Cookbook has a 'Silver' anniversary
The same year that "Jane Fonda's Workout Book" and Richard Simmons's "Never-Say-Diet Cookbook" became bestsellers, two women who ran a small gourmet shop in New York published a collection of their recipes. It was 1982, and "The Silver Palate Cookbook," by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins , written with Michael McLaughlin, turned into a classic, with 2.3 million copies in print.
The book, which Workman Publishing just reissued in a 25th anniversary edition, offers advice for giving parties using little-known ingredients such as goat cheese and balsamic vinegar, and instructing home cooks to make the garlicky mayonnaise aioli, toss a salad of arugula with an anchovy dressing, and whip up the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting that Lukins's mother made in her Connecticut home and drove into the Silver Palate shop. The authors had a knack for combining simple ingredients into sophisticated dishes.
Among the book's fans was Leisa Cosentino. "It was the first cookbook I ever took to bed and read," says the Needham resident, who bought a copy after tasting a dish from it at a party. "Before I went to sleep, I wanted to envision the parties I could have -- the guests, the flowers, the menu. [The book] came into my life when I had just gotten married and was starting to set up a social network." Now the mother of two teenagers, she still cooks from the book.
Sales of "The Silver Palate" continued through the low-fat 1990s, the telegenic chef craze of this decade, and a prolonged (but now mended) estrangement between Rosso and Lukins. The new edition retains the original recipes, including the iconic prune-and-olive laced chicken Marbella, but replaces many of Lukins's line drawings with color food photography.
No matter what form the book takes, loyal readers say it's still a source of almost foolproof recipes and advice, though the authors' enthusiasm for "best-quality" olive oil and all things gourmet may now seem breathless and dated.
"It's a book about entertaining, not just a cookbook," says Anna King, who bought a copy when she set up her first apartment, and still uses it in her Auburndale kitchen with her husband and three children. "It was the first cookbook I can remember that started with a chapter called 'To Begin a Great Evening.' I thought, 'That's what I want to do!' "
The book has been given to many newlyweds, including Esther Muhlfelder, a native of Spain, who moved here around the time it was published. She already liked to cook, but needed recipes designed for an American kitchen. "The Silver Palate" became her guide for everything from duck with 40 cloves of garlic for a dinner party to pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. She still uses her book, batter stains and all. "It was like my culinary dictionary," says the Newton resident, who now teaches cooking classes. "Of all my cookbooks, this is the one I always go to because I can find menus and all the recipes I need."
With recipes that range from black- and green-olive tapenade to giant chocolate chip cookies, the book gives beginning cooks plenty of room to grow. Mark Landry, a contractor from Medway, went from chili for his bachelor Super Bowl parties to pasta carbonara for his wife and two children, now ages 9 and 3. "Growing up, I don't know if my mother ever made her own salad dressing. This book showed me different things to try," he says. "It made it seem like -- wow -- I could make anything,"
When Lukins and Rosso opened their shop in 1977, The Silver Palate's take-out items, such as tarragon chicken salad and decadent chocolate cake, captured the sensibilities of the newly labeled yuppies who had plenty of disposable income and no time to cook. Even though the book's readers might have lived far from sources of artisanal cheeses and walnut oil, cooks around the country found the food appealing.
Rosso and Lukins published two other books together, "The Silver Palate Good Times" and "The New Basics," before selling the shop in 1988 and parting ways in 1991. By then, Rosso had returned to her native Michigan; Lukins remained in New York. Each went on to write cookbooks, and the two patched things up recently. Rosso and her husband now run the Wickwood Country Inn in Saugatuck, Mich.; Lukins is the food editor of Parade magazine.
Cosentino, the Needham cook, had to wrap a rubber band around her copy of "The Silver Palate" because the binding started to fall apart.
There are probably thousands of copies in similar shabby shape. 