Olwen Woodier

OK let's start off with some disclosure. I do not like Storey Publishing book designs. I put this at the top of this review because I now just opened the ARC file and there is the cover which is just awful. Fortunately they changed it. But who is it at Storey who can't resist making a Table of Contents with 6 fonts in three colors with commas where they never should go and then writing the book's text in three others? The ARC is a design disaster.

Enough, enough, I know, what about the recipes.

The book is called "Pesto" but it is written about the many varied smashed or pureed seasoning sauces found around the world. Ms Olwen collects all sorts of things including basil pestos, pestos made by swapping other herbs for the basil, chimichurri, pistou, aioli, and similar herb-based purees. It's a bit too far for me, though, when a pesto made from fresh herbs that must be eaten immediately is equated with a salty curry paste made from fermented shrimp and dried spices that will keep for a year, but at least the word paste is accurate. But I'm sorry, herb butter on biscuits and flavored oils on salad are not pesto. Nor is green mayonnaise (mayo is an emulsion not a puree, pesto is not emulsified).

The remainder of the recipes are salads, starters, main dishes, baked goods, and sweets that have one of the sauces slathered on or mixed in. These bulk out the book which otherwise would be pretty slim with each pesto recipe taking about half a page.

Botanical note: In the sweets section is a note that lemon balm is not in the mint family. Sorry, the genus Mentha and the genus Melissa, along with around 234 others, make up the mint family Lamiaceae.

And I really would like to know the chemistry behind Ms Olwen's contention that butter keeps basil pesto from turning brown. Fat is fat and oil should have the same air exclusion or anti-oxidant or whatever power of butter, and, golly, with more oil, the pesto won't taste like butter.

As with most Storey cookbooks, the recipes seem tasty and well tested. I would rather use the web.

I received a review copy of "The Pesto Cookbook: 116 Recipes for Creative Herb Combinations and Dishes Bursting with Flavor" by Olwen Woodier (Storey) through NetGalley.com. The ARC has many awkward sentences that I trust were smoothed out in the final edit.… (meer)