What happens when you combine love and love of food? The answer is Pauline Parry's new combination autobiography and love story My Culinary Love Story (2022).It's full of good recipes and good stories.
Chef Parry is not new to recipe books. A well known Southern California caterer and party planner she has also written Food, Fun and Love. This book, however is more personal. She tells how she met her first husband , got married you had two kids right after almost and then got divorced. She took the kids and lived above her first restaurant where she learned the trade.It also helped that she loved food and wine along with enjoying cooking . It;'s also a story of journey , how she left her comfort zone in Mendip Hills England , a small village near Bristol and then moved to Malibu with her second husband and true love Dennis. Readers will appreciate her determination and grit as she goes from working in a small restuarant to learning about hospittality while working for the entrepreneur Kenneth Bell at the famed Thornbury Castle. Readers will also get a good glimpse into life as a daughter, mother , fiancee and wife. She is a food adventurer which shines thorugh in the recipes placed at the end of each chapter. The food she write about in each chapter stars at the end in each one.
These are the gems that I love. Many are familiar to me since my Mom made several of these recipes in the Seventies and Eighties. Chef Parry includes classics like Coq au Vin and Floating Island. There is also a nod ot her Polish heritage, being the daughter of a Polish immigrant father and English mother. She includes the deeply rich recipe for Bigos , the famed Slavic hunter's stew made with pork, keilbasa and bacon.There are also recipes from her time at Thornbury Castle, once , the home fo the Duke of Buckingham and later tthe haunt of Henry VIII and Anne Bolyn. Other restuarant recipes are also included in this as well. Chef Parry gives the recipe for create your own pizza which was new to Bath where she spent the weekend with Dennis. What I got a kick out fo was her joy at trying American food when she went to visit her love in Southern Californua. The devilled eggs with caviar is a must try, Of course she has cheesecake with strawberry sauce along with juicy hamburgers. There are also recipes for her new American favorites , onion rings and ranch dressing. Again these are must tries. It's not only food that featured. Try her recipes for Bloody Mary's and Margaritas the last perfect with her fish taco recipe. There is even a recipe for English wedding fruit cake with marzipan icing for those considering a traditional British style wedding.
My Culinary Love Story is a must read and a must cook. It is chock full of interesting stories and ewven more interesting recipes. Read it today and fall in love with her story.
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