Summer Food: New Summer Classics

by Paul Lowe, Nina Dreyer Hensley, Jim Hensley

Summer Food features more than 90 recipes for light and flavorful fare for every meal of the day—from brunch favorites to light suppers, refreshing cocktails, and fruit-forward desserts. Dishes like grilled escarole with plums and goat cheese; salmon with crème fraiche and garden herbs; quinoa with capers, torn basil, and tomatoes; and lamb burgers with minty pesto celebrate the fresh flavors of the season and are well suited for sharing with friends and family at alfresco meals. Gorgeous, lifestyle photography throughout the book showcases the simplicity and beauty of summer cooking.

The perfect solution for home cooks who want easy, fresh recipes for light and flavorful fare that makes the most of seasonal ingredients and eating outdoors. With crowd-pleasing yet wholesome recipes like orzo with grilled corn, olives, torn basil and tomatoes; watermelon and chili salsa; grilled beets with mustard sauce; grilled pizza with pesto and prosciutto; lamb burgers with mint and feta dressing; and linguine with lox, lemon, and dill, this enticing collection is full of great ideas for low-key meals and simple menus for picnics and barbecues. Stunning scenic photography of the seaside, finished dishes, and summer ingredients, emphasize the book’s carefree nature and this welcome style of cooking.

Sample TOC:
Breakfast
Lunch
Starters
Drinks
Main Courses
Desserts

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 27, 2014

About the author

Paul Lowe was a British photographer, educator, writer and critic. He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Vic Odden Award in 1999.

Reviews

[Edie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summer Food has GORGEOUS photography. Five gold shiny stars for the entire visual presentation. And the recipes are good and varied and not full of unreasonable ingredients or impossible techniques. I particularly like the breakfast and drinks section. Four stars for the content. So why the three star rating? Probably a misunderstanding on my part but I thought there would be more "lifestyle" content. There are a sprinkling of very short personal anecdotes but not enough to satisfy. I wanted more out of this book. I thought when I read "create the relaxing summer feeling your family and guests will appreciate year round" that I was getting something other than just recipes. I'm not sure what I thought - essays, hosting tips, activity list, whatever. I didn't have anything specific in mind. Just something MORE. Alas, this is just a cookbook. A gorgeously photographed, well laid-out, full of yummy recipes cookbook. But just a cookbook.

[Collin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful pictures, yummy recipes. Some are a little basic (not sure why we needed a whole double page spread on how to make an ice cream sandwich) but simple, earnest, summery recipes are, in general, a good thing.

[S · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a well-put together cookbook.

However, there is just too much competition these days from similar books - I love these big, heavy, well-designed, hardbound, modern life-style/cookbooks that are popular now, and so I have looked at a lot of them... and while this one is nice, it didn't really stand out. Check out The Beauty Chef, The Pretty Dish, and One Good Dish, to name a few that I found more original or with more appealing recipes.

That said, there were a slim handful of recipes from this I might try - from the Baked French Toast with Amaretto & Cherries, to the Feta & Lemon Dip.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved the recipes in this book! Beautiful summer salads and a few meat dishes I could make vegetarian! Really excited to start cooking this summer!

[Gaucho36 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basic and pedestrian recipes

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typically when a blogger or a magazine editor releases a book they reserve all their extra special ideas for it. In this case, the book has some wonderful photographs, and I have made some of the recipes in the past (he has collected on his website) and they are excellent, but the book falls a bit flat. A couple of the recipes fall into the obvious category--how to make a hamburger? really? And the text seems a bit short and in translation (which it is) and I suspect he didn't do the translating because his English seems fairly natural on his blog. Oh well, there are still some great recipes here and perhaps a few people will be drawn to his blog and magazine, which are fantastic.

[Manintheboat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I made the Baked French Toast and it was really good.
This week I will make the Halloumi with Lemon and Apricots.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful photos and unique, fresh recipes for summer.

[Rose Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely book with gorgeous photography. Easy to follow recipes, and the ones I tried were easy to execute.