My friend Carolynn Carreño has written three of my cookbooks and many others for chefs and food personalities around the country. She has always captured my voice and vision with clarity and elegance, and now, at long last, Carolynn has penned her very own cookbook, Bowls of Plenty, a wonderful collection that could not be published at a better time. The popularity of bowls is obvious. Drive down any Main Street, USA, visit any airport terminal or food court, and you’ll see Bowl This and Bowl That. I know these bowls are supposed to be healthy, but since I cook and eat with only one thing in mind—flavor—I’m happy (but not surprised) to see that Carolynn’s book is aimed at making sure these healthful, wholesome bowls will be as good tasting as they are good for you.
So “Bowls of Plenty” is the ideal concept for Carolynn’s first cookbook, as she was an advocate of “bowling” long before eating healthy-delicious was all the rage. More than a dozen years ago, when we were first thrown together by our mutual agent to work on my book Twist of the Wrist (I was to develop the recipes and she was to write it) Carolynn was already singing the praises of healthy grain bowls, eating them at her favorite LA restaurant and snacking on crispy quinoa before I even knew what quinoa was.
Likewise, when Carolynn would tell me of her cooking adventures, it seemed like it always started with a bowl. A bowl of oatmeal, a bowl of rice, or a bowl of farro tossed with veggies and vinaigrette into a creative salad. Almost every time we collaborated on the phone, I would have to share Carolynn’s attention—she would be stirring a pot of lentils or toasting almonds or interrupting my directions with a question such as how does my kitchen manager, Sal, make our staff lunch rice taste so good.
Although she is not a professional chef, the amount of information and technique Carolynn has gleaned by writing so many cookbooks—about a butcher, about baker, about a deli owner, about me—makes her uniquely qualified to write her own cookbook. This is evident in the clarity and detail of each recipe in Bowls of Plenty, and in the style and flavor combinations of the bowls themselves. Yes, she has the information of a professional, but Carolynn is ultimately a home cook: someone who cooks in a relatively small kitchen, without loads of time or a staff to help her. When we are working on my recipes, she frequently scolds me, reminding me that the cookbooks are for home cooks, not professionals, and that I have to adjust this or that so that someone doesn’t kill herself trying to make a recipe. This has made my own books more user-friendly, and the same philosophy makes Bowls of Plenty the ultimate home cook’s book.
Quite early on in our relationship, I came to realize Carolynn had a finely tuned palate and excellent taste. Many times when a dish didn’t quite sing, Carolynn’s adjustments to the recipe put it over the top. It was obvious I was not dealing with a just cookbook writer, but someone who had a great love for and knowledge of food. Over the years, I’ve also come to depend upon her as my right hand at dozens of parties at my homes in Los Angeles and in Umbria. I don’t need to look over Carolynn’s shoulder to see if she’s doing something right. I know she is.
Carolynn can be very chatty, in a sweet way, like a kid so eager to tell you about something they learned at school. And this enthusiasm comes through in the small stories that proceed the recipes in Bowls. Check out “Grandmother Birdie’s Oatmeal Cocktail” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
In days of yore, whole grains were thought of almost like vitamins, something that was good for you, but dull and without pleasure. Carolynn Carreño’s Bowls of Plenty: Recipes for Healthy and Delicious Whole-Grain Meals destroys that notion. This book proves that in the right hands, whole-grain bowls can be absolutely delicious, full of texture, vibrant, fun, colorful, and imaginative. Oh yeah, and healthy. She did me proud.