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Review: Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Café
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Mollie
Katzen's Sunlight Café
By Mollie Katzen ISBN: 0786862696 Publisher: Hyperion Publication date: Sept. 2002 Format: Hardcover List price: $29.95 (Canada, UK) | ||||
| Type: Single Subject: Breakfast; vegetarian | |||||
| Sample recipes: Ricotta Crêpes, Gruyère Quiche with Golden Onion & Red Pepper | |||||
| Ambitions | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| intended audience: | novice | advanced beginner | good home cook | gourmet | professional |
| apparent goal: | stocking stuffer | sampler | comprehensive | Biblical stature | coffee-table |
| competition: | outclassed | also-ran | midrange | strong challenger | leads the pack |
| Content | |||||
| # of recipes: | <50 | <100 | <200 | <300 | >300 |
| practical recipes: | <20% | <40% | <60% | <80% | >80% |
| # of ingredients: | <3 | <6 | <9 | <12 | >12 |
| ingredient hunt: | 7-11 | pantry | supermarket | online | airfare required |
| recipe complexity: | baby steps | simple | medium | intense | professional |
| instructions: | inadequate | bare bones | full figured | educational | verbose |
| time conscious: | outright lies | speed of light | fairly quick | takes time | takes all day |
| photos/drawings: | skimpy | adequate | generous | instructive | glorious |
| recipe results: | dorm food | casual food | family meals | fancy food | fit for royalty |
| flavor quotient: | disappointing | fair | good | delicious | exceptional |
| Format | |||||
| layout: | ick | cluttered | clean | kind to cooks | work of art |
| legibility: | microscopic | challenging | adequate | clear | brilliant |
| production quality: | cheesy | questionable | years of service | gift-quality | stunning |
| value: | ouch! | a little pricey | on the money | excellent | worth splurging |
| Ease of Use | |||||
| page numbers: | invisible | hard to find | spotty | adequate | obvious |
| table of contents: | missing | frustrating | passable | useful | helpful |
| index quality: | none | tragic | adequate | good | excellent |
| page flipping: | infuriating | tedious | acceptable | rare | never |
| Author | |||||
| writer: | hack | cook turned writer | writer turned cook | comedian | auteur |
| cook: | self-taught | non-restaurant | chef | teacher | celebrity |
| Summary | |||||
| overall rating: | fair | good | above average | excellent | Ochef Top 100 |
| Comments: Considering the amount of toast, cold cereal, and muffins consumed in this country each day, breakfast is surely the easiest meal to make vegetarian. And Mollie Katzen, dean of the vegetarian cookbook authors, has taken good advantage of that. While this is not promoted as a vegetarian cookbook, none of the 350+ recipes include meat.
Still, the recipes take in all the standard dishes — scrambled eggs, buttermilk pancakes, home fries, etc. — but also range as far afield as Tempeh Hash, Savory Rosemary-Olive Waffles with Peas, Bittersweet Mocha Coffee Cake, Homemade Protein Bars, and many, many other innovative dishes that we have never tried. Besides the recipes, the book is packed with helpful hints, cooking tidbits, and food information — a great resource for beginners as well as more experienced cooks. The illustrations by Katzen are charming. |
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