Beautifully named and beautiful recipes and visuals. Love to have recipes organised by season using simple ingredients that transform into beautiful plates of food. Great to have photos of each recipe too, something that helps - we eat with our eyes too!

stunning images. amazing recipes. enjoyable writing. Overall a wonderful and beautifully pulled together cookbook with character.

I love this book.
It's simple cooking beautifully photographed and curated.
I love the simplicity of Calderone's cooking style, its a lot like I tend cook. But don't be fooled, simplicity doesn't take away any of the taste. The recipes are easy to follow and very inspiring.
My kind of cookbook

Highly recommend! The photographs and layout are lovely. Organizing the recipes by season is brilliant.
The recipes themselves are simple, fresh, and delicious! A great everyday cookbook, with a focus on healthy, whole foods. Recommend the Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Dukkah and Watercress Pesto and the Braised Short Ribs with Carrots and Celeriac Puréed Potatoes.

My apologies - this book had been archived before I could finish reading/my review. I'm so sorry.

Athena Calderone, the writer behind the popular food and lifestyle blog, EyeSwoon, has released an excellent cookbook, Cook Beautiful which emphasizes her viewpoints on making delicious, beautiful food. Of course there are phenomenal photographs, of most, not all, of the mouthwatering recipes, as well as lifestyle photos. Calderone is beautiful, and her personality, which seems to come through in the prose in the cookbook, is beautiful, too.

There are dozens of excellent, simple recipes, that are easy to follow. Many have a Greek or Middle Eastern influence, but are down-to-earth enough that everyone, even picky eaters, will enjoy preparing and eating them.

The Mustardy Smashed New Potatoes with Jalapeño Gremolata is quite easy and the results were devoured quickly. The Fish Tacos with Pickled Cabbage and Pineapple Salsa were delicious and will be made Chops with Shallots, Fennel, and Watercress – Yum! Other recipes in the queue are Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Dukkah and Watercress Pesto, Spinach and Goat Cheese Frittata, Slow Roasted Arctic Char with Cranberry Chutney, and Chickpea-Merguez Hash. That’s just the start. There is a good variety of main and side dishes that will keep everyone cooking for weeks.

Calderone hasn’t skimped on dessert recipes: There is a decadent Lime Raspberry Tart as well as Grilled Plums with Pistachio Brittle, Peach and Blackberry Crostatas, and a Cardamom-Cognac Apple Cake to name a few.

The recipes are organized according to season, using seasonal ingredients. They are succinct, and written in such a way that cooks on every level of expertise can successfully prepare them with picture perfect results. This is a great book to give as a gift, and will keep the recipients happily cooking beautiful dishes for a very long time.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Cook Beautiful by Athena Calderone is a sophisticated, new cookbook by ABRAMS on bookstores soon.

Athena's origins are Italians and she will talk a lot about it and the influences played by the first foods her family loved to eat all together, from macaroni to veggies in the USA for trying to re-create an italian atmosphere.

Growing up Athena became a model in NYC although later she discovered in her early 20s the man of her life and very soon the arrival of a baby.

It was from this different perspective that Athena started to think and re-think at her concept of food for her and her family.
Good, genuine, nutrient, and healthy.
Travelling she became an addicted about cookbooks, I agree, and everything involving the world of cooking and baking.

Athena discovered very soon her wonderful own style in her kitchen sharing her delicious recipes with her family, friends.

This book is divided in sections following all the stunning seasons of this world: spring, summer, fall and winter, with great recipes all the time and the best ingredients for every season of the year. Athena suggests very warmly of using only seasonal food, because fresher and more natural.

From first dishes, I noticed a lot of delicious polenta dishes, sweet as well! I want to try it! to seconds, veggies, desserts, it's a wonderful in part unusual trip in the food. Athena adds a lot of sweetness and warm in her dishes and fantasy and tenderness according to my point of view.
Each dish is illustrated so that you can figure out the final appearance because also the eyes want its part in the final process of creativity and when we start to serve it to our family.

Why buying this cookbook and other ones by ABRAMS?
Because of their philosophy of eating, because there is the research for the best quality food, because the reader is not a passive reader but someone stimulated and involved to cultivate, where possible his/her own herbs or veggies and orientated to eat with knowledge. The importance of what we introduce is essential for this publishing house, like also the importance of developing a new conscious in all the people regarding food. A leisure to share together paying attention to every ingredients and researching where and if possible quality and good food. Because, food is important exactly like our health is.

I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this eBook.

Cook Beautiful is a fitting name for this cookbook. This is a lovely collection of recipes broken down by seasons and using highlighted ingredients that are available during those times. For those looking to care a bit more about their environmental impact or just finding recipes to make what's in season this is a great cookbook to start with. Some recipes may be a bit too over the top of some, but overall even beginning cooks shouldn't shy away.

A Culinary Work of Passion:
Cook Beautiful by Athena Calderone is a book for people who like to entertain and who enjoy food with all of their senses. The table of contents reads like a menu of a high end restaurant. Yet the recipes are astonishingly simple, with the freshest, most vibrant looking ingredients of the season, artfully presented on earthy tableware.
Logically, Athena has sorted her dishes by seasons. As it is fall right now, I will start with cooking some of the fall recipes. Among my favorites are:

Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Dukkah and Watercress Pesto

Shaved Brussels Sprouts, Pine Nuts, and Green Olives

Slow-Roasted Arctic Char with Cranberry Chutney

One-Pot Stewed Pork with Butternut Squash and Walnuts Gremolata

In addition to her recipes, Athena also gives seasonal tips for arranging the table with reference to places where she buys her plates, bowls and silverware.
Athena has successfully paired her talent for design and presentation with her passion to cook. This is a book that every serious cook should have in his or her possession.

I've been through this book several times now. I have to commend Ms. Calderone for creating a lovely life for herself and her family. To be perfectly honest, however, I don't see anything in her vision that really speaks to me. The 'rest of us' would wouldn't be able to easily source many of her ingredients on a regular basis. After reading this book, I fail to see what sets her vision apart from any other blogger with good taste and ready access to excellent farmers markets. Since I wasn't previously familiar with EyeSwoon, I made a point of visiting the site and spending time with it. I was greeted with what amounted to a glorified ad for Nespresso. Thanks, but no thanks. It isn't that I don't admire what she's doing. It is just that I'm clearly not her demographic.

Beautiful recipes with much more beautiful pictures..............

I received an e-copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As the title indicates, this book is chock full of gorgeous plates of food to go with each recipe. Not only are the dishes visually appealing, but the simple, fresh ingredients should please most foodies. I love when cookbooks organize recipes by season, and the author goes a step further by helping readers arrange beautiful tables for entertaining according to spring, summer, fall, and winter. I was impressed with the wide variety of foods used in the recipes, and the focus on which foods were in season.

I bookmarked plenty of recipes throughout the book but focused mostly on fall. A few that have stood out so far: Jerusalem Artichoke, Celery and Pear Salad, Shaved Brussel Sprouts, Pine Nuts and Green Olives, and Pan-Roasted Chicken with Shallots and Dates. I'm looking forward to trying many of the winter recipes, including Chickpea-Merguez Hash and Pan-Seared Tangy Brussels Sprouts. I also appreciated the author's recommendations for kitchen tools and shopping resources.

I recommend this book for cooks who like to focus on simple but elegant dishes featuring fresh foods.

Cook Beautiful is a seasonal cookbook i.e. the author, Athena Calderone, takes the reader on a cook's tour of the seasons. Her cookbook features seasonal recipes broken down into Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each season features foodstuffs typically found and used allowing the cook to use the best foods while providing built in variety. Throughout her cookbook you will find menu suggestions and food tips based on the season being featured. At the back of her book you will find a chapter called Sauces and Extras along with another chapter called My Toolbox. The My Toolbox lists some of her favorite cooking gadgets. Calderone also includes a a section called My Pantry that lists some of her year-round cooking essential ingredients. To help the reader find some of the author's favorite cooking linens, tools, etc. there is a section called My Little Black Book that lists websites you can access to help purchase needed kitchen goodies.

Some of the recipes you'll find include:

Whole Stuffed Branzino Wrapped In an Herb Bouquet
Grilled Shrimp with Chile, Lemon, and Oregano
Green Panzanella with Grilled Chicken Pallards
Orecchette with Kale, Fennel, and Sausage
Earl Grey Chocolate Souffle Cake with Candied Kumquats

Recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.

Someday I hope to be able to make the things I cook look as pretty as they do in cookbooks like this, but no matter how hard I try, I'll probably never make a salad look as good as Athena Calderone does. Especially if that salad is made of cauliflower, jalapenos, fennel and capers.

Whilst the book was beautifully presented I felt that there were too many photos of the author. To me it detracted from the book. The recipes were very nice but no different from the other books on the market. I didn't think I simply had to try any of the recipes.

A seasonal cookbook with original recipes and beautiful photography sure to blow away any foodie.