Book report: How to Eat Supper

Today at the library, I found The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper and after casually flipping through it with no intention of borrowing it (too many cookbooks at home already!), I had to bring it home -- it was making me hungry.

The recipe that caught my eye was for almond-turmeric potatoes. It's very simple: onions, potatoes and turmeric slowly cooked together with a little stock, so that the onions caramelize. Then it's topped with toasted almonds. (A photo of this dish graces the cover; even the librarian checking it out to me said "I don't know what that is, but it looks delicious.")

It was okay; a bit plain (though maybe I was just underwhelmed because my expectations were high: the book describes this recipe by saying "If you cook no other potato recipe in your lifetime, you must try this one"). The most interesting things were that, despite the turmeric, it didn't taste Indian in the slightest, just sweet and creamy, and that the toasted almonds did something pretty special -- it wouldn't have occurred to me to combine them with these flavours, but they were very nice.

I'm looking forward to trying more from this book. (And also, now that I think of it, I'm looking forward to having the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.)