Some very pretty images and homely Katzen menus and recipes

I've been collecting Moosewood and Mollie Katzen cookbooks since the early days. When Still Life came out, my children were entering teens, my mother needed care, and I was thinking about graduate school. This wonderful book became my "go to" cookbook for delicious dinners that everyone would love. Also menus that are appealing for festive occasions and company. It is still one of my favorites. ( )

Katzen has come up with one of the most unique methods of organizing a cookbook. She has put together 50 menus along with a painting for each one. Each of the menus is a group of recipes that she has matched up for a complete dinner.

This book was written after she had moved on from her days at Moosewood and had a family at home. There's a nice mix of menus that range in preparation time. Some can be done after you get home from work. For the ones that would take longer, she gives suggestions for breaking them up across a few days so that you can prepare things ahead of time for a small dinner party.

I like seeing the contrast between Katzen during her early days at Moosewood and then in Still Life after her experience having a family. We get to hear about her thoughts and experiences more fully than in her previous work, including managing her cooking time for the family. Each menu starts with a note ranging from the personal to the practical while almost every recipe does as well.

I would never recommend every cookbook follow this format of ordering the recipes into menus (it's much harder to look for that soup recipe that you remember looking at a few months ago). However, it's unique and a nice change of pace.

It rates high on my list of cool cookbooks to include in a collection that has the basics already covered.