Cookbook Recommendation: Michael Symon’s “Live to Cook: Recipes and Techniques to Rock Your Kitchen”
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You may have noticed the absence of the word “paleo” in the title of this recommendation and that’s because this book is NOT a paleo cookbook. It is however a book that I recommend to anyone who follows a paleo diet and cooks their own meal. Even though he doesn’t follow a paleo diet, Chef Symon shares many of our values. He advocates fresh real foods, he loves meat and he believes that rule which all of us paleoites have had to learn, which is “fat is our friend.”
While the book obviously contains many recipes that aren’t “paleo”, a surprising amount are. This book also offers a bonus for those of us who enjoy preparing every aspect of our meals – a chapter on charcuterie, which teaches how to make your own bacon, pancetta, sausage (poached foie gras bratwurst anyone?) and even duck confit. This chapter is immediately proceeded by one on doing your own pickling.
Like any good cookbook, “Live to Eat” is full of saliva-inducing photos, sprinkled in with charming pictures of Michael cooking or hanging out with his dogs. It contains an introduction to the chef by Michael Ruhlman (Chef, founder of OpenSky and creator of some of my favorite kitchen implements, including my meat tenderizing mallot/burglary deterrant) and a foreward by grillmaster Bobby Flay.