New Cookbook: Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees
Hsiao-Ching Chou
Author's Note: For the month of November, I am participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month) and pledge to post once a day.
When I was the food editor at the Seattle P-I, the perk I enjoyed the most was receiving review copies of cookbooks. Let's just say that after I left the news business, my cookbook shelves stopped growing so quickly. Nowadays, I'll buy the occasional book. But I tend to rely a handful of tried-and-true books. The rest of the books look really great along my dining room wall.
Recently, I bought the newly released "Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees" by Kian Lam Kho (Clarkson Potter, 368 pages, $35). I was curious to see Kho's take on Chinese cuisine for home cooks. His book sets the context with a tour of the regional cuisines of China and then he divides the chapters by cooking technique instead of by course or a menu.
I'm not reviewing the book. But I'm hoping to trigger a conversation about how cookbooks are organized. Does it work to have recipes categorized according to technique? What's the perception of a cookbook that has a lyrical title that harkens back to a different century? Do recipes that include frogs, fish maw and sea cucumber push the edge of what's considered home cook-friendly? I don't know, but I'm curious.