Near-Veg News

“Almost Vegetarian” by Diana Shaw (Clarkson Potter: $18) and “The Practically Vegetarian Cookbook” by Josceline Dimbleby (Random House: $25) would seem to cover the same basic territory--recipes for food lovers who eat vegetarian a lot of the time but haven’t given up chicken or fish. The approaches are quite different, though. Shaw’s book (paperback, no photos) runs to Mediterranean-like things such as salade Nicoise served in a sandwich, chicken breasts stuffed with artichoke and whole-wheat pasta with cabbage and cumin. She does have a wild side, as shown by a relish of honey, vinegar, red cabbage and dried cherries and a “tabbouleh” of bulgur, garbanzos, beets and an orange juice tahineh sauce. At least you know where you stand with a health foodie who confesses to having reservations about tofu.

Dimbleby’s book is much grander, a large-format volume with hard-sell photos of all its 150 dishes. Although the author is the food correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph, the measurements have been Americanized, so it isn’t one of those really maddening English books. Dimbleby reflects a lot more Indian, Southeast Asian and Latin American influence, and her inventions are far more ambitious (avocados in spinach-tinted jelly; a tart that calls for 1 1/2 pounds of shallots). Many of the dishes certainly look wonderful, like the carrot tart topped with candied carrots, and some, for all her dashing combinations of unexpected ingredients, are very English indeed--say, cauliflower with cheese sauce . . . and sun-dried tomatoes. Shaw’s book would serve for everyday cooking, Dimbleby’s for when you have your nearly vegetarian boss over for dinner.

It’s Still a Foodie Age

When Patrick O’Brian, author of the famous Aubrey and Maturin seafaring novels, spoke at Herbst Auditorium in San Francisco April 19, it was announced that Owl Books is about to publish a reader’s companion explaining all O’Brian’s arcane references to the details of life aboard a 19th-Century British man-of-war. Somebody in the audience stood up and asked, “When’s the cookbook?”

Remedial Home Ec

Corning Revere, the cookware company, worries about the “lost generation of cooks” whose mothers never taught them little details like how to boil water. Not that newlyweds aren’t buying cookware--Bride’s Magazine says 82.3% of its readers registered for it in 1993, way up from the 35.7% of 1988--but Corning fears they just don’t know what to do with it.

So the company picked a cooking-illiterate 20-something couple, Melinda Miles and Michael Deitrick of Richmond, Va., and flew them to Las Vegas to be married at the Gourmet Show April 30. Corning Revere picked up the tab for their wedding (which was held at the company booth, with the flower girls and attendants all carrying saucepans and stock pots). The deal was, the newlywed couple went from their cake cutting and first dance to the kitchen, where they got the first of the day’s four 20-minute cooking lessons from Johanne Killeen and George Germon, the (married) owners of Al Forno Restaurant in Providence, R.I., to be followed by six more the next day.

By now, the couple should know how to make Delmonico steak, chicken stock, pappardelle with tomato sauce, polenta, mashed potatoes, pan-roasted clams, spaghetti with watercress garlic sauce, sausages roasted with grapes, and creme anglaise. We hope.

Tennessee Sippin’ Beer

Jack Daniel’s isn’t just a whiskey company anymore. Since late last year the company’s been selling Jack Daniel’s 1866 Classic Amber Lager Beer locally in the South, in Nashville, Baltimore and the Chapel Hill, N.C. area. It tastes like beer, though, not like a bubbly version of Black Jack--the water comes from a different spring, there’s no corn in it and even the barley is a different strain.