Gourmet Meals in Crappy Little Kitchens - Cookbook Review

By Jennifer Schaertl
(HCI, 2010)

Most people associate "gourmet" with fine dining establishments and high-priced foods at supermarkets and specialty stores, not anything "crappy." But Dallas-based chef Jennifer Schaertl has eagerly embraced the oxymoron in her debut cookbook, Gourmet Meals in Crappy Little Kitchens. Schaertl, who has experienced her fair share of tiny cooking quarters, presents the "how-to's," and "what-to-do's" when faced with unmanageable kitchens, motivating those without ideal cooking surroundings to get past the mess and to get cooking.

Schaertl takes readers on a journey through her "crappy little experiences" with ruthlessly poor kitchens or CLKs. Getting back to basics is a key theme, and Schaertl helpfully includes checklists of "must-have," kitchen items, tools and appliances, while labeling all others the "CLK Saboteurs:" unnecessary junk that inevitably piles up in most people's kitchens to cause clutter, thus making the "easy-to-prepare" meals more difficult to create. Organizational tips are offered along with nine gourmet rules that are intended to assist all chefs in preparing a meal, from beginners to experts.

As expected, gourmet ingredients are the name of the game, but many of Schaertl's recipes remain fairly simple. In eight chapters, she demonstrates how to prepare appetizers, soups, salads, entrées, "one-pot" creations, side dishes, sauces and desserts. Helpful side notes titled, "Did you know this crap?" "Chefology," and "Swap This," inject a considerably large part of Schaertl's personal experiences into her dishes, making the book easy to understand and relatable to readers.

Creative recipe titles like "Show-Your-Sensitive-Side Sautéed Vegetables," "Better-than-Nookie Sweet Potato Gnocchi," and "Kick-Your-Caboose Saffron Couscous," put a unique and amusing twist on everyday cooking. Feel-good, home-style American dishes dominate the recipe pages, but Schaertl manages to infuse foreign cuisine into the cookbook as well, including "Ya Mon Jerk Chicken," "Pad Thai Perfection" and "I'm a Maniac for Mexican Mole Sauce."

Whether you are a seasoned or novice chef, it's easy to see why this cookbook can be a useful addition to anyone's collection. Even those with industrial-sized, fully-stocked kitchens may face messy situations or digress to extremely disorganized states, therefore making chef Jennifer Schaertl's cookbook not only helpful to those with "CLKs," but a practical manual for anyone who needs to get back to the basics.

Reviewed by Alexandra Rowinski