Television chef Sara Moulton has distilled four decades worth of culinary knowledge into her most recent cookbook, Sara Moulton’s Home Cooking 101.
Moulton, 64, has had plenty of culinary experiences from which to cull kitchen wisdom. She graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and went to work in high-end restaurants. She transitioned to the now-closed Gourmet magazine’s test kitchen when she wanted to start a family, and then spent 20 years as chef of its executive dining room. Moulton also was the on-air food editor for Good Morning America and one of the Food Network’s original stars with Cooking Live and Sara’s Secrets. She now hosts Sara’s Weeknight Meals, which is in its fifth season on PBS.
Moulton says she didn’t know if she wanted to write another cookbook; this is her fourth. But her publisher was looking for a book similar to the Good Cook cookbooks, a monthly instructional series that Time-Life Books published in the late ’70s and ’80s. The idea of offering her best advice and recipes for beginner and experienced cooks appealed to her.
“It’s very personal. It’s what I learned over the years,” Moulton says.
Moulton’s 368-page cookbook starts out with her 10 rules for great home cooking (how to balance flavors, how not to waste food), a chapter on basic pantry recipes (stocks, tomato sauce, vinaigrette) and then chapters for quick entrees, one-pan meals, sides, desserts, vegan and vegetarians dishes and more. It is the perfect gift this time of year with graduates and newlyweds in need of a go-to beginner cooking manual. It also is an attractive purchase for an experienced home cook because of the well-tested recipes, including some from guest chefs on Moulton’s show, like Japanese cooking expert Hiroko Shimbo and stir-fry guru Grace Young.
Moulton hopes this book will not only inspire people to cook but lay a strong foundation for their own culinary education: “I think if somebody cooked their way through it, they would learn a whole lot.”