THE LADY OF SHALLOTS

It is Sunday. I spent the day working at my actual workplace, getting some good work done because...Sunday. My very sweet spouse offered to pick me up, and as we drove home, I realized I hadn't really thought about what to make for dinner. A quick mental inventory of the fridge: bell peppers, chicken, mushrooms. Next, Google. The last thing I wanted to do was cook, so honestly I picked the first recipe I could find for which I had ingredients. I could have done a stir fry without a recipe, of course, but I needed some sort of inspiration. Enter " Easy Pepper Chicken Stir Fry " from Holly at Spend with Pennies .   On Pinterest it says "This Pepper Chicken Stir Fry recipe is ridiculously easy to make with ingredients that you already have in your pantry..." MOSTLY true.  But I will tell you---I do not have oyster sauce in my pantry.  Do you? (Not a rhetorical question---I'm actually curious if that is a standard ingredient that people keep on hand).

Swanson's narrative is one of privilege, it is true. A lot of the reviews at Goodreads have mentioned this, with varying degrees of annoyance. The book, however, does not pretend. The minute you touch the embossed hard cover and look at the photos, you know that this is a chichi cookbook, not Betty Crocker's Cookbook or The Joy of Cooking . The subtitle does not lie: "Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel." And traveled she has: India, Japan, Morocco, France, and Italy. The photos of the destinations are sometimes so artsy as to feel contrived, but they anchor each section in its own ethos. I haven't yet made any of the recipes, but I am inspired. As a committed omnivore, vegetarian recipes rarely inspire me, but I find her approach to flavors intriguing. If you are someone who likes hunting down interesting ingredients, you will likely enjoy this book. She isn't writing for someone who does not know anything about ethnic foods, so you will not find explana