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I couldn’t agree more with the message Maria Rodale puts forth in her new cookbook, Scratch: Home Cooking for Everyone Made Simple, Fun, and Totally Delicious , of which I received a review copy. In the Introduction, she writes “I believe that a home-cooked meal made from scratch – preferably with organic ingredients (and maybe even homegrown) – is one of the greatest pleasures in life.” She goes on with “Cooking from scratch isn’t about impressing friends and neighbors (although you probably will); it’s about nourishing our families and ourselves. And the truth is, when it comes to making delicious and easy food from scratch, it truly is freaking easy!” She happens to be the granddaughter of the founder of the organic movement in the US and grew up on the first official organic farm in the country, but she’s also very open-minded and practical about what will and won’t work for everyone. There’s nothing preachy or judgmental about her advice and suggestions. Her hope is to inspire re...

Who wouldn’t want more ideas for cooking simple meals at home? This is the goal of the latest book from Diana Henry, Simple: Effortless Food, Big Flavors , and I received a review copy. I agree completely with her statement that “You don’t need many skills to feed yourself, your friends, and family well… What we mostly lack are ideas.” This book is full of great ones for quick, weeknight meals. There are a few dishes that take a little longer to prepare, but they’re not difficult. She repeatedly offers suggestions for substitutions or things that can be omitted to further simplify or personalize the recipes without sacrificing flavor. From Eggs to Salads to Pulses to Chicken, Vegetables, and more, the chapters cover a broad range of meals and parts of meals. As often happens as I read cookbooks, I ended up with sticky flags marking several pages. I marked the recipe for Linguine All’Amalfitana because I’d never before seen this particular pasta sauce with garlic, anchovies, and walnuts...

Bread baking books get me every time. I always want to jump in and bake everything. It was no different with Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking--Flatbreads, Stuffed Breads, Challahs, Cookies, and the Legendary Chocolate Babka by Uri Scheft, and I received a review copy . He brings an international perspective to his baking as an Israeli who has worked in Denmark, Italy, and France and has learned from Moroccan, Yemenite, and Turkish family and friends. He opened his own bakery, Lehamim Bakery which means “breads” bakery, in Tel Aviv in 2002, and expanded the business by opening Breads Bakery in New York City in 2013. His babka is famous, and the various recipes for that dough in the book all look delicious. There are careful instructions for filling, rolling, twisting, and shaping all the different flavors and types of loaves. And, the chapter for Challah shows some beautiful creativity. The dough is fashioned into braided, twisted, and stacked shapes, and there are even s...

When I decided to leave SAP to take a short sabbatical I didn’t really know what to expect. Six months later I am happy to report that it was one of the best decisions I ever made. These were some of the best weeks and months of my life. After this short period of disconnecting to recharge and rejuvenate myself I am reconnecting to the professional world. I have accepted an offer with Google to lead the API Ecosystem for Google Cloud to help drive adoption and monetization of the Google Cloud portfolio of platform and products, at scale, by working with various partners as well as coordinating efforts internally at Google with product management and engineering. As I disconnected I felt the life slowed down and I had more time on hands and a fewer things to do. I met with many people during my sabbatical to learn from them and bounce off my thoughts. We tend to postpone taking certain decisions and don’t spend a lot of time thinking about many things in life, personal as well as profe...

I’m declaring this cod dish a perfect recipe for January. It’s lean and not too indulgent, but the smoky pimenton will help warm you up if your weather is a bit chilly as it is here. Just smelling the lovely pimenton in the simmering sauce makes the house seem warmer. And, this is a pretty quick dish to prepare if you’re looking for simpler meals after lots of holiday cooking. It’s from Cúrate: Authentic Spanish Food from an American Kitchen by Katie Button, and I received a review copy. Katie Button’s career in cooking began after she first studied biomolecular engineering. Rather than completing her PhD program, she opted to go to work for Jose Andres in Washington D.C. That position led to a stage in elBulli’s pastry kitchen which was followed by opening a Spanish restaurant with her husband in North Carolina. The book is named after the restaurant, and both offer home-cooking from all the regions of Spain with some interpretations for what’s available here in the US. There are cla...