Summer heats up with cool cookbooks

Cook? In summer? Many of us can't imagine turning on a hot oven when the temperatures hover close to 100. That's why we've reviewed a crop of new cookbooks that include non-hot options.

"The Ultimate Frozen Dessert Book" helps cooks produce sherbet, gelato, and a freezer-full of other frozen delights. "Good Day For a Picnic" offers up recipes that can be packed into a picnic hamper for an outdoor jaunt, though not all of them pleased our critic. "The New American Steakhouse Cookbook" encourages that most favored of summer cooking techniques, grilling. And for those who have no problem pairing summer's heat with hot cuisine, "The Spicy Food Lover's Bible" will have tongues tingling.

Stay cool, and stay fed.

Ice, ice, baby
Frozen desserts are tough to beat when the weather gets hot. But billing your cookbook as "The Ultimate Frozen Dessert Book" (Morrow, $17), as Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough do, creates quite an expectation. Don't look for ice creams or sorbets in the book, those were covered in an earlier book by the duo. But if you seek recipes for gelati, granitas, sherbets and even the rarer semifreddo, this is the book to store right next to your ice-cream maker.

An ice-cream maker is required for almost all of the recipes, except the granitas, which can be mixed, cooked or blended and then simply frozen in your freezer. Stock up on whole milk, eggs, and unflavored gelatin if you're planning to work your way through much of the book — with those, a few staples, and a variety of fruit and chocolate, you should be set for ingredients.

My family especially liked the pineapple sherbet, a tart and sweet treat that was simple to make. I also savored the grapefruit version, but my husband couldn't reconcile the sharpness of the fruit with the sweet creamy texture of the sherbet. Rice-pudding gelato, not as common here in the U.S. as in Italy, proved to be a delightful and different treat — as the book says, much like eating frozen rice pudding. The book also follows each recipe with a variety of ways to customize it, to your tastes, whether by adding fruit, cookies, coffee, or rum.

A section near the end of the book offers recipes for frozen cakes and pies, often using the gelati or sherbets made using earlier recipes. Many require a springform pan, and since mine has seen better days, I tried one of the few that didn't require one: a frozen pineapple and coconut pie. Unfortunately, it flopped: Despite careful folding-in of both homemade meringue and whipped cream, the pie fell as flat as a beach towel. Still, in summer's heat, these recipes are as soothing as a dab of Solarcaine.    —Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

Picks for a picnic
Jeremy Jackson, the man behind my favorite cookbook title (“Desserts That Have Killed Men Better Than Me”), expands his repertoire with “Good Day for a Picnic: Simple Food That Travels Well” (William Morrow, $23). I both love this book and long for what it lacks.

For me, cookbooks are all about sensory pleasure. I want gorgeous photos, an easy-to-read, organized format and a manageable size. While Jackson comes through on the latter points, the scarcity of photographs — and none are recipe-related — disappoints.

Still, his personable tone is a perfect accompaniment to a laid-back picnic. And then there’s the food. In a world full of fried chicken and potato salad, he aims to give cooks something a little different. “Very European,” noted my husband, browsing through the volume.

Want easy? Make roasted grapes and pine-nut butter, amazing on crackers. Or try poached salmon with tomato-basil vinaigrette. It proved that even I — who regularly ruins fish — can turn out a perfectly-cooked fillet. Think twice about the Cornish beef pasties; while flavorful, they’re dry. As a consolation, try the potatoes with olive oil and fleur de sel (sea salt from Brittany). Or indulge in moist strawberry cupcakes.

Whether these recipes work well as picnic food is open to question. Some recipes are overly fussy or impractical beyond your backyard (spicy chai ice cream, spring rolls, the wonderful salade Niçoise). Too much bother to maintain proper temperatures or to pack, as suggested, in multiple containers. In addition, several recipes provide little direction in preparation steps where novices might stray. Are you a beginning cook? Try a different book.

Jackson’s approach can be a refreshing stretch for those who want to taste something new, or who envy the ability to cook without measuring. The casual recipes offer a flexible margin for error. I’ve tagged more than two dozen of the 120 recipes to try, and plan to eat my way through all of them, whether outside or not.    —Joan Wolfe

Meat and potatoes
Years ago, at a wonderful steakhouse, I ordered the fish and regret it to this day. So it was with some trepidation that I approached “The New American Steakhouse Cookbook” (Broadway, $27.50) — trepidation because the book, by David Walzog, executive chef of Michael Jordan’s The Steakhouse NYC and others, bears the subtitle “It’s Not Just Meat and Potatoes Anymore.”

The steakhouse standards — strip steak, rib chop, etc. — get simple but foolproof treatment here.  But the other foods Walzog suggests for the grill, from lemon-pepper marinated chicken to a chile burger may convince you to fire up the grill for more than just steak.  The chicken was the moistest, most flavorful chicken I’ve ever had, and the accompanying grilled asparagus was incredible.  The burger had just enough spice to make it something truly delectable.

Fans of steakhouse standards won't be disappointed either.  Walzog’s grilling instructions are straightforward, and he is the first cookbook author to acknowledge the downside of indoor grilling on cast iron — yes, you can get a pretty good steak, but be prepared to set off the smoke detector.  His sauces and side dishes are incomparable — black-truffle creamed spinach, which he promises to be “the best [you’ve] ever tasted” is exactly that. The black truffle and the nuttiness of the Parmesan cut through the richness of what was enough butter and cream to make Julia Child think twice.  And a horseradish sauce was so tasty I caught a dinner guest drinking the leftovers from the sauce bowl as we cleared the table. 

Walzog also includes a straightforward guide to wine and beer with wines broken down by price and by category, as well as some killer classic cocktails and more modern takes, like the Flirtini and the Urbanite.

My waistline wishes this book weren’t so accessible — I didn’t need to know homemade potato chips were so good or so easy to make.  But for steakhouse-quality cuisine at home, this book is a must-have.    —Hannah Meehan Spector

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