A Cook's Guide To Chicago

Marilyn Pocius
Lake Claremont Press (2006)
ISBN 189312147X
Reviewed by Kornelia Longoria for Reader Views (9/06)

Chicago is very well known for being a home of many great restaurants and delicious cuisine. Marylin Poncius, who grew up on the Southwest Side, was introduced to all types of ethnic food in her earliest years and grew up expanding her taste buds with a wonderful variety of tastes. In her book “A Cook’s Guide to Chicago”, she put collected what’s best in the city and its surrounding areas and put it all together into a great source of information for both tourists as well as Chicagoans. It’s a book for everyone for anyone who enjoys cooking and fine foods.

The book is organized into themed chapters, where each type of food has its own chapter. Reading the guide the reader has a chance to travel through many different types of cuisine, such as Italian, Easter European, German, Middle Eastern, Japanese and many more and learn about the main characteristics and specific ingredients for each of them. Each chapter starts with a little introduction followed by the addresses of carefully chosen restaurants, grocery stores or other unique places revolving around food. Furthermore, each chapter has a delicious recipe as well as a grocery list, so we can experience tastes we have never experienced before.

Being an import from Poland myself, I really enjoyed the Easter European part, where I could find an array of Polish stores and restaurants. This is a great help, especially when you just move to Chicago from across the ocean and become homesick. The recipe for home made kolackys will instantly pick you up.

To sum it all up, A Cook’s Guide to Chicago is an unique reference book which is very enjoyable to read and even more enjoyable to use in practice to discover the parts of Chicago one had no idea about.

Make comment on weblog