Just Married and Cooking: 200 Recipes for Living, Eating, and Entertaining Together

by Brooke Parkhurst, James Briscione

After the bells have chimed, the gifts have been opened, and the honeymoon suitcases have been unpacked, newlywed couples often find themselves wondering, “So, what’s for dinner?” That’s why chef James Briscione and his wife, writer Brooke Parkhurst, put together Just Married and Cooking —a guide to living, eating, and entertaining together.

Divided into two sections—“Life As We Know It” and “New Traditions”— Just Married and Cooking is full of valuable advice, easy-to-master techniques, time-saving secrets, and most important, recipes for delicious dishes. In “Life As We Know It,” Brooke and James offer over a hundred recipes for everyday eating. From delectable morning muffins to after-work appetizers and easy-to-prepare dinners, this section has everything young couples need for simple, healthy, and enticing eating. “New Traditions” contains nine menus to help newlyweds mark the special occasions in their new lives a glamorous birthday-girl dinner, a fresh and warm spring lunch, a derby-day party complete with a recipe for fail-proof mint juleps, and much more.

Including a wedding registry list, suggestions for how to keep a well-stocked pantry, a glossary of frequently used chef terms, and advice for how to plan ahead for easy entertaining, Just Married and Cooking is the cookbook newlywed couples everywhere will turn to time and again for recipes and help navigating the kitchen.

A delectable new cookbook featuring delicious recipes made with fresh, seasonal ingredients and accompanied by entertaining, informative tips and techniques. Brooke Parkhurst and James Briscione, the newlywed team that teaches popular couples cooking classes at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education and The Culinary Cooperative, navigate the difficulties of a small kitchen, budgetary restrictions, and limited time. Whether readers are looking to prepare everyday meals or special-occasion feasts, Just Married and Cooking is an appealing, practical lifestyle guide for cooking couples everywhere.

Genres: Cooking

336 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 2011

About the author

Brooke is a southerner living in New York City. After eighteen years of standing next to her grandfather and her mother at the typewriter and at the stove, Brooke realized that journalism, cooking and writing about cooking was her destiny. While attending Davidson College, she landed a television news internship in Charlotte, North Carolina and spent her weekends as an assistant in the pastry kitchen of Dean & DeLuca. Placing second in NBC’s “Aspiring Young Journalists of America” competition didn’t deter Brooke from parlaying a weekend trip to New York City into a permanent gig.

This belle had to live in the Big Apple.

At age 22, Brooke moved to New York City to chase her journalistic star and, instead, lost her way. After an intense, short-lived gig in television news, she decided she was more interested in soufflés than sound bites. As a birthday gift to herself, Brooke quit her job and moved out of the newsroom and into the kitchen.

Brooke’s debut novel with recipes, “Belle in the Big Apple,” (Scribner) hits shelves in September. She is also an ABC contributor and the host of ABC News NOW and the James Beard Foundation’s, “Eat & Greet.” On March 26th, 2008, Brooke’s “Belle in the Big Apple Food and Wine Column” debuted in the Gannett-owned, Pensacola News Journal. In it, Brooke acts as the big city, foodie correspondent for small town America, translating cosmopolitan, cutting edge trends for at-home cooks below the Mason-Dixon.

More of Brooke’s culinary and fish-out-of-water musings have been featured on Conde Nast’s “Elasticwaist.com” and on television and in such national and international media outlets as the Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, New York Post, Corriere della Sera, BBC, Salon.com and Gawker.

Brooke currently lives in SoHo, near her favorite butcher and bread maker.

Reviews

[Chelsea Madren · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Part 1, they have a subsection called “Mornings.” Brooke’s Breakfast Granola is AWESOME! In the book she describes how expensive it is just to buy a bag at the store. I always thought that granola was a lot of work, but it’s really simple. Her recipe is great – grains, nuts, and fruits. I left it in the oven a little longer than the recipe calls for to suit my taste. Brooke and James also explain in the introduction that once you start cooking, you’ll get to know your oven and cooking times will not always be exact. Every oven is different. The texture of the granola is crunchy with the sweet bites of dried fruit. It’s perfect for snacking on or putting on top of yogurt. Next time, I will also experiment with some different dried fruits, maybe go tropical like mango, papaya, and pineapple. I’m already salivating!

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cookbook for those of us who love to cook and love cookbooks. I have found myself with cookbooks that I use for one or two recipes. Either the others in there are too time consuming, require odd ingredients that no one (other than the writer) has heard of or require a shopping trip to the Kitchen Store equivalent to a mortgage. This is NOT one of those books. The ingredients can be found in your local grocer (Indie of course!) and the utensils are most likely already in your kitchen.

The recipes are easy to use and they even explain a few terms that other cookbook writers assume everyone outside of the industry understand but most of us have never heard of! A great starter cookbook as well as for those who already cook.

This should be on every wedding registry!

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this might make a fun wedding present for my sister!

[Abigail · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not alot of Pic's.

[Shirley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too advanced for the normal newly wed and if you cook you own this equipment before marriage these days since 24 - 30 year old newly married either cook or they don't.