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Cookbook Review:

The Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook

Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook: A Celebration of Food, Family, and Traditions is based on the recipes from the popular Birmingham Alabama restaurant of the same name.

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The owners, husband-and-wife team Chris and Idie, focus on honest, unassuming dishes with a Southern flair that highlight rather than bury the natural flavors of the ingredients.

Because they believe in using the freshest local produce in season whenever possible, the cookbook is organized by month and availability rather than by type of recipe.

Recipes include such unusual items as rabbit tamales with black bean salsa, the hot and hot tomato salad, which is topped by a crispy bacon strip, seared foie gras with brioche bread and wild persimmon jam, and pomegranate sorbet.

Their dishes are not unfamiliar yet are distinctive, such as their devil's food cake, which includes grated red beets.

Dispersed throughout the cookbook are sidebars on things like cleaning soft-shell crabs, roasting whole pigs and wading for watercress, along with family stories that convey the Hastings passion for and connection with food.

There is also a very useful section on basic recipes, including not only the standard stocks, sauces and vinaigrettes, but also crème fraîche, risotto and hush puppies.

The Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook is a beautiful cookbook with gorgeous images, luscious recipes and wonderful stories of family and traditions.

My negative with this book? I understand the passion for local in-season ingredients and very much agree with that position, but organizing the book by seasons is a bit confusing for me. That said, there are many recipes in the book that look very appetizing and that I would certainly try out.

Here are a few review statements about Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook: A Celebration of Food, Family, and Traditions from various print publications:

Modesto Bee, October 6, 2009
“It's a gorgeous book that should inspire readers to discover what's in their own back yard.”

Library Journal, 10/09
“Recommended for cooks who want to wow their guests this holiday season.”

Contra Costa Times, November 18, 2009
“…the book, which could masquerade as a coffee table tome, brims with seasonal recipes and beautiful images. We may not be up for roasting an entire pig — although now we know how — but we're eager to try, oh, about 100 of the other recipes…”

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