I've always thought that cooking with alcohol was a touch too wasteful for me – people might say this spirit or that wine is only good for cooking, but often it's been the only kind I could afford to drink. Added to that the number of times I've had a sauce or something else that's had alcohol in, and the taste and benefit of that has been completely cooked away. So it was with a touch of trepidation I turned to this to see if it could convert me.

Well, full credit to the work for having an introduction barely longer than mine – we're straight into the crudites to start with, if a deep-fried pickle with whisky dip counts as one of those. After the looseners of the appetisers, and soups such as a mescal-and-mole-inspired achievement, we hit heavier pieces such as beef stroganoff, which surely always has brandy in, and fake-away Chinese orange chicken, which surely doesn't demand the liqueur but gets it anyway. After sides (mushy peas with gin in?!) we of course end with alcoholic desserts – cue countless puns about the proof being in the pudding, etc.

Throughout the book maintains its snappy but very friendly mien, with not a wasted word or space. Each dish gets a suitable full-page photo, and not the pretentious kind, either. If delivery needed anything it might have been fewer of the accented salutations and borrows from foreign languages in the text ("saluti!", "yeah, mon!" and the like), and the obvious swaps and alternatives to be made. The mudslide pie can easily be a B-52 cheesecake with a tiny twist.

I still remain doubtful as to how much booze you get from these – it's all fine and dandy marinading cucumber slices in gin and tonic for a sandwich, but when you pat the slices dry, don't you lose some of what might have made them special? The sherry in the split pea soup is declared to be "subtle" – yeah, at a cooked-down teaspoon per serving, I'm not surprised. There's subtle and there's homeopathic. On the other hand you don't seem to need a lot of the hard stuff to make the difference the recipe alleges – here's duck pate with a teaspoon of cognac in with the blend. But I still think my palate is not refined enough for this – would three tablespoons of sherry in a chowder for four actually translate to something different and detectable on the tongue? Just give me both to swallow, not the one already swallowed up inside the other.

This remains a success, mind. This is no fly-by-night production (it's a third book for this cook/author), the recipes show a great range and even sans booze don't suggest much room for improvement, and at least you'd have fun taking the privileged chef's share from every bottle you open to experiment with this. I'd heartily expect this to be a gift book you end up keeping to work through while the intended recipient gets something else instead – a nice bottle of cooking sherry, perhaps.

Here’s the thing will I make all these recipes? No because I don’t have a huge home bar. These recipes sound incredible!

Cooking with spirits is not easy. This cookbook makes it very accessible. The photos are amazing and the recipes are varied. You have may spirits and foods to choose from. This is such a great cookbook to have on hand for everyday dinners to entertaining.

I really wanted to love this cookbook, but unfortunately it was a miss for me. The recipes are too simplistic and unoriginal. Possibly the worst part of the book is the photography. The photos look like they were taken by an amateur photographer with a phone camera at home. The angles are wrong and a lot of the food styling is very messy and unpolished looking. I think this book needs a lot of work before I’d recommend it.

Sometimes alcohol makes dishes taste better, adds unique flavors, and even tenderizes. If you’d like to try recipes containing different types of spirits, you’ll want to pick up Alicia Shevetone’s cookbook, Food With Spirit: Alcohol-Infused Recipes. This excellent cookbook contains dozens of appealing recipes that are flavored with different types of spirits. Some of the recipes are cooked, so the alcohol cooks out; others are not, but the actual alcohol dissipates and are in minimal amounts, if you are worried about serving alcohol to teetotalers or children.

The recipes are written in the traditional manner with the ingredients listed first, followed by step-by-step instructions to prepare the dish. Shevetone has also added comments and helpful hints at the beginning of each recipe which are helpful. Most of the recipes are fairly quick and easy. They call for ordinary ingredients that are easy to find at any mainstream grocery store. It is unfortunate that some of the recipes call for frozen whipped topping, which is a major food crime, and many cooks (including me) refuse to use it. I substituted heavy cream whipped with a little powdered sugar in a couple of recipes and they turned out well.

Shevetone has included beautiful, professional, mouthwatering photographs that will tempt anyone to prepare several of these recipes.

All told, anyone who doesn’t mind using spirits of many kinds will want to prepare these yummy recipes. It’s a fun and unique cookbook to add to your cookbook collection.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

No-fuss grown up recipes.
The dishes are simple to make and pack a flavour punch with the addition of various alcohols.
I don't drink much, but I admit I never think twice about adding wine to a meat dish, sake to an Asian recipe, or rum to a desert... and other sprits when doing something more fancy. It's just another flavour boost, like a spice, herb, broth...
There is nothing in this cookbook that will surprise someone that cooks regularly, but I guess adding alcohol is more uncommon in the US? The tone of the book is very playful and easy going and the photography is very nice too.

I'm a fan of recipes that include alcohol, like a good tiramisu, or French onion soup. This has a good variety of recipes & spirits to choose from. A few recipes use liqueurs that I would be least likely to purchase, but most don't. They're easy to follow. I'm excited to expand my repertoire of spirit infused cooking

Oh fuck yes. I cannot wait to dive into this cookbook. I very commonly cook with spirits and even wine and I'm eager to incorporate more spirits into my nightly cooking routine.

Thanks to Netgalley and Independent Publishers Group, Gaudium Publishing for access to this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Wow, so many recipes that made me want to try at once ! I love having pictures for each of the recipe. If you're having a party or just a shared meal with loved ones, these are perfect !

Synopsis (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review.)
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Food With Spirit: Alcohol-Infused Recipes, the latest book from chef, author, and television personality Alicia Shevetone, is a delightful look into the imaginative spirit of one of America's most innovative culinary artists.

Shevetone is the founder of DINK Cuisine (Dual Income No Kids) where cooking is focused on rightsizing portions for smaller households. The approach takes form in this book by providing two versions of each recipe that serve either two people or four people. This also helps address another issue that Shevetone is passionate about the elimination of food waste.

Food With Spirit is a unique approach that meets a need often overlooked by m
modern cookbooks—cooking for one or two without creating massive amounts of leftovers and without sacrificing flavour. Food With Spirit is 116 pages and features fifty recipes spread across five sections: appetizers, soups, entrees, sides and desserts. Each is complemented with beautiful photos. All fifty recipes are infused with some of our favourite intoxicants, from spiced rum to the smooth flavours of cognac.

I love the idea of these recipes, but I personally refuse to cook anything that does not have leftovers to portion out and freeze. Therefore, some basic math I can make these and not waste my time which is as important to me as the waste of food for if the kitchen is going to get hot, it better be worth it. I am not a drinker but the flavour of the spirits, once the alcohol is cooked off is a great flavour note and this book will help you get there with easily understood recipes. (Raw alcohol in recipes just burns and does not work for me … does it work for you?? Maybe that is because I rarely drink...and the mere idea of vodka and soda baffles me!)

Marketing note: the vision of borscht on the cover was what led me to this book --- I love it. I miss it. Since we left living in Niagara Falls, we don't go to the Blue Star, purveyors of the best borscht on the planet. I keep thinking that we should pre-order some frozen and drive down and pick it up. This book may change that need.

Interesting read - great recipes. #shortbutsweetreviews