Congratulations to Mariah who makes White chocolate Chiffon cake with whipped cream icing and strawberries. So sweet and lovely! We hope you enjoy Bob’s book as much as we have.
I see a lot of cookbooks, but not many that make me smile as much as Bob Blumer’s Glutton For Pleasure
Blumer’s book is part fun recipes, entertaining stories, and edgy Emily Post (“tips for keeping inebriated guests from driving home” anyone?), with smatterings of his surreal art throughout.
What first caught my eye was his playful recipe titles and photography. Nutcases, for example, are honey-drizzled Gorgonzola knobs sandwiched between candied walnut halves served in walnut shells. Or how about Chinese Sno-Cones: colorful chicken salad served in baked wonton trumpets. Salmon Cupcakes… well, click on the recipe below. It’s been a long time since I’ve fantasized about making someone else’s recipes.
Eye-catching photography and clever recipe titles make for good fantasy, but is the food grounded? Are the recipes doable and do they taste good? Blumer, indeed, knows how to cook. His food is solid, his flavors innovative, yet appealing.
He also knows how to put nervous cooks at ease. In each recipe he points out uncommon ingredients, level of difficulty, active and inactive prep time, as well as any advance prep. Plus he offers drink suggestions, and even “music to cook by.”
And there’s so much more. A wine tutorial cleverly titled ‘Stop and Smell the Rosés’, smart advice on streamlining your kitchen (DIY Kitchen Feng Shui), a “how to” for enjoying your own party called The Art of a Dinner Party. Or how about this: “20 Ways to Avoid Making Dessert.”
Stephen Perrine of Men’s Health said. “If Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, and Salvador Dali had a ménage a trois, this would be their love child.” Wow, wish I’d thought of that.
One of you will win a copy of Glutton for Pleasure. Just tell us the most whimsical dish you’ve ever made. Deadline is 9:00 PM ET Monday, May 16th (Maggy’s birthday, by the way!)
To get you going, I’ll start. I used to make a sweet pastry cornucopia that I filled with fresh and dried fruit and nuts: a fall centerpiece that doubled as a dessert. I wonder what Bob Blumer would have called it.
My husband (much to my chagrin) wanted an orange colored cake with green icing. He’s colorblind, so I just chalked it up to that!
I’m not familiar with Bob Blumer. Your description of him and his book is intriguing. I’ll have to look him up!
I tried to make
a turkey and mashed potato sundae. It didn’t turn out so well but it was fun.
Probably my son’s 4th birthday cake. I made a treasure chest out of his cake. It wasn’t pretty by professional standards but the kids loved it and it is the one most remembered by all.
Happy early birthday, Maggie!
Hmm…most whimsical thing I ever made…hmm…has to be lentil ‘meat’balls. Not very whimsical, I agree. I need some excitement! 🙂
I’m not sure passing out little cups of tapioca pudding as fake brains really counts as “whimsical”, although it was fitting at our Indiana Jones themed party my friends and I threw.
Once I did crack an egg onto a tiny personal pizza I was baking … in loving memory of a beautiful pizza I’d had in Florence. It was just for me, but nostalgic.
I guess I need more whimsy in my cooking!
Hmmmm … whimsical … I would guess for me that would be my one and only attempt to make sushi at home … it was wonderful, but is a lot of work & makes way too much for one person.
I’ve never made a whimsical dish. Clearly, I need this book!!!
A couple of years ago, I made spider cupcakes (from Bakerella’s instructions) for Hallowe’en. Need I say, I was the hit of the street and even parents were impressed.
I make meatloaf cupcakes that resemble the salmon ones….now I have TWO in my repertoire I suppose! 🙂
I made rainbow cupcakes.
Very gaudy Santa cupcakes
Whimsical might not describe my food…I’d love some ideas!
You have me stumped so I really need to win this cookbook! Happy Birthday!
My whimsical is kind of boring tho. I made Christmas Cookies that I decorated & it took me about 3 days to decorate them b/c I did it so painstakingly. They were prompted gobbled in 3 minutes. Sigh. It was fun tho!
Great giveaway.
Not really that unique, but when we were growing up we would have purple cows. Made like root beer floats except with grape juice instead of root beer. Looks like a cool book!
I’ve made a fair number of cakes for my kids over the years, a bubble gum machine and a musical note and even once made a blue(yuck, blue is not a food color) Selectric typewriter for my husband’s secretary. But were those really all that whimsical I wonder?
My most fun treat for guests in the summer are margarita snocones, my standard margarita recipe but served in sugar/salt rimmed snocone papers with crushed ice and a lime twist for garnish. Doubt due to whimsy but I have been asked to start a snocone business by the adults in the ‘hood!’
I made cookie dough without the eggs, rolled it into balls, stuck them on sticks, and dunked them in chocolate. Then I gave the cookie dough pops away for Christmas and had to deal with every recipient asking me if there were eggs in the dough.
Ack I can’t think of a whimsical dish I make! In college, however, I was the queen of dubbing our dinners. My roommate and I would have her brother and his friend for dinner sometimes, and I’d always create a title. Favorites included chilichilibangbang! and wok’n’roll. Not as good as Blumer, I know. Obviously I am in need of this book.
Pumpkin Pie Dip with Piecrust Dippers – tastes just like a deconstructed pumpkin pie
I actually had to look up whimsical to be sure I knew what it meant; I’ve never thought of food as being something that could be whimsical! I found the third definition of the word interesting: “Subject to erratic behavior or unpredictable change”. I’m guessing that’s not the kind of foods you were looking for comments on, yet it seems to fit my cooking better than “playful or quaint”! For example, I make the exact same pancake recipe every single Saturday morning for my husband and son, yet they never ever seem to turn out the same twice. One week they’re thick and cakey, the next thin and floppy, the next they’ll cook unevenly etc etc etc – definitely whimsical!! PS Thanks so much for the great blog!
My son does not like cake…so for his 1st Holy Communion Party I made an 8 pound, e-normous brownie,iced it and passed it of as a cake…he was delighted but let me know per the guinness book of world records that “it” was not the biggest brownie ever lol!
A whimisical dish… Probably the birds nest cookies I would make with my grandma at Christmas, maybe not super whimsical but they were fun and crunchy and exciting to a little person! 🙂
Fried rice made out of shredded cauliflower (and no rice).
When I was young, my neighbor girl and I made a deal: I would eat some of everything in her refrigerator and she would eat some of everything in my refrigerator. Some things were a little gross….but we did it!!!!
strawberry cake with pink icing and Dora the Explorer on it for my 3 year old. My first attempt at “frozen buttercream transfers” and it worked!
Lemon and Lavender cupcakes, a whimsical staple in my house 🙂
Nutella pumpkin pie – it was amazing and delicious, and became our new thanksgiving standard. would love to see this book! amy
Hmm, I wouldn’t necessarily describe my cooking as whimsical but it was hilarious fun when my fiance and I attempted to make sushi! They turned out okay but that’s something that definitely takes practice!
White chocolate Chiffon cake with whipped cream icing and strawberries. So sweet and lovely!
I don’t know if it counts like whimsical – but I make a LOT of cupcakes, and I either make them paste food colored in lovely colors then frost them in white, or I tie dye them by taking 3 different colored batters and swirling them…they’re gorgeous and people are always amazed that the color is in the cupcakes rather than the cupcake paper!!
Hm, whimsy? I suppose my chocolate covered peanut butter bourbon balls were rather whimsical!
I’d have to go with the anti-valentine cookies I made – sugar cookie cut-outs with little gingerbead men I made into chalk outlines, skeletons, and men with greivous injuries. Then there were green & blue hearts with anti-valentine conversation heart messages like, “MEH” “WHATEV” and “BITE ME.”
Well, I tried to make baked alaskas one time. When we put them in the bwoiler to brown the merengue, all of the ice cream melted. Oh well, they still tasted good!
most whimsical dish? probably nutella cotton candy. cotton candy to me seems whimsical!
I like to surprise the kids with banana splits for dinner! It’s onlky about once a year, but it’s one of their favorite memories:)
Birds nests with Peeps for Easter. They looked pretty and my kids loved them…but waaay too much sugar in one dessert!
Cauliflower couscous!
Lavender honey ice cream with smokehouse almonds. Happy Birthday Maggie!
I made chocolate souffles! And they didn’t even fall. Happy birthday!
Chewy Lemon and Almond cookies.
I think that anything with lemon is whimsical.
A giraffe shaped birthday cake!
Chewy Lemon and Almond cookies.
I think that anything with lemon is whimsical.
Actually, Saturday I made Chocolate cupcakes, filled with peanut butter buttercream, and topped with oreo buttercream…drizzled them with more pb buttercream and a mini reeses cup! (My friend really really likes pb and oreos…and it was her BD!)
I’m not very whimsical in my kitchen, unfortunately. I once attempted to make chocolate sorbet … but then I spilled the chocolate all over myself & the kitchen and I gave up. 🙂
Once, tired of coming up with a green vegetable for dinner, I put green food coloring in the mashed potatoes, plunked it on the table and declared Green Veg. The boys were not amused. They should have been used to that because every April Fools I would present them with a three-course menu to choose from for dinner, which included their cutlery. Unfortunately, the descriptions were a little vague so for one course they might end up with pudding, a glass of water, and spaghetti but nothing with which to eat it. Being boys, they thought this was great!
Happy Birthday, Maggy! You share it with my oldest son.
This turned out whimsical, but not on purpose. I make a carmel cake for my daughter, I got impatient and frosted the cake too soon. It crumbled from the inside out. It looked like it had exploded….we ate it, but it was a mess!
A dish I csalled oops I made chili. I think i was trying to make something like chicken cacciatore, but somehow i ended up with chili.
I wouldn’t describe my cooking as whimsical, but I love it anyway. Hmmm, I guess I’d pick my daughter’s luau birthday cake. Oceans, volcanos, flowers, etc.
The last whimsical dish I made was an April Fool’s Day “grilled cheese sandwich” – made with toasted pound cake and orange-tinted vanilla icing for the “cheese”. My kids loved it! Funny (tricky) trompe l’oeil food for April Fool’s Day is now a new tradition in our house, so I’m going to be saving this recipe for the salmon cupcakes … although it would be even trickier (and more whimsical) to serve them on a day OTHER than April Fool’s Day!