Pure & Simple: An Incircle Cookbook

by Neiman Marcus

So begins "Quick Fixes & Hor d'Oeuvres," which, appropriately, is the starting point for the parade of recipes in Pure and Simple. A cookbook for the nineties and forever after, Pure and Simple is a collection of more than 300 recipes tested and judged by an international panel of food experts and chefs. Most take minutes to prepare, all are imaginative, and many offer suggestions for additional dishes to round out the meal. Submitted by InCircle members, a select group of Neiman Marcus customers-including such celebrities as Joan Lunden, Randy Travis, Ed McMahon, and Jose Eber-whose lifestyles are demanding, whose tastes are no less so, and who, above all, are not inclined to spend hours over a hot stove, recipes range in origin from Acapulco to New Orleans and from Nairobi to Shanghai. Many are preceded by the donor's brief personal anecdote about the source of the recipe. Ingredients are listed in order of use, directions are crystal-clear, measurements are in boldface-and the hard cover is washable! From soup to nuts, Daube d'Agneau Provencale to Warm Caramel Souffle, these are dishes for today's health-and time-conscious gourmet-pure and simply delicious.

Genres: Cookbooks

320 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 1993

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

In hopes of trimming my cookbook collection, I cooked out of this book for one week straight. I truly thought I would dislike most of these recipes and happily hand it off to the local thrift store. In one week's time, I tried out:

Chicken Florentine
Blackberry Cake with Seven-Minute Frosting
Pollo da Pordenone
Gateau au Chocolat
Classico Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
Chocolate Cake
Lemon Bars
Chocolate Jaycees

Of the eight recipes I tried out, only one disappointed (Classico Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta - and that is only because too many vegetables in one place at one time freak me out. My boyfriend, an openly out veg lover, liked the dish.)

It's only after you build a relationship with a cookbook do you realize what it's truly about. This reads more like a Junior League book or heirloom recipe collection than Neiman Marcus restaurant fare. Many of these donated recipes were family loved and handed down through the generations. Some I had never heard of like Cocoa Pink Cuplets, Glop, and Calla Lily cookies.

The only reason it's receiving 4 stars rather than 5 is because some of the directions are not reasonably clear. For example, the Chocolate Joycies call for both unsweetened and semisweet chocolate. The directions never stipulate which chocolate to set aside and which to melt. Nor does it specify that interchanging both is fine. ??? Better editing would go a long way. However, it is kinda fun to think it through and use my detective brain while cooking, so ultimately, it's no big deal. And the cookies turned out to be incredible. So good.

Overall, really good food comes out of this book, so it gets to stay.