Rick & Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures

How, you might ask, can there be any rationale for combining Mexican, Moroccan, French, Thai, and Oklahoma down-home recipes in one cookbook? The answer is family. The Rick Bayless family in this case, he of the PBS cookings, of Chicago's Frontera Grill fame, and author of the enlightening Authentic Mexican, Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, and Mexico One Plate at a Time.

Rick and Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures is the combined kitchen and culinary wisdom of a father/chef and daughter/teenager who has grown up in restaurants (much as her dad grew up in a barbecue restaurant in Oklahoma) and has traveled with her parents throughout the world, meeting chefs, exploring markets, tasting exotic treats. Some of those treats were rejected in ways only children can reject foods. Others came home and were folded into the foods a family calls its own and serves again and again. So, the first thing to keep in mind about Rick and Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures is that it is family-tested as well as home kitchen tested.

There are two voices in this book: Rick's (a modulated voice of authority) and Lanie's (the teenage voice of reality). And there are five basic sections that reflect the travels and broad culinary interests of the Bayless Family: Mexico, France, Morocco, Thailand, and Oklahoma. You'll find Huevos Rancheros in Mexico and Dutch Babies in France; Chicken Pie in Oklahoma, and Beef or Lamb Kebabs in Morocco. The Red Curry with Duck (Pork or Chicken) brought home from Thailand looks like a winner. These are do-together recipes, as in work together in the kitchen. Bayless sets apart the do-ahead tasks, then presents the recipe instruction in simple blocks. This dance has been well-choreographed. And what's a dance without a little music. You'll find suggestions for playlists while cooking, as well as suggestions for special treats to find while you are shopping in ethnic markets, things you might otherwise overlook. And then there are the stories. You can taste this cooking experience, and you can read about the life experience, through both the father's and the daughter's lens, of traveling and cooking together. It's the together part that makes this cookbook so special and so encouraging. --Schuyler Ingle