Should cooking shows be heard rather than seen? Step aside, Food Network. This year's Best Book Based on a Cooking Show award goes to radio's own Splendid Table. Having talked the talk for 20 years, Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift are now walking the walk with the most user-friendly general cookbook currently on the shelves. Streamlined but never austere, a generous number of these recipes, like Scallion-Dill Pilaf, became instant classics in our household. Other favorites were Sweet Roasted Butternut Squash & Greens Over Bow-Tie Pasta and Tamarind-Glazed Pork Chops.
The book's liberal sprinkling of biting food quotes are as hard to resist as its portfolio of smart, weeknight-ready recipes. From Diana Vreeland: "People who eat white bread have no dreams." T.S. Eliot: "Never commit yourself to a cheese without first examining it." And, from that venerable wit, Anonymous: "'Carpe Diem' does not mean 'Fish of the Day.'"
