If you are a cook--either professionally or just love to cook and strive to use natural and whole foods THIS is a MUST HAVE cookbook! Working Chef's Cookbook for Natural Whole Foods By Jackson F. Blackman. This book is a compendium of information, charts, and recipes for the professional chef of a natural foods restaurant and it could also be useful for the average home cook.

This soft cover cookbook measures 8 1/2 inches wide by 11 inches tall with 344 pages. The cookbook is in very lightly read condition with just a little wear to the covers from storage and re-shelving. INSIDE the pages are at least 99% free of any marks, stains or writing. There's just a little light residue at the edges of the covers and bottom tip of the pages from being stored in a chef's cookbook library--still in very good condition for its age and well ahead of its time!

1st Printing/1st Edition from 1989.

Chapter ONE, you learn why natural foods are preferable.

Chapter TWO covers economic advantages for natural food restaurant chefs and health advantages for the consumer.

Chapter THREE covers diet recommendations for natural foods and meal planning. It also covers seasonal menu suggestions that take into account when vegetables are at their prime.

Chapter FOUR contains recommendations for foods to eat for special occasions or effects (meetings or romance, for instance).

Chapter FIVE considers the philosophy of eating natural foods.

Chapter SIX is comprised of useful charts covering food safety, kitchen math, flavor combinations, garnishes, stocking lists, and nutritional information.

Chapter SEVEN provides detailed recommendations for purchasing, storing, and preparing different kinds of fruits and vegetables, as well charts summarizing yields, seasonal availability, and spicing. It is organized by type of food, starting with fruits, then sauces, nuts and seeds, oils, and sea vegetables.

Chapter EIGHT is a glossary of culinary terms.

Chapter NINE is an excursus on flavor. The remaining 2/3 of the book contains recipes. The book includes a recipe index by category and an alphabetical recipe index, but there is no subject index.

The recipes are designed for use either at home or in a restaurant. Each recipe is printed in 2 columns across the page. In the left column are the ingredients and amounts for a home-sized dish, followed by a blank column so that the reader can multiple the ingredients for a larger yield. On the right are the instructions presented in list-form in very concise language. There are no pictures.

I found the detailed information about ingredients quite interesting, and the book answered some long-standing questions I had concerning food preparation. But then again, there are some internal inconsistencies that left me confused, such as on p. 108, Blackman tells us "for bread, use hard red spring wheat", and then on p. 159 he tells us that bread flour "is made from hard winter wheat." So which wheat berries do I need to buy for my bread, hard spring wheat or hard winter wheat, or does it matter? In any case, the book includes a large variety of recipes and plenty of suggestions for customizing them. Professional chefs who are just getting started with natural foods, or new owners of natural foods restaurants may find parts of this book quite useful, and so might cooks at home.



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