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JOURNAL STAFF REPORT - Winston Salem Journal

Published: July 2, 2008
■ O, The Oprah Magazine Cookbook, by the editors of O, The Oprah Magazine. Hyperion, $29.95.
Oprah Winfrey's popular magazine has not branched out into cookbooks until now, but with a readership of 16 million people it was only a matter of time.
O, The Oprah Magazine Cookbook collects about 175 recipes from the magazine into one volume. Many of the recipes come from famous chefs who have contributed to the magazine over the years. The list includes Bobby Flay of Food Network fame, Daniel Boulud of the New York restaurant Daniel, and pastry chef extraordinaire Jacques Torres, the owner of Jacques Torres Chocolate. Also on the list is Maya Angelou, a poet, Wake Forest University professor and longtime friend of Winfrey's.
The book makes an occasional nod to Southern tastes with such recipes as banana pudding (from Angelou) and Creole gumbo. But the bulk of the collection leans toward contemporary, simple but elegant, fare, often with an international flair.
In addition to the recipes, the book offers "at the table" reminiscences from many of the contributors. Susan Spungen, the founding food editor of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, talks of the near-forgotten glories of a well-prepared lunch. Leah Chase, the owner of Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans, speaks of reviving New Orleans food traditions after Hurricane Katrina.
The book has menu ideas for just about every occasion, and even wine pairings that start with a preferred wine and then suggest dishes in the book to pair with it. Appetizers include a salad of baby greens with asparagus and pistachios. Soups include Thai chicken coconut curry.
Meat entrees include beef stew with cognac and horseradish mustard, and orange-ginger pork medallions. Pecan-Coated Fried Chicken and maple-glazed whole duck with Savoy cabbage are among the poultry selections.
For seafood, readers can choose from such dishes as Oprah's favorite crab cakes (adapted from The Polo Grill in Baltimore), skewered spicy shrimp with grilled watermelon and cabbage-wrapped salmon steamed in wine.
Vegetables include poppy-seed-crusted cauliflower. Starches include spaghetti al Limone (with lemon, basil and Parmesan).
Breads get their own chapter, with The Harlem Tea Room's scones, Oprah's corn fritters and more.
Desserts include Vermont maple sugar pie, fig galette, and grown-up milk & cookies, the latter a chocolate souffle with milk steeped in vanilla bean and eau de vie (fruit-flavored brandy).
Even recipes from such sophisticated chefs as Marcus Samuellson of Aquavit in New York are very doable for the average cook.
All in all, this collection of recipes is inventive, classy and appealing.
Though O, The Oprah Magazine hardly is a food magazine, obvious attention is paid to the food. That makes for a cookbook that may prove as popular as Winfrey herself.