A very complete and informative book on when,and what to buy during each of the four seasons, along with some great recipes.
Also some wonderful photography and stories of some of the vendors at the market. I cannot say enough good things about this book. I found it very hard to put down once I started reading it.Forget the Supermarkets and learn about buying FRESH from the growers themselves.Very educational and would highly recommend this book to anyone who cooks, be it on the amateur or professional level.

This is a fun introduction to a little piece of New York's history, the famous Urban Farmers' Market, as well as a handy guide to cooking with produce that is in season. If you use fresh fruits and vegetables in your cooking, you are undoubtedly aware that, while some foods may be available 365 days a year, they are usually most flavorful when they are grown and ripened naturally. Charts help make sense of the many varieties of produce available, and recipes are organized around the calendar, so you may find 'Red & Green Fresh Vegetables with Pasta' for summer, and 'Bread and Cabbage Soup' for winter. Each of four seasonal chapters lists the produce, flowers, dairy and meat available during that season. In general these are basic recipes that can be made by the beginner cook.

My only complaint is that, with all the gorgeous photographs of the people and the market, there are no pictures of the finished dishes, a feature that I appreciate in a cookbook. Otherwise this is a great, and fun, cookbook with good recipes.

If you have ever wandered aimlessly through a farmers' market, this may just be the book for you. It will bring back memories of the smell of fresh vegetables, ripe peaches and corn on the cob. Now what do you do with all this fresh food? No problem, there are plenty of recipes. The beauty of this book is that it teaches you to cook the foods that are available. So where is the nearest farmers market in your area? This book will inspire you to get out of the house and find it!

I am Cuban-American. Both parents were born in Cuba but emigrated in the 60's. My mother's cooking brings nostalgia that only true Cubans can relate to! This cookbook has such an assortment of recipes that will make anyone love Cuban food! I have received this book from my husband as a birthday present and it was such a nice surprise!

Mary Urrutia captured the essence of Cuban cooking in her book, tasty and simple home fare. The recipes are easy to follow. She suggests substitute ingredients for those of us who live in areas where the "criollo" ingredients may not be readily available. Every dish I have made from the book has been greeted with rave reviews by my family and friends. Urrutia has made it possible for those who follow her recipes to be labeled a "great Cuban cook"!

WOW!!!!
Unless you get recipes from your Cuban grandmother there is nothing better than this book. The writer's lovely descriptions of her days as a little girl in Cuba and the can't miss recipes are what make this book a true gem. I was happy to see recipes for dishes that I grew up with but never knew how to make. If you have the time and calories to spare make the Pastel De Pollo it is divino!!!
The recipe for Mojo Criollo was great, I made it with Yuca for Thanksgiving and my entire Cuban family thought it was my grandmother's recipe.
Gracias Mary your book will be treasured in my home.

Is there any food dish that is more American than Macaroni and Cheese? Many of us, myself included, grew up with the 'blue box' and as our tastes developed, so did our disdain for this dish. I tended to equate 'Mac & Cheese' with that meat product that comes in the blue can.

But Joan Schwartz has exploded the low-brow image of America's comfort food. This book is incredible! There are so many varieties of this dish from the 'classic' dishes to international flavors to what Ms. Schwartz calls 'Mac and Cheese Today'. And don't think that the cheese is that orange stuff. Swiss, Fontina, Mascarpone, Feta and Mozzarella are just a few of the varieties that you will use in your recipes. And just when you thought that the cheeses were a stretch, recipes with lobster, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, portabello and crimini mushrooms and chiles and chipotle peppers to mention a few, will delight your tastes.

I'll admit that I bought this book with a great deal of skepticism. A few bites of the 'Chunks of Lobster Swimming in Cheesy Macaroni' dispelled my reservations. Other favorites include 'Farfalle with Fontina, Tasso Ham and Baby Spinach' and Mac and Smoked Cheddar with Ham and Chipotles'. Imagine the look on guests' faces when you announce that you are serving them Mac and Cheese and their surprise when you serve a dish approaching haute cuisine.

Let's admit it...we liked the 'blue box' growing up and most of us are ashamed to reveal our love of this American staple. Now we can proudly bring this long demeaned dish back to the table and rekindle our fondness for it. Buy the book....it's a keeper!

Clearly written, with easy to follow instructions, and guide to ingredients, including definitions and sources. I love the 50's style art and kitchy-ness of this wonderful comfort food book. The recipes go from simple and basic to complex and gourmet. Even my husband loved this book so much, he followed a recipe and made a decent meal from scratch for the first time in his life.

I plan to attempt most of the recipes in this book.

The recipe for greek mac n' cheese is one of my favorite recipes of all time. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I am a huge fan of Bobby Flay and of his restaurants -- Mesa Grill and the underrated Bolo. This book passes on the flavor and flair of those restaurants well. The recipes in this cookbook are fantastic, and every meal you make is guaranteed to be outstanding. But there are two BIG problems.

First, many of the ingredients can be difficult to find, particularly if you don't live in an urban area. And substituting doesn't do the trick. Second, many of the recipes are exceedingly complicated and time-consuming. More than once, I've spent 8 or 10 hours preparing a full meal (not including shopping time, which often involves several stores).

So as long as you have access to the relevant range of ingredients, and you have several hours to invest in making an amazing meal (or the expertise of a Bobby Flay in the kitchen!), this is a terrific cookbook. Otherwise, you might want to look for something a bit more basic.

The first cookbook by Chef Bobby Flay. Here is an wonderful book that shows what an excellent Southwestern-style chef he is.

This book contains explanations to some of his ingredients, as well as techniques to use, when using an ingredient, for example, using yellow tomatoes versus red tomatoes. He, also, adds resources where you can find some of his hard-to-find ingredients. This is a definite plus, as a lot of the chiles are hard-to-find in my area, but so worth the effort, because once you assemble the recipe, it is SO delicious! You just can't believe it.

I tried a few of these recipes on my husband, who has a distinct taste that is hard to please, to say the least, and he has loved each recipe I have made from this book. Favorites of ours are the Pan Seared New York Steak with Chipotle Butter, Caesar Salad with Red Chile Croutons and the Peach & Blueberry Cobbler!

In addition to writing cookbooks, Bobby Flay hosts three television shows on the Food Network: "Food Nation with Bobby Flay", "Hot Off the Grill with Bobby Flay" and "Grillin' and Chillin'".

"Food Nation" is a tour of the United States in the least likely spots, where Bobby Flay explores the cuisine of that area. Spots visited have been the Pennsylvania Dutch country, Kentucky, Nashville and Boston.

"Hot Off the Grill" shows Bobby Flay assemble meals with some volunteers that may be like the more average at-home cook, showing me, how easy these dishes really are to prepare.

"Grillin' and Chillin'" has only been on during barbecue season (that I have noticed), but shows Bobby Flay with Jack McDavid, a real southern cook. Together they barbecue huge spreads all on the grill!

Bobby Flay also has his own line of spice and condiments. A wide assortment from dry rubs, drink mixes, infused oils and spice blends. These are available to purchase at his "Mesa Grill" web site: www.mesagrill.com

Also, he owns and works at two restaurants in New York City: "Mesa Grill" (Southwestern cuisine) and "Bolo" (Contemporary Spanish cuisine).

I thoroughly enjoyed this cookbook and would highly recommend it!

I've been a fan of Bobby Flay's cooking shows on TV for a few years. He makes cooking a way to have fun and socialize while not taking away from the true art of cooking. So, after eyeing this book on the shelves for a few months, my sweet wife ordered it for me online.

This book is a winner! In it you'll find many fresh applications of the wonderful flavors of the southwest. For the most part, the recipes are straightforward and easy to follow. It's amazing how far you can go with just a few basic ingredients (Chile, corn, onion, garlic, etc.) In addition to learning lots of specific recipes, Bobby also gives you a great feeling for how to improvise and come up with your own bold creations. I just cooked my first few recipes from the book (New Mexico BBQ Salmon, chipotle buttered roasted corn), and they came out great!

P.S. As an extra bonus, the book is filled with lots of beautiful color photos of the dishes. It's all very artistic.

This book might be helpful to parents of newborns who have no idea how to play with their children. For everyone else, it has a pretty obvious and unimaginative take on how to use toys to stimulate language development. A typical suggested dialog for playing with legos is: "Yes, Bobby, that is a blue block! Here is another blue block! Now there are two blue blocks and they are exactly the same!" and so on. There are lots of lists of things your child should be doing at various ages; but if you are interested in this book, your child has special needs and you probably already know he/she isn't going to develop in a typical way. To me, this book wasn't worth the money.

I bought this when my son was 15 months and we had concerns with his speech (he was a preemie and fairly ill his first year, so we have always monitored him pretty closely). This book may seem like "obvious" information or ridiculous to a parent of a typically-developing child, but it is a wealth of information to a speech-delayed child.

My son began special education preschool (for daily ST) a year after I bought this, and finally we were able to do more with it (his receptive language prior to that never came above a 6-9 month level). His ST and I would coordinate which activities I was doing with him using what sentence structure. (Right now, we are working on "wh" questions for example, ie "WHere is the ball?" "WHo is in this picture?" Early on, it was more like "Ball up. Ball down. Block up. Block down.").

By being "on the same page" (no pun intended), we believe he has made more progress than he might have made if I was treating him languagewise like a typically-developing child and he was only getting the intensive language therapy at school. I also have been able to transfer the ideas to household chores (shopping: "One apple. Two apples. Two apples in the basket. One, Two.").

I love the charts given of language development - I check off each consonant and consonant blend sound right in the book as he masters pronouncing then correctly. I don't have to use this book as much as I had to before, as now we are basically working with oral hypotonia, some other oral motor issues, and building his vocabulary (which he LOVES to do), but this book was great when he was unable to speak, frustrated because he couldn't make himself understood, and I still reference it at least weekly, either for my own child or to answer another concerned parent's questions. (We also used ASL for my son until he could physically produce the sounds to make words, so I signed a lot of the phrases suggested in this book as well, repeating them over and over until he could at least make himself understood through ASL.)

Just a bit of clarification on the previous review, many of our kids DO develop speech "typically" - they just don't begin until much later, but then many do it in the same order as other kids. The charts and checklists in this book make it easy to track that, which can be hard when other kids the same age are saying complete sentences and you aren't sure if your child's next step will be frontal consonants. It keeps you on track of YOUR child, so you can ignore what the typically-developing kids are doing that your child isn't.

(For a list of toys for kids with fine motor delays, see my list in listmania!)

As a Speech Language Pathologist who works with very young children and a mother of 2 children, I can tell you that this book is great. I loan my book to the families that I work and all the mothers have enjoyed it. There is a lot information on child development, particularly speech and language skills. The authors give suggestions on what are good toys and activites and how to use them to increase your child's language skills. In other words, "how to play with you child". The book is very easy to read and understand. Anyone with a young child, whether they have special needs or not, will learn a tremendous amount.

I had origionally read about this chef/author in the book Home Food so I researched more articles on the woman. In the end I bought the book for my daughter because the book had a lot in it. My daughter had asked for a book on technique and this book instills confidence for the beginning cook. Along with good recipes there is a lot of information on substitution of ingredients and timing. She really teaches how to think ahead in cooking, Her recipes are lovely variations on the familiar. As it is summer in Seattle as I write this, I had only hoped that it would have more seasonal food. It is a book for someone living on a coast. I find myself borrowing this book from my daughter quite a lot.

I bought this book because the cover and inside photographs were very appealing; unfortunately, there's not much else to the content. The recipes are complicated and misleadingly time-consuming. Save your money.

My mother in law, who likes steak and potatoes, would hate this book. But I love it, because it provides relatively easy recipes for mega-sophisticated meals...think pomegranite-glazed duck, unusual fruit desserts like grilled mango (much,much better than it sounds) and a to-die-for spin on grilled vegetables with orange-blossom honey. Just the thing to inspire a cool dinner party!

My one caveat: the ingredients are a bit high-falutin'---fennel pollen? But for foodies, a book like this is a godsend because it refuses to talk down to readers. One section explains the book's unusual ingredient and gives internet sources for them, which is quite helpful.

From the glitzy cover encased in Mylar, to the gorgeous photographs as composed as still life paintings, to the demanding quality of the ingredients (hand-harvested diver scallops for the seviche), to the splashy flavors of the food -Moroccan Spiced Shrimp with Artichokes and Pomegranate, Arugula with Manchego, Roasted Almonds and Quince Dressing, Parmigiano-Reggiano Pudding, Spiced Fruit Soup with Ginger and Toasted Almond Ice Cream - this book is designed for readers as well as cooks.

New York chef Kenney's (he grew up in Maine) Mediterranean cooking focuses on top-quality ingredients (the first chapter includes online food sources and shopping techniques), fresh, bold flavors and kitchen efficiency. Organized by cooking technique - "Simply Raw to Barely Cooked," "Roasting Fast and Slow," "Simmering Stews and Hot Pots," Kenney plans for a small kitchen, minimizing mess and chaos whatever the space. Though ingredient lists are sometimes long, assembly is usually quick and presentation is spectacular: Seared Tuna with Ginger Dressing, for instance, or Maple-Balsamic Glazed Pork Chops with Pecans and Ginger. This is a book for fun, for inspiration, for wowing guests with food that looks flashier than it is.

I guess I didn't think bold would be hot and spicy in every recipe, I cook a lot and love fresh vegies and grilling recipes, I have a vast variety of ingredients in my cabinets but could not conjure up enough for even one of these in this book. Too much work, really a disappointing selection. I will stick to Martha Stewart and Susan Branch, more my style.

While the title suggests that these are recipes suitable for a good home cook, this is really a restaurant recipe book. Home cooks looking for ideas they can execte themselves would do much better with Bobby Flay's first, excellent cookbook, "Bold Flavors".

The Recipes in this cookbook are good!

I have Bobby Flay's first Cookbook! I also watch him on The Food Network!