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Having confessed her jones for chocolate in
Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet: A Memoir with Recipes Lora Brody celebrates her love affair with the Dark Lord in her cookbook,
Chocolate American Style. What she calls American style might best be summed up as, "I want it and I want it now!" To which Lora Brody responds with, "Just how would you like to deliver chocolate to your mouth?" She leaves no chocolate base unturned.
Candy? There's an entire chapter (the complexities of melting and tempering are covered in Chapter One, "A Primer for the Home Cook," in which the author spells out what you need and what to do with it, fast and sweet and easy, with the marvelous closing line at the open door, "remember that no matter what your dessert looks like, the fact that you took the time and energy to make it instantly puts it ten pegs above anything you could buy a store."). You might think breakfast was out of the question, Cocoa Puffs aside. To which the author delivers chocolate caramel sticky buns, chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate butter, and chocolate-filled monkey bread. Brody moves through flans, pudding, pies, fudge cakes; through birthday cakes, marble cakes, tortes, and ice cream rolls; through home-made ice cream, fudge sauce, chocolate sauce, and frappe; through Old World faves brought here by our immigrant elders. She tackles pound cakes, cookies, brownies galore, moon rocks, chocolate squares and, Russell Crowe Bars, which border on don't ask don't tell. She encourages in a chapter all its own--"Kids in the Kitchen"--recruiting children to the ways of the Dark Lord. Shameless. And then there's romance. Make that, "Romance." Again, an entire chapter that distills the essence of the romantic gesture into all manner of chocolaty deliciousness.
Brody is a consummate pro--20 cookbooks into a sterling career--and she doesn't miss a beat. She knows a thing or two about producing a recipe that delivers. Some cookbooks come from the heart. Chocolate American Style, on the other hand, comes straight from the Lora Brody's central nervous system. It's a chocoholic's dream come true. --Schuyler Ingle
From Publishers Weekly
Early on in her celebratory recipe collection, Brody (Growing Up on a Chocolate Diet) addresses the difficulty of cooking with chocolate and explains the tools and procedures necessary for success when attempting her recipes. No chocolate snob, the author favors quality ingredients but minimal fuss for her desserts. Her credo is "Lemme at it" instead of "It's much too pretty to cut." Brody's first chapter lays out the differences among unsweetened, bittersweet and semi-sweet; simplifies a method of chocolate preparation called tempering; and distinguishes between "natural" cocoa powder and "Dutch process" cocoa. Brody's attention to detail makes a few of her recipes longer than usual. Later chapters deal with candy making, holiday baked goods and introducing kids to cooking with chocolate projects. Brody believes Americans "boldly weave what we learn from the world's greatest cooks with our own dining experiences to produce singular expressions of our chocolate love," and supports her point in nearly 120 recipes. There are clever cake and pie makeovers, in which she "Americanizes" international favorites like biscotti, chow mein noodles and Linzer Torte with chocolate. Brody's democratic approach embraces the plain (e.g., Coke Cake and Chocolate-Covered Cape Cod Potato Chips), the luxe (e.g., White Chocolate-Coconut Milk Crème Brulee) and the downright odd (e.g., Chocolate Chile Cake). Her can-do writing style invites novices to give all these desserts a go and should appeal to home chefs with a sweet tooth and average culinary skills. (On sale Apr. 13)
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