Cookbook review: The Relaxed Kitchen

By Tom Mentzer
Scripps Howard News Service
November 12, 2007

Anyone who has played host knows that entertaining can be traumatic. Whether a buffet for 20 or an intimate dinner party for six, cooking for a crowd is nerve-wracking.

Take French chef Francois Vatel. While preparing a banquet for 2,000 in honor of Louis XIV, Vatel's fish didn't arrive. The agony was so great, he stepped out of the kitchen and stabbed himself to death.

While no one will be cooking for a French king anytime soon, the embarrassment of a flawed feast can still be weighty.

Enter cookbook author Brigit Binns, whose new book The Relaxed Kitchen (St. Martin's Press, $32.95) is a useful and enjoyable guide for throwing parties. Binns shares some of her worst moments in the kitchen -- usually occurring just as guests are walking through the door -- and offer ways to avoid them.

The book's goal is to provide the perfect party while still allowing the host some time to enjoy it. Binns serves up a fine collection of recipes, most of which employ time-saving strategies.

The top lesson is to start early. She provides many dishes that can be made in the morning and held until dinner, served either cold or at room temperature. Binns also calls slow-cooking into play, a great tactic so the main course doesn't monopolize your time. Her Seven Hour Leg of Lamb is a perfect example: Slap the lamb into a casserole dish, sprinkle with vegetables and roast, basting occasionally.

Binns also suggests the targeted use of store-bought items to simplify the process, including pesto and canned beans. But buying puff pastry isn't exactly a brainstorm, considering traditional puff pastry takes six or seven hours to make by hand.

The book includes some other useful tips, including the author's Cheating Sauce, invented to cover some unattractive chicken. Another handy accompaniment is Red Onion, Red Wine and Prosciutto Confit, a relish for any hearty meat. These kinds of tips lend a lot of value to the volume.

Binns offers seven rules for a more relaxed kitchen, and bases her chapters around each. For those cooks who get a bit too worked up, take note of rule No. 5: "Take time out for a kitchen-counter cocktail."

Of course, if Binns were to add an eighth rule, it would be to avoid panicking.

Remember Francois Vatel and his dinner for 2,000? The story goes that an assistant stumbled upon Vatel's body while on the way to inform him the fish had finally arrived.

(Tom Mentzer is a freelance writer. Contact him at tom.mentzer@gmail.com.)