Sometimes when I hear about a new book that sounds intriguing, I save it to an Amazon wish list. I don't usually buy it on Amazon, but I want to put it somewhere I can find it again later when I'm looking for something to read. The downside of keeping a TBR (To Be Read) list there is that I can't add any comments, so sometimes when I'm viewing my list months later I have no idea why I might have saved a particular book.
Midnight Chicken (And Other Recipes Worth Living For) by Ella Risbidger is one such book that lingered on my list for more than a year. It's possible I heard about it through an NPR story, but I don't really know for sure. But in any case, it's a book that made me happy recently and I thought I'd share it.
Opening Pages
The book opens like this:
"This book has three main morals, and I urge you to remember them and apply them liberally.
1. Salt your pasta water.
2. If in doubt, butter.
3. Keep going."
In the early pages, the author describes how cooking brought her back to life after experiencing a very dark period. She didn't grow up cooking. As she writes, "I was a books girl, not a cook girl, and I spent most of my time lying flat along the rafters of the barn with my nose in The Secret Garden or Five Children and It or The Railway Children."
She describes her cooking this way: "I want to make this very clear, right now, at the beginning: I'm a cook, I suppose, but a slapdash, bottom-of-the-vegetable drawer cook. A buy-frst, Google-later, cover-it-in-Parmesan cook."
If that description doesn't sell you on how relatable the author is then maybe you'll be won over by her insistence that you don't need to own a thousand different special pans or spend a half hour chopping vegetables every night.
And as a bonus, the cheerful watercolor illustrations by Elisa Cunningham perfectly complement the welcoming, homey tone of the writing.
The Recipes
I admit I haven't actually made any of the recipes in this book, so perhaps a review is premature. (I have marked a few of them to try: Bright and Brilliant Kale Salad, the Salted Caramel Brown Butter Brownies, Big Hearty Black Bean Soup.) But honestly, just reading this book from cover to cover made me smile. Each recipe has a short story or vignette about its origins or why it's included. The author can be quite funny. For example, in the Blackened Broccoli and Bittersweet Almonds (on Toast) recipe she begins, "Please: bear with me here. I know. You hear 'broccoli on toast,' and despair. But this is so much better than that." Or how about this introduction to another recipe: "You cannot, they told me, put a recipe for ordinary pancakes in your book. But I can, and I am, and by the time you read this, I have. So there."
Her recipes feel very approachable; imagine a good friend giving you instructions for a favorite dish. How can you not love a cookbook author who includes details like this in her recipes: "After an hour or so (it'll stand a little bit longer, so don't worry if you're at a good bit of your book, or otherwise occupied), come back and check the mixture." Or when was the last time you saw a recipe that included a step like this: "Get someone else to put butter and jam on the table, or butter and Marmite, or thin potato-peeler strips of cheese."?
The recipes are helpfully divided into sections that include quick ones for nights when you're tired, foods that are portable for picnics, and recipes that might be saved for the weekends when you have more time.
This is a very British book, so there were bits that puzzled me as an American, even as a faithful watcher of The Great British Baking Show. What is golden syrup exactly? What about chocolate buttons? Are those the same as chocolate chips? And what does it mean that making pigeon pickle pies is "a moderate faff"? On a basic level, oven temperatures are in celsius, not fahrenheit, and she measures a lot of ingredients by weight rather than measuring cups.
Conclusion
This is a cookbook, yes, but it's also a memoir about a woman who managed to turn her life around with food and cooking and the help of a sweetheart and friends. While there is some underlying sadness in some of her stories, the overall feeling is one of hopefulness. It's one of those unexpected books I'm glad I read and will remember for a long time. Highly recommended.