Cooking
With Lavender
by
Suzanne Smith of Los Alamos, NM
$12.95
retail
With
Los Poblanos on the cover, this is the ultimate
New
Mexico cookbook for lavender!
FINALIST,
2008 NEW MEXICO BOOK AWARDS
Thursday, October 9, 2008 -- BOOK SIGNING FOR COOKING
WITH LAVENDER
Barbe
Awalt will be signing copies of the new book Cooking with
Lavender at Treasure House, 2012 S Plaza NW, Old Town
Albuquerque at 12noon to 2pm.
Saturday,
July 12, 2008 -- BOOK SIGNING AT BOOKWORKS
There will be a book signing for "Cooking with Lavender"
with Barbe Awalt at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande Blvd,
Albuquerque, from 11am to 12noon.
BOOK
REVIEWS
Lavender
is a lovely flower, as well as key ingredient for
perfumes and scented soaps. What most people are not
aware of is that lavender is also a plant that Spanish
settlers first brought to the Americas and has a great
many culinary uses as well! That's what makes Suzanne
Smith's "Cooking With Lavender" such a unique compendium
of recipes that incorporate lavender among the
ingredients for a wide range of main and side dishes,
beverages, butters, sweets, rubs, and herbal mixtures.
From Lavender-Fried Apples; Red Raspberry-Lavender Soup;
and Lavender Lemonade; to Grilled Marinated Filets
Mignons on Lavender Foil Bread; Broiled Salmon with
Lavender Champagne Sauce; and Lavender Shortbread
Cookies, "Cooking With Lavender" is a unique addition to
personal and community library cookbook collections --
and a lot of fun to browse while seeking novel dishes to
embellish any mealtime occasion! -- MidWest Book Reviews,
August 2009
Close
your eyes and picture this:
The mid afternoon sun warms the ground under your
sandals. Buzzing lazily, bees alight on purple
lavender blossoms to sip succulent nectar. The air smells
of roots and freshly watered earth. Leaves rustle,
and blossoms blur until they resemble an Impressionist
painting.
Tell me as you stand in the garden--what is more
wonderful than a field of lavender in August’s golden
light? Perhaps bringing lavender inside and cooking
with it--tasting a moist pound cake flavored with
lavender, and fresh from the oven. Perhaps enjoying the
scent of chicken, rosemary, and lavender blending as they
bake.
Sound exciting? Then you might like to pick up a
copy of Suzanne T. Smith’s Cooking with Lavender,
published by Rio Grande Press in Albuquerque. This little
specialty book offers a variety of recipes from Red
Raspberry Lavender Soup, to Lavender Scrod in Foil, to
Lavender and Apple Pound Cake.
Should you be new to using lavender for culinary
purposes, don’t worry. Cooking with Lavender will
help you. Besides a brief history of the plant, the
introduction lists the types best for cooking, ways to
use them; and a brief summary of how to grow, harvest,
and store lavender, if you would like to try that.
Ms. Smith lists her e-mail address and invites you to let
her know how you like her recipes. I assume that
means she’ll also answer questions that you may have.
She suggests two places to buy culinary lavender.
Since it isn’t readily available in stores where I live,
I called the establishments, but no one answered the
phone at either of them. One source offered a web
site, but my cantankerous computer wouldn’t load it.
However I did locate enough lavender through friends to
try the Apple Pound Cake and the New Potatoes with
Lavender Chive Butter. A novice with this plant, I
followed Ms. Smith’s suggestions for using it. Each time,
a delightful aroma swelled in my kitchen, and soon after
that, a delicious taste filled my mouth. No.
It filled my whole being.
I’ve always enjoyed cooking, so I had no trouble
interpreting and following recipe directions in Cooking
with Lavender Comparing this title with two other
New Mexico specialty cook books in my kitchen, I found it
equal to them in range of recipes and tips for lavender
use.
As soon as I locate a good source of culinary lavender,
or someone answers the phone at the places Suzanne T.
Smith suggested, Cooking with Lavender will become
as dog-eared and stained as the other culinary books in
my kitchen, and lavender will take its place on my spice
rack beside cumin, thyme, and coriander. --
www.readingnewmexico.com
Love
that fragrant lavender in your garden? Try cooking with
it!
That’s right—lavender’s
lemony-tasting blossoms and tangy leaves go as well in
the kitchen as in the linen closet. Lavender pairs
beautifully with oranges and other fruits, fish and
seafood, poultry and meats, as well as adding
mouth-watering, exotic flavor to sweets. Cooking with
Lavender shows you how to create mealtime adventures,
make food sing with savory, tangy, zesty recipes
featuring this versatile herb, and have a great time in
your kitchen as you experiment with innovative dishes
using luscious lavender.
Cooking
with Lavender includes:
lively recipes for
lavender-laced Soups, Stews, and Main Dishes;
spirited recipes for lavender-vitalized Side Dishes;
irresistible lavender-scented Beverages, Desserts, and
Sweets.
dynamite recipes for making Lavender Butters, Rubs, and
Herb Mixtures
to add zing to your ordinary dishes;
“This is a fabulous collection of recipes, and the
introduction has lots of fascinating lore about
lavender.” — Barbara Loth, homemaker and lavender grower,
Greytown, OH
“Imaginative, achievable recipes for those of us who like
to experiment in the kitchen. With this book, you can
start your own culinary adventures today!” — Corey
Bishop, amateur chef, Port Huron, MI
“Since the first Spanish settlers brought lavender,or
(alhucema)
to our region centuries ago, it has been used for its
soothing medicinal and aromatic properties, as well as in
cooking. This cookbook will help many enjoy the wonders
of lavender. We at Los Poblanos Lavender fields (on
historic farmland in the Rio Grande River Valley) look
forward to using this book.” — Penny Rembe, Los Poblanos
Lavender Fields, Los Ranchos, NM
Suzanne T. Smith is the
author of five books, chapters in two other books, and
more than a hundred magazine and newspaper articles. Her
previous cookbooks, Recipes for
Romance and Pumpkin
Recipes, are being received
enthusiastically and are reaping extensive praise. She
teaches advanced writing classes at the University of New
Mexico at Los Alamos and cooks for her husband and dogs.
Make your kitchen smell
good enough to eat— get an armload of lavender blossoms,
curl up in a cozy chair with your own copy of
Cooking
with Lavender, and discover some
scrumptious ways to use this delicious herb. Start your
own lavender adventures today!