Review of Jamie Geller's Quick & Kosher: Meals in Minutes

I can see why Jamie Geller is popular with audiences.  She intersperses her recipes with tidbits of advice and personal experience relayed as if she is talking to friends.  In her new cookbook, Quick & Kosher, she includes a useful guide to the various types of oils used in cooking, as well as some stories related to setting up a kitchen as a “comfort zone.” In a section entitled “Your Tool Box,” she presents her 11 favorite kitchen tools that she would not want to do without even on a desert island (equipped with electricity).  Which kitchen tools one would include on that list really depends on her/his own preference and cooking style (See http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/11/perspectives-on-kitchen-equipment.html)  My kitchen functions without many of them.  However, I like to bake, so I would be sure to include a stand mixer on my must-have list.    

In what appears to be unedited transcripts of interviews, Jamie Geller presents the people behind the products and stores she endorses throughout the book.   In that fashion, readers hear from the manufacturer who puts out 3 labels of kosher cheese she recommends in the recipes, the president and CEO of Manischewitz (she uses the chicken and vegetable broth from this manufacturer in numerous recipes), the chairman of Kosher.com --in the bricks and mortar world, known as Gourmet Glatt --  (she is the marketing Chief Marketing Officer there), and the Director of Wine Education at royal Wine (a wine selection appears next to each meal – even for the pancakes!). 

The idea behind Quick and Kosher is to offer readers a selection of meals based on the time they have or wish to put into preparing them.  They range from 20 to 60 minutes.  Then, there is a section of holiday meals that are not classified by time in the same way, though each recipe includes the prep and cook time required for it, a breakdown that is absent from the meals in minutes section.  While this set up was intended to make it easier for the reader to find recipes to fit her/his needs, I found it didn’t work well for me. 

My preference is for the standard organization of cookbooks:  section for appetizers, fish, dairy, meat, poultry, side dishes, vegetables, cakes, and other desserts.  Another helpful label of kosher cookbooks that is absent in this one is a clear identification on top of whether the recipes are meat, milk, or parve.  Yes, it can be derived from the ingredients, but usually when planning a meal, we want to plan on which kind it will be, and for those who haven’t grown up in a kosher kitchen, it would even more important to have recipes clearly labeled according to this type of classification.

As I don’t like being boxed into preset meals, I prefer a book that allows me to look over several chicken recipes, one after the other, to decide which one I would like to make.  When I wanted to find a chicken recipe to try out, I flipped through the 20 minute section, jumping over dairy, pasta, and fish dishes, or chicken cutlets.  I also glanced over the holiday recipes section.  Finally, I found a recipe for chicken eighths in the 60 minutes section that I decided to try.  The extra time was required because the chicken called for over 40 minutes in the oven. I found I had to double the cooking time to get it to the level of doneness that my family prefers.

I only prepared the chicken itself -- not its accompanying vegetable side dish.  It was not something my family would care for and is also insufficient for a meal.  Unless you are following an Atkins style meal plan, generally, your dinner would consist of a protein, starch, and vegetable – not just a piece of chicken and vegetables.  That’s the thing about the quick meals here; they typically consist of just 2 dishes, and so often cut out at least one aspect of what is usually included in a balanced and satisfying meal.  Many of the meals requiring the shortest time are, essentially, sandwiches served with a vegetable  dish, and many depend on buying prepared or convenience foods. 

Look, it’s fine to offer sandwiches for a meal once in a while when you don’t have time to do more or don’t feel up to cooking.  But I don’t really consider those options to be recipes.  Likewise, I avoid cake recipes that call for cake mixes.  In this book, there are very few desserts, are most prepared by combining pre-cut up fruit, or prepared cake with prepared toppings or assembling shells with prepared pudding. I do buy prepared puddings, but only in the form of individual portions for my children to pack along for snack.  However, when it comes to cooking, I prefer to make things from scratch.  It’s not just a matter of pride in achievement but of better control over exactly what goes into the food and better economy. Prepared and convenience foods often contain preservatives, colors, and other additives you are better off without, not to mention the fact that they raise the cost of your grocery purchase tremendously.   

Economy is not something that seems to be considered in this cookbook.  But economic times being what they are, thrift is something to take into consideration when planning one’s menu.  Ignoring it can translate into food budget that expands beyond your means. While precut fruit does save you time, it cost about 300% more than buying whole melons and cutting them up yourself.  Prepared chicken also will cost you more than raw.  And opening up a bottle of wine for every meal you serve, according to the suggestion of this book, will add about $10-$40 to the cost of the meal.  I looked up the price of the wine match for chicken marsala with garlic mashed potatoes.  Barkan Cabernet Sauvignon Altitude Series 624 is carried by my local kosher wine store, which has the site OnlyKosherWine.com,  for $39.99 a bottle.  At a site out of state, called KosherWine.com, it is priced at $32.99 a bottle.  At least the wine selected to accompany the blueberry and lemon pancakes is more reasonably priced.  Jeunesse Cabernet Sauvignon is $9.99 at one site and $9.79 at the other.  But really, who serves wine with pancakes?  Even in her introduction the author herself suggests, “Serve is just like they do at restaurants with coffee, tea, and orange juice or milk.”  Note that wine is not among those beverages. 

In any case, based on my own experience and the informal poll I took among friends, in real life people do not serve wine with every meal.  Many only open a bottle for Kiddush, and even for that, some use grape juice.  While it is an appealing fantasy to have the types of dinners at which the perfect wine accompaniment is served, those are not the types of dinners thrown together in minutes.  Another consideration is that you may not like the wine’s taste, even if it is considered the right choice.  Instead I would advise those new to wine to sample some and find which ones they like.  If they find they don’t like the taste of dry or heavy reds, they can ignore the expert advice and drink the white wines they do like – even if beef is on the menu.  In the end, that really what preparing meals is all about – preparing food that you and your family will enjoy eating.

Quick &Kosher has a sticker price of $34.99.  You can buy it at judaica stores, on Amazone, or at http://www.kosher.com/KosherGifts/KosherCookbooks/QuickKosherMealsinMinutesByJamieGeller.html which is offering signed copies for a discounted price of $26.99

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