Even If It Was't A Cookbook!
Spectacular and Magnificent! Those are the two words that come to mind upon beholding Efrat Libfroind's Kosher Elegance for the first time. A quick perusal will take your breathe away and leave you speechless... and that is without reading a single recipe. In the age of big expensive coffee table books, this one takes the cake (no puns intended).
Efrat's unparalleled creativity in concocting recipes is of course the core, but the table design and photography play a huge role in making this book the incredible work that it is. The design, layout, and pictures are something to behold and everyone involved deserves a standing ovation. I don't even get to cook with it because I can never find it. My little kids take it to couch to read together on Friday night, and when no one is looking my husband takes it to his home office where I often find it on his desk. In what I think is a first, and raises the bar for all future offerings, there is not only a picture for every recipe but sometimes more than one as well as lots of collages along the way to head chapters and in other places.
The recipes themselves are mostly delicious and are in line with the beauty of the food. I've made quite a few of Efrat's dishes since getting the book and they haven't disappointed. No one opted out of eating to read the book instead. I was also quite pleasantly surprised that my version of each recipe looked pretty much like the original, sans the table settings and professional photography, so its definitely doable.
Would I make all the recipes in this book? Probably not. But then again there is no recipe book where you go down the line and try everything. The beauty of this book is that I wouldn't pass over a single recipe because it doesn't look good, but rather quite the contrary. Some look too and over the top to bother with. Those I'd just rather cuddle up with a good coffee on the couch and admire from afar!
To buy Kosher Elegance in US click here. Also available in book stores in Israel (coming soon to Culinary Kosher).
