"Alex Brown and Evan George, a.k.a. the Hot Knives, have taken the
lust for vegetables, craft beer, and experimental music that fuels
their popular 5-year-old blog and channeled it into The Hot Knives Vegetarian Cookbook: Salad Daze.
Bountiful with Dionysian flair, and paired with beer selections and
soundtracks, these recipes rely on hearty tubers, root vegetables, and
bushels of other ingredients readily available during the winter
months. Imagine a rice bowl that echoes Primal Scream’s decadent
psychedelia; mushrooms with the musty umami of early Rolling Stones;
squash ice cream as sweet and tangy as Os Mutantes. Salad Daze
celebrates virtuous veggies in the name of health, sustainability, and,
most importantly, over-the-top flavors and good times.
At the core of Hot Knives cooking is the farmers market, where they
bike each weekend to “fondle some kale, sniff chives, and snag apples,
pears, and a fennel bulb that flies its freak-flag of bush green
fronds.” Salad Daze is designed to get you through the cold
months, with winter vegetables that “must be cuddled, dressed up, told
that they’re pretty,” and unfolded using fire, steam, vinegar, and fat.
There’s no humdrum Caesar salad here. Illustrated with sumptuous
photography by globetrotter Amanda Marsalis alongside the detailed
recipes, Salad Daze guides readers through the finer points
of real artisanal cheeses, shows how to roast and bake with beer, and
explains how to make pantry potions like Sriracha, Woostershire,
kimchi, and even a cough syrup cocktail, all vegan without the typical
processed ingredients or corn syrup."