Pre-Owned Peasant's Choice: More of the Best from the Urban Peasant : Recipes from the Popular Television Cooking Series (Paperback) 0803893701 9780803893702

Publishers Weekly,The Urban Peasant, a popular TV series broadcast on the Discovery Channel and originating in Toronto, features the somewhat grizzled, 70-something, still fun-loving and flirtatious Barber (Fear of Frying). Here are the top 220 recipes culled from that show for home chefs. Barber can't resist adding his own folksy humor to the recipe prefaces. For example, a long history of a woman named Louise and her pig farm precedes a rather straightforward recipe for pan-seared pork tenderloins with red currant sauce. Or consider this paean before a beef section: ``Back in the old days, when men was men, Miss Daisy sure knew how to cook, but it was Jake and Jedd who rounded up the herd.'' Beans are described as ``a good plain cuddle.'' If you can stomach the whimsy, you'll be rewarded by the recipes. They call on the melting pot of countries and cultures that is contemporary Toronto. A section on snacks, for instance, includes a cereal-snack blend infused with Indian spices, empanadas and crab with an Oriental dipping sauce. The book's goal seems to be to jolly along all those recalcitrant, fast-food snacking, TV-watching couch potatoes into entering the kitchen with a bag of fresh groceries and the desire to cook, opening their minds, as well as their mouths. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved