A while back in my career when I was a consultant to Cuisinart, I met Marlene Sorosky. I came to respect and admire her for her books. So much so, that when I had my bakery, I used several of the recipes from her book, The Dessert Lover’s Cookbook in my bakery.
Well, Marlene has one of the most interesting books around for getting children interested in cooking and baking - The Fall of General Custard Cookbook. It’s absolutely perfect for children or grandchildren. As Marlene describes it, the book brings to life a playful, imaginary world inside a refrigerator and a cookbook, which she wrote, based on those characters.
Marlene is my kind of person. When, at the beginning of her career, someone reported her for teaching cooking classes out of her home she knew she couldn’t give up her love of teaching. Undaunted, she built her own cooking school and culinary shop in the San Fernando valley. Not only that, she worked with Julia Child, James Beard and Jacques Pepin who were all in the forefront for starting America on its love affair with food. She has written eight cookbooks which have sold more than 2 million copies. My kind of person for sure!
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One of her books, Entertaining on the Run, won the James Beard award against none other than Martha Stewart. And her Dessert Lover’s Cookbook won the IACP award for best dessert book.
Back to the book. Actually, make that books. Matt Damon (not the actor) wrote the original Indie award winning children’s book, The Fall of General Custard or the Overthrow of a Leftover. But the story gets a little convoluted here. After Marlene wrote the companion cookbook, the publisher went out of business. With the same spirit with which she opened her cooking school and shop, she published the book herself. You can buy both books as a bundle or just her cookbook.
Each recipe begins with a poem. The poem and recipe for the Bold Blueberry Cobbler Cake can be seen on her blog. At the top you can click on General Custard Books to order.
Marlene will do a free zoom class for the children, parents, aunts, uncles whoever wants to accompany them. How fun will that be? And what a great gift, the story book, the cookbook and the zoom class. Unique and thoughtful!
European Tarts Book relisted. Since publishing Craving Cookies, I have been asked by several people about both The New Pastry Cook and European Tarts, Divinely Doable Desserts. The former is out of print. However, I have reissued European Tarts on Amazon.
European Tarts is accompanied by a website that holds all the how to pictures. While I don’t generally get into the hows and whys of publishing, I got some negative feedback due to the pictures being on a website. When I wrote the book in 2010, it was with Amazon’s Creative Space. At that time, you could only have 12 colored photos included in the price of the printing. Every photo after that cost $25.00. I have literally dozens of how to photos on the website to guide you, but it was untenable to include them in the book itself.
The book itself is based on little or no baking and the tarts were among those we sold from the bakery.
So, do me a favor if you buy the book. Please review it on Amazon. But in any case, enjoy it. It features easy to make and even easier to eat gorgeous tarts.
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