A sneak peek at Gwyneth Paltrow's new cookbook, "My Father's Daughter"
Actress/lifestyle leader Gwyneth Paltrow's new cookbook, "My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness," officially hits the shelves later this month, but that hasn't stopped us from sneaking a peek via the fabulous Eater.com.
"The cookbook is many things: it is aspirational and sweet, it is seasonally-minded, it is unintentionally very funny, and it offers dinner party ideas and patronizing 'working-parent dinners,' " Raphael Brion writes at Eater.com. But while we appreciate the simple recipes and honest ingredients, much of what we've read so far just serves to remind us that the super-rich and super-thin are super-different than the rest of us. Take these lines, for example:
"One year I was given a birthday present I'll never forget-a cooking lesson from Jamie Oliver."
"Through this process my father and daughter had unwittingly taught me the importance of balance. Could I use some butter and cheese and eggs in my cooking without going down some kind of hippie shame spiral? Yes. Of course I could."
"I basically love anything that comes in a hot dog bun... except hot dogs."
"One evening when I had my wood-burning stove going I realized I hadn't thought of dessert."
"I first had a version of this at a Japanese monastery during a silent retreat-don't ask, it's a long story."
"We've got a wood-burning pizza oven in the garden-a luxury, I know, but it's one of the best investments I've ever made."
"One cold wintry day in London, I was dreaming about salad nicoise-one of my favorites."
And then there are the handy tips: Did you know that if you don't have raw unrefined dark brown sugar at home, you can substitute an equal amount of conventional dark brown sugar? Or that unbleached all-purpose flour can be substituted for spelt (white or whole), buckwheat, or barley flour, should be find yourself in a situation where you can't obtain alternative grains? Recipes calling for soy, rice, almond or hemp milk may also be made using cow milk, though don't expect the results to be anywhere near as healthy. And, in case you were wondering, you may in fact use pork bacon if you are out of tempeh bacon. Whew! (Another option: "D'Artagnan duck bacon is out of this world"-and a bargain at just $17.98 a pound.)
Drew Grant at Salon.com confesses that the book is considerably less GOOP-y than anticipated. Though the essays seem to exist "just to fill her quota of snobbishness," Grant writes, "there's also a lemon pasta dish that has five ingredients, all of which I had at home." We can definitely get on board with that, even if we have to substitute run-of-the-mill spaghetti for the harder-to-find spelt version.
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