish without feeling rushed, want to enjoy the sensuality of food preparation and the special pleasure of serving food that gives pleasure to others."

Drawing on her pilgrimages to home and professional kitchens abroad, Wolfert shares recipes from her many kindred culinary explorers. Using indigenous ingredients, and remaining true to the spirit of what she tasted on her travels even in her inspired personal adaptations, she brings the true essence of each region to one's table. Throughout, she provides step-by-step instructions and expert cooking tips while sharing enchanting anecdotes and choice morsels of history and lore, both culinary and cultural. From appetizers to desserts, from the south of France to North Africa, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen features such varied dishes as:

Spicy Roasted Vegetables and Tuna Canapés

Spanish Manchego Cheese Marinated with Olives and Herbs

Sephardic Oven-Roasted Eggs

Turkish Red Lentil Soup with Paprika and Mint Sizzle

Tunisian Poached Halibut with Olives, Preserved Lemons, and Capers

Pot-Roasted Pork Loin with Fall Fruits

Double-Cooked Red Chicken, Marrakesh-Style

Sweet Couscous with Fresh Pomegranates

Corsican Cheesecake with Orange Marmalade

Wolfert provides a detailed collection of staples for stocking the larder, complete with recipes for preserved lemons, salt-cured olives, spice mixtures, and more. The author also offers lists of mailorder and Internet sources for specialty ingredients, along with vendors who cater to kitchenware junkies craving a tangine, cazuela, or paella pan.

For avid weekend cooks and aspiring chefs alike, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen is the ultimate guide to creating savory, authentic fare from Tuscany, Cyprus, the Island of Crete and other enticing places of distinctive taste.

About the Author

Paula Wolfert has written six cookbooks about Mediterranean cooking as a way of experiencing the Mediterranean lifestyle. Her first book, Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, has remained in print for thirty years. She writes a regular column for Food & Wine, and has also contributed articles to Bon Apetit, Fine Cooking, Saveur, Cook's Illustrated, and the New York Times Sunday magazine. Widely acknowledged as America's premier food writer, she has received the Julia Child, the M.F.K. Fisher, the James Beard, and the Tastemaker Awards. She makes her home in Sonoma, California.

Buy the Book!

The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen
Recipes for the Passionate Cook
by Paula Wolfert
John Wiley & Sons
368 pages, US $34.95, Cloth
ISBN: 0471-26288-9
Information provided by the publisher.