“Southern Made Fresh: Vibrant Dishes Rooted in Homegrown Flavor”
Author: Tasia Malakasis
Publisher: Oxmoor House
Pages: 297
Price: $26.00 (Hardcover)
This is Tasia Malakasis’ second cookbook, so her story will be familiar to some. She had a 15-year career as an internet technologies executive, taking a short sabbatical to attend the Culinary Institute of America in the late 90’s but returning to IT work. Years later, while shopping in Dean & DeLuca in Manhattan, she noticed the Belle Chevre goat cheese from Elkmont, Alabama. Malakasis was ready for a change; she worked six months at Belle Chevre free, learning the business, and bought the company in 2007.
Malakasis has a slightly unusual heritage. Her father is Greek but her mother is “Southern to the core.” Her first cookbook, “Tasia’s Table,” 2012, from New South Books, has a very wide variety of recipes, from breakfast to cocktails to serious dinner meals like roast chicken or roast lamb. In that book there was a good deal of fusion, Southern American cuisine with Greek: Greek Zucchini fritters, for example, or Greek Twist with Tomato Salad.
There is less emphasis on Greek cuisine in this cookbook but there is, again, a persistent refrain of goat cheese. If a recipe is enhanced by the addition of goat cheese, the cheese is in.
And why not? It’s tasty, good for you and she makes it at Belle Chevre.
The real emphasis in this book, however, is on freshness. Malakasis is celebrating Alabama produce, fruits and vegetables, in season, and the recipes are for the most part relatively fast and simple, with preparation times optimistically noted.
Among the more unusual breakfast suggestions was Fried Eggs with Wilted Spinach Salad which uses anchovy paste, garlic and sherry vinegar.
Brunches are increasingly chic and there are many suggestions. Rhubarb Coffee Cake caught my eye. No cheese.
Grits with Red-Eye Gravy, however, uses 3 oz of goat cheese. Baked French Toast with Banana Brulee, using Grand Marnier and nutmeg and cinnamon, sounds wonderful.
No cheese.
At lunch one might make Watermelon, Goat Cheese & Vidalia Onion Salad or Kale Salad with Pecans & Parmesan Cheese or add a slice of avocado to the BLT.
The Potato Salad recipe is livened up by 6 oz. of goat cheese and pimientos, chives and garlic. There is a wide selection of soup recipes, mainly for seasonal vegetables—zucchini, tomato, corn, pea, onion, collard, kale—all the offerings at a summer farmers market, and often served cold.
They look great. In fact the photography in this book is so good everything looks great! One gets hungry reading it.
There are occasional humorous bits in this cookbook. For example the dip recipe is called Belle-Veeta, get it?
For cocktails one is tempted by the Alabama Shake: bourbon, brown ale, lemon juice, and sugar; the Rum Chiller: rum, cold coffee, and simple syrup; and Muscadine Wine Sangria. All new to me.
Humorous snacks to nibble with the drink include Highbrow Pigs in a Shawl: andouille sausage and puff pastry; or Deviled Eggs with Goat Cheese & Pickled Okra.
There are tweaked main courses such as fried catfish with mashed lima beans, or chicken braised with peanut butter. Accompaniments include twice-baked sweet potatoes, which I have never seen: baked with goat cheese, of course. And summer corn risotto.
The recipe for cornbread, traditionalists will be pleased to learn, does not call for sugar.
There is a recipe for home-made moon pies. I guess they’re better than store bought but who ever baked a moon pie?
Altogether this is an entertaining, beautiful, original and useful cookbook.
This review was originally broadcast on Alabama Public Radio. Don Noble is host of the Alabama Public Television literary interview show “Bookmark” and the editor of “A State of Laughter: Comic Fiction from Alabama.”
