Melissa Gets a Surprise!

Do not adjust your color settings, people--that pretty green cookbook is the younger sister of our dearly beloved Gourmet Cookbook!

Yup--hot off the presses and into my hot little hands and OH GOURMET WHY DIDN'T YOU WAIT TIL I HAD MASTERED SPACE AND TIME????? Not fair at ALL to come up with such a sexy book when I'm only half way through the first one--LORD I'll be cooking this stuff in the nursing home! I need to be able to bend three-dimensional reality to fit in all of my ardent desires so send me a manual next time, will ya?

Oh puleez, I hear you cry--stop complaining and get on with the descriptions already...ok, ok...here it goes:

Our new little sister cookbook has three new chapters, which is to say that basically the layout is the same (Adam/Teena/Kevin if you're still with us/Annie you too--you will recognize the chapters...grains and beans, fish and shellfish, fruit desserts, etc.)...but with a few additions. And they are:

The chapter I am possibly most excited about, Drinks! Yes, before I sat down to write this post I did a quick survey of our poorly-stocked liquor cabinet and a quick skim of the Drinks chapter and determined that I have NO INGREDIENTS (except for the basic vodka/rum/tequila/random liquor assortment) so you can be sure I will be remedying that in record time.

Grilled Dishes...and can I just say where were you Gourmet when we got our grill a few years ago and I embarrased myself charing hamburgers? Sheesh.

My friend Georgia! And Eve! And Leigh and Monique and Paula and May and all of you other dedicated vegetarians, look! A cookbook that has cocktails AND vegetarian food. The two are not always to be found in the same book, but here you have Fennel, Telaggio and Cardamom Tart...Buttered Barley and Onion Soup...Rolled Omelet with Arulula-Goat Cheese Filling...and cheek by jowl with Sangria and Gimlets and Bloody Marys. Really now...could life get any better? I think not!

What else about this alluring young thing...well, all of the recipes here are supposedly do-able in less than a half-hour of active time, and that will be a pleasant surprise for folks who are actually busy (and who among us is not?) Not tested one jot by me, and it behooves us to be skeptical so WE SHALL SEE...(bwah ha haaa)

But my real surprise? Was this:

and this!

How many of us can say that they got a note from Ruth Reichl saying, "From one cod to another" and "I hope you like this book as much as I like your rate!" ? Oh Ruth...it's ok...just don't try to do the Molly Katzen/handwritten cookbook thing or we'll all be wandering lost in the wilderness. And let us raise a glass to the gods of word processing...my glass which is filled sparsely with Mt. Gay and lime juice and ice, which really is not a bad way to toast those particular gods.

And a little birdy told me you were asking about my phone number which I assume is to discuss which director will direct our movie. Will it be Woody Allen (Woody is married to you, has an affair with me, we all sing about it)...Quentin Tarantino (you and I set up a secret espionage unit at Conde Nast and scalp certain executives who want to shut down Gourmet)...or perhaps Nora Ephron (a heartfelt movie about two women who make their separate ways through the world of food and food writing and find themselves and satisfaction with their lives and impact each other in ways neither could have imagined)?

Stay tuned, readers! Oh, and the book--get it!