First impressions are not always right

This is a first recipe post. It's a dullish but warm day and I am uninspired. So I was very pleased to see that my next book was Greene on Greens - by Bert Greene and one of my very favourite cookbooks. It is falling apart a little.

I suppose I have not made all that many things from this book although I should, because the ones that I have made have all worked first time and have become family favourites. His Curried Winter Squash Bisque, for example, is my husband's very favourite soup.

However, when I turned to the first recipe Poached Artichokes, my heart sank. How very boring thought I - but then I'm not a fan of artichokes.

I was almost tempted to move on a few pages and find something more interesting in the artichoke section, but ever the stickler for rules I decided to hang in there - and I will come back to the poached artichoke.

By then my brain was ticking over with a different approach. As I said, this is one of my very favourite recipe books, but obviously it has not become one of those because of its first recipe. Besides the fact that I don't go for artichokes and poaching them is about as boring - well perhaps basic is a kinder word - as it gets, this book is also unillustrated. Well there is a line drawing at the beginning of each section - like this one of the artichokes, but they are not all that attractive, even sort of aggressive in a way.

I think I bought the book at a time when I thought that we ought to be eating more vegetables. It is not a vegetarian book - some of the recipes include meat or fish but the focus is definitely on the vegetables.

"More than a recipe collection, it is a garland of Greene's gossip, garden advice, culinary trivia, and shopping wisdom, well tossed with, I hope, a measure of stove-top logic. In fact it contains all the savvy that I have managed to acquire over several decades of cooking vegetables without foregoing the pleasures of either meat or fish. For while I dearly love vegetables, I am certainly no vegetarian."

These are some of the first words in the introduction to the book. I don't think I read the introduction before buying the book, and if I think about it, I don't think I ever do. Which I probably should because often the introduction gives you a better clue as to how the book will pan out. Although that said, some - for example Donna Hay's glossy books - really don't have much in the way of an introduction. Just a few standard words. So how do I choose cookbooks? Sometimes because of who has written it, sometimes because of the subject, and even sometimes because of the design. I just flick through them, and these days no matter how pretty the book may be, if the recipes look like the same recipes yet again - ones which I have elsewhere many times - then I reject it.

But back to this particular book. I think it was also the first book that I bought that was arranged by ingredients. No - that can't be true because Jane Grigson's two major opi on fruit and vegetables had been arranged alphabetically by ingredients. Nevertheless it was a relatively novel way of organising a cookbook and considering that I was wanting to be more vegetarian, it was one of its attractions. You can find a recipe for your chosen vegetable quickly, without poring through tiny print in an index. I had never heard of Bert Greene but became quite enamoured of his recipes and his quirky, folksy and informative little introductions to each vegetable and each recipe. He was also very generous in acknowledging the sources of his recipes - not always his, although in true 'real cook' style he had modified the originals a little. So when I saw Greene on Grains I bought it. Also a health foodie kind of topic and also full of tempting recipes. I would buy more of his books but he is long dead and most of them are out of print. And American, so not all made their way to these shores. I should hunt on Abe books or one of those other sites that advertised books old, and new from just about everywhere.

Nowadays, of course, vegetables are big and we are instructed to cook them, or even not cook them, very carefully. Al dente is the thing. Back then, as in post war England vegetables were not treated with respect.

"As a tad in the kitchen, I was instructed that cauliflower was to be boiled for one hour, and string beans, broccoli, asparagus, and cabbage not less than half that duration. They were never drained from the kettle until the cooking liquid had turned as green as Tintex dye, while the poor veggie was a heck of a lot paler - not to mention devitaminized - in the process."

Mildly exaggerated perhaps, but not much. I certainly remember cabbage being boiled for ages. Although my mother did save the vitamins in the water by using it to make the gravy.

I talked about artichokes recently so I won't go on about them much here. Suffice to say that the chapter on artichokes has a subtitle "sublime from leaf to heart". In his introduction to the vegetable he recounts his first memory of eating one and elevates it to the moment when he became a real 'gastronome'.

"As the correct utensil for eating an artichoke is the fingers, the shock was mesmerising. Served my portion with a small bowl of warm hollandaise, I could not perceive (even at close scrutiny) what joy was to be obtained by sloshing a leaf in the liquid and then apparently only wetting one's tongue with it. However, that experience, once tried, altered my culinary perceptions forever."

Once again food evokes memory.

We've talked about preparing artichokes before. So here is his very brief recipe for poached artichokes - the first recipe. I guess it's sort of classic, though his two suggestions for sauces to dip the artichoke into are not quite - Cold anchovy sauce and Cobbled crab dressing.

POACHED ARTICHOKES

4 medium artichokes, trimmed, chokes removed, Juice of 1 lemon, 1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 10 peppercorns, tied in a cheesecloth bag, 1/2 teaspoon salt

Place the artichokes, tips up, in a large saucepan. Add cold water to cover, then the remaining ingredients. Heat to boiling; reduce the heat. Simmer, covered, until tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove the artichokes and drain them upside-down in a colander. If you are serving them warm, reheat in a warm oven, loosely covered with aluminium foil. If serving them cold, chill, covered, several hours in the refrigerator.

Serve with Mayonnaise or Hollandaise sauce or one of the sauces below:

COLD ANCHOVY SAUCE

1 egg yolk, 1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard, 1 1/2 teaspoons anchovy paste, Juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 1/2 cups oil (use 1 cup vegetable and 1/2 cup olive) 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

Whisk the egg yolk with the mustard, anchovy paste, and lemon juice in a medium bowl until smooth. Slowly beat in the oil, a few drops at a time, until incorporated. Stir in the vinegar.

COBBLED CRAB DRESSING

3 teaspoons minced shallots, 1/2 cup cooked crabmeat, 1 cup Mayonnaise, 1/2 cup sour cream, 1 teaspoon lime juice, dash of hot pepper sauce, 1/2 cup chopped fresh dil, salt and freshly ground black pepper

Combine the shallots, crabmeat, mayonnaise, sour cream, lime juice, and hot pepper sauce in a large bowl. Mix well. Add the fresh dill, and salt and pepper to taste. Chill thoroughly before serving.

The French of course, just use a vinaigrette. This picture is from the BBC and is a Parmesan butter sauce.