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Cook What You Love: Simple, Flavorful Recipes to Make Again and Again

Bob and Melinda Blanchard

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category: Food and Wine

It’s easy to love — or envy — Melinda and Bob Blanchard.

They have a charmed life: a restaurant on a Caribbean island so popular that people fly to Anguilla just to have dinner there, a lovely house in Vermont for summer retreats, lifestyle books that sell and sell.

But in the end, the early motto of Motown applies: “It’s what’s in the grooves that counts.”

That is: These “simple, flavorful recipes to make again and again” — well, do you?

We bought “Cook What You Love” because At Blanchard’s Table: A Trip to the Beach Cookbook was very much a cookbook we turned to again and again. And not for the entertaining stories about Blanchard’s Restaurant, the Blanchards’ enlightened management theories and their annoyingly happy marriage — those passages made for pleasant reading, but only once. The reason to own a cookbook is the food. And here the Blanchards shine.

Melinda Blanchard does not begin in the kindergarten — she assumes you know your way around a kitchen and can crank out a dozen meals good enough to serve to friends. She assumes you have sharp knives and quality pans. She assumes you don’t need to be told that fresh trumps frozen, that prepared foods are generally a disguised delivery system for chemicals, and warmth and friendship are essential ingredients in any dish.

As a result, Mrs. Blanchard produces stunningly straightforward recipes. You’ll need fresh ingredients and a few spices. You won’t need much time; nothing takes very long to make. And you won’t need to stress, as dinners build around Blanchard recipes somehow seem…. relaxed.

Bonus points: great range and great editing. In about 175 pages, Melinda Blanchard not only covers hors d’oeuvres, salads, main dishes, vegetables and desserts, she presents a toothsome selection of breakfast specialties and eight recipes for kids.

As ever, it’s hard to pick a Blanchard recipe to share. But this one has international flair. It takes just 36 minutes to prepare — including 30 minutes for marinating. It calls for just eight ingredients, all easily available. And, oh yeah — can you say “delicious”? 

Caribbean Pork
Serves 4

1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark rum
1/4 cup pineapple juice
1 and 1/4 pounds pork tenderloin, trimmed of fat and sliced 1/2” thick
8 ounces guava jelly
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil

In a medium bowl, whisk together lime juice, 1/4 cup rum and the pineapple juice.

Add the pork, marinate for 30 minutes to one hour.

While the pork marinates, warm the guava jelly and the remaining two tablespoons of rum in a small saucepan, then remove from heat and set aside.

Remove the pork from the marinade. Pat pork dry with paper towels. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper. Discard the marinade.

In a large saute pan, pour enough olive oil to cover the bottom, then heat over medium-high heat, until the oil is hot but not smoking. Cook the pork, turning only once, for 3 minutes on each side, or until cooked through and lightly browned.

Drizzle the pork with the warm guava jelly-and-rum mixture. Serve at once.

To buy “Cook What You Love: Simple, Flavorful Recipes to Make Again and Again” from Amazon.com, click here.

To read more about "At Blanchard’s Table: A Trip to the Beach Cookbook," click here.