I borrowed "Gordon Ramsay's World Kitchen" by Gordon Ramsay and "Jamie Oliver's Food Escapes" by Jamie Oliver recently. I have only ever seen a few episodes of each of their television shows and have formed an opinion of the men based on those shows. So when I picked up these books, I was expecting Ramsay's to be pretentious and convoluted and Oliver's to use common ingredients. Wow, was I wrong! In fact, it was the opposite.
Jamie Oliver's book is more of a travelogue with food. It focuses on the stories and photos of his trips. The recipes stay true to the country's food culture and it was nice to read but I found no recipes I was interested in trying. The recipes called for ingredients that I couldn't find because I live in a small town, not in London or the appropriate country.
Gordon Ramsay's book was more to my tastes since I found a few recipes I would like to try. There was a French recipe for Brandade with Garlic Toast that sounded complex but is really just cooked fish shredded and mixed into mashed potatoes. Perhaps it is the nature of cookbooks to seem more complex than it really is just because of the step-by-step process that is required.
I guess you could say that I have learned not to judge a cookbook based on the chef's personality.
Read on,
Paula
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