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"After a visit to Camino, New York Timeswriter Mark Bittman wrote of head chef Russell Moore, What s important but is impossible to describe is the strength and utter brilliance of his flavor combinations and the downright simplicity of it all. Moore has a palate that cannot be stopped; everything tastes as if it were created to go with everything seasoning it. Camino is no stranger to this kind of praise the locally beloved but nationally acclaimed restaurant is known and respected in food and chef circles. Since opening in 2008, Camino has become known for its exciting menu (most of the food is cooked in their fireplace) and the tight-knit community of chefs who love the restaurant. This network is a result of the lavish book release dinner parties that Camino hosts for cookbook releases and has made fans of such food luminaries as Yotam Ottolenghi, Sean Brock, Francis Malman, David Lebovitz, and Deborah Madison. In This is Camino, fundamental cooking skills (including open-fire cooking); unique, ingredient-focused recipes that are both sophisticated and pared-down; and inventive flavor pairings marry with lush photography and a stunning package to produce the ne… (more)
User reviews
None the less, we are supposed to be writing honest reviews and I am being honest when I say that the book "This is Camino" should only be purchased to celebrate a meal at the restaurant. As a memento it might be fun, but it's not worth buying if you want instruction on how to be a better home cook or more discriminating taster.
Camino is a famous specialty restaurant in Oakland and if this book is any indication, Camino is quite a peculiar place. The publisher's blurb mentioned cooking over a fire and I thought we would be learning to work with some variation on an Argentine grill. No, the author cooks over a fire fire and tells us how to cook a gourmet meal over an open campfire out in the garden. How practical is that, oh apartment dweller? How legal in the drought?
Not only are we looking at a difficult heat source, we are also searching out unusual ingredients. It is all very hip and Californian. I can't tell you how many recipes call for fresh turmeric. I live a few meters from a lovely market in a country that uses fresh turmeric all the time, but I am not the slightest bit interested in shaving and deep frying and otherwise mucking around with a root that looks pretty on the plate but often tastes like mud. If you live in non-California USA you will almost never find fresh turmeric. There are other hard to find ingredients dominating many recipes.
The writing is uneven. I have a hard time deciding which of the three authors is narrating at any given point. One of them writes a long, strange, dull section tracking the hour-by-hour activities of the restaurant staff over a week.
I compare this book with "Relæ" that I reviewed last year. "Relæ" also contained many strange recipes not to try at home but the book itself was a revelation, spelling out the coherent and exciting food theory that compels the restaurant forward. I compare it too to "Flour and Water," a deeply technical book that I found wonderful. These are also from Ten Speed and are joys to read. I can't say what happened here.
I received a review copy of "This is Camino" by Russell Moore, Allison Hopelain, and Chris Colin (Ten Speed) through NetGalley.com.
broken down into The Basics, Vegetables, Fish, Chicken and Egg, Duck, Lamb, Pork, Dessert, and Cocktails. The book consists of recipes with many unusual ingredients that are not readily available
If you regularly visit Camino, then you may be interested in the people described and recipes included in this book. Chapter 3, A Week at Camino, is diary of the daily chores and duties involved with the running of Camino. For example, Wednesday 4:18 p.m., Becca the hostess, works a feather duster around the room. Thursday, 5:32 p.m. Allison readjusts the lights. It isn’t very interesting unless you are familiar with the people and restaurant.
I was excited to find one recipe “Fried Hen-of-the-Woods Mushrooms, Scallions, and Herbs with Yogurt and green Garlic, although it contains ingredients I have yet to find. I was a little less excited to find the Pig’s Head and Trotter Fritters. I did learn quite a bit searching for the definition of ingredients like Trotters, Jaggery, Korean Perilla and Shiso. Just in case I decide to build an outdoor kitchen, there is a lesson on cooking over a wood fire.
I suspect that restaurant insiders will love this book, but I didn’t find it interesting or useful.
I received a copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for an honest review.