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Down Home Coastal, Exotic, and Traditional Cooking
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by:
ISBN:
0-7414-5625-7
©2009
Price:
$29.95
Book Size:
8.5" x 11"
, 677 pages
Category/Subject:
COOKING / Regional & Ethnic / American / New England
For a comforting family meal or a festive celebration; for a romantic supper for two or for a grand banquet for forty-two; for a quick feast or an worldly experience; let the recipes in this cookbook help you answer the question “What’s for dinner?” There are recipes for every occasion; some easy to prepare, some gentle on your wallet, others simply delicious. Many let you entertain guests while cooking. And you can depend on the recipes in this book to be the best you can find anywhere, because these are much-requested favorites from around the world. The heritage is vast and unique, and the food is absolutely fabulous!
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Abstract:
Down Home, Coastal, Exotic, and Traditional Cooking
A Collection of Delicious Recipes
This collection of multi-cultured recipes from around the world contains pages of delicious dishes. The complete ingredient listings and easy-to-read large print instructions make every recipe a sure success. The book teems with meat and main dishes, appetizers, beverages, desserts, soups, salads, sandwiches, vegetable dishes, breads, pies, and cakes. Every meal will be a special occasion with any of these soon-to-be family favorites.
Two cookbooks in one: Book 2, The Best of Gourmet Vegetarian Cuisine
Refreshing and appetizing…a tasty alternate from meat
Click Here for a SNEAK
PEEK of this book.
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Customer Reviews
Longtime lab chef cooks up book meant for ‘average Joe’
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12/16/2013
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Reviewer:
David Jones
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Longtime lab chef cooks up book meant for ‘average Joe’
NEWS-TIMES
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Posted: Sunday, November 15, 2009 12:00 am
BY MIKE SHUTAK | 0 comments
BEAUFORT — It has been a labor of love worked on for the last 30 years; Chef Sylvester “Sly” Murray of the Duke University Marine Science Lab (DUML) has recently released his first cookbook, Down Home Coastal, Exotic and Traditional Cooking.
Chef Murray, who cooks the meals for the lab students, staff and often for the people at the local National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) office, which is on Pivers Island next door to the lab, said Wednesday sales of the book have been good since it was first published three weeks ago. He said the book is meant for “the average Joe, the wife pinching pennies and the college student.”
Chef Murray began work unofficially on the book in the 1980s, when he began collecting recipes from many different people from all over the United States and even some from out of the country.
“I get all sorts of people from all walks of life,” he said, referring to his customers in the lab dining hall. “I’ll have people get homesick and come to me with recipes from home. A lot were half-finished, so I said I could make them American style.”
Chef Murray took these recipes and went through them, selecting enough to fill 677 pages. The book is filled with recipes of all kinds, many of which were collected from Carteret County natives. Chef Murray said he put in many seafood recipes and even some game animal recipes to give his book a “Down East” flavor.
“It’s actually two books in one,” he said. “There are a lot of vegetarian recipes. It’s all in one book and I’ve been told at $29.95, it’s a steal.”
Selecting which recipes to go in his book was a challenge. Chef Murray said what helped him decide was his plan to write a second cookbook. This next book, “Cooking with Wine and Elegance” will feature recipes that use wine as an ingredient.
“You’d be amazed what wine can do to a recipe,” he said. “That may be a year or two down the road.”
While he said Italian and seafood were his favorite types of cooking, Chef Murray said he couldn’t really pick a favorite recipe from his book. He said this was because of the way he’s been cooking at the lab.
“I try to cook what the day dictates,” he said. “The weather is important.”
Variety plays a key role in cooking. Chef Murray said when you cook from scratch, no two dishes are ever the same. Sometimes when cooking, substitutions will be made when one ingredient is swapped out for another. This is sometimes done to experiment with trial-and-error, other times because the intended ingredient was missing and the cook has to make do with what he or she has on hand.
“If you buy it in a box, it will always taste the same,” he said. “Cooking from scratch is never the same. The beauty of cooking is no two cooks cook alike. Whether you’re a chef, a housewife or a student, no two cooks cook alike. There’s no universal law that says how something’s supposed to taste.”
Down Home Coastal, Exotic and Traditional Cooking is currently available at several local bookstores: Beach Book Mart in Atlantic Beach, Dee Gees Gifts and Books in Morehead City, Rocking Chair Bookstore in Beaufort and the Book Shop, New and Used Books in Morehead City. Chef Murray said his cookbook is also available at the Gothic Book Shop on Duke University campus in Durham and on Amazon.com.
Chef Murray has cooked for more than just Duke staff and students. The lab dining hall is decorated with a collection of university banners. Chef Murray said the banners have all come from people from other universities he’s cooked for when they came to visit the lab. So far, he has collected more than 70 banners, which is when he stopped counting.
Chef Murray has been cooking at DUML since 1975. He first came to the lab intending to cook there only as a part-time job, but he found that he had a love of cooking and a knack for connecting with what people were looking for. While Chef Murray loves to cook, he said the thing that has kept him coming to his job are the people he works with and serves.
“The students, the staff and my coworkers,” he said, “It’s like an extended family. That’s what I appreciate about Duke, they take care of their employees. I don’t ever see myself leaving this lab; they’ll have to kick me out.”
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'I Love What I'm Doing': Duke Marine Lab cook shares recipes from 34 years of feeding folks from all
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06/02/2014
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Reviewer:
Pete
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'I Love What I'm Doing': Duke Marine Lab cook shares recipes from 34 years of feeding folks from all , 01/03/2014
Reviewer: Pete
Michael Hastings | Updated Dec 11, 2012 Sylvester "Sly" Murray grew up on the Outer Banks cooking Southern and coastal food. Murray, 54, has cooked most of his life at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort. For 34 years, he has helped feed the staff and students on this Duke satellite campus devoted to the study of marine ecosytems. Because of the many nationalities at Duke, Murray has added ethnic dishes to his Southern and coastal menus. He put all of those years of experience -- and more than 850 recipes -- into Down Home Coastal, Exotic, and Traditional Cooking (Infinity Press, $29.95). "It seems as long as I can remember I've had a spatula in my hand," Murray said. "I wrote the book for the pure pleasure of cooking." Murray was born in Beaufort on the North Carolina coast. He has cooked almost all of his working life at the marine lab. "I got in this cafeteria and just liked it. I grew up eating a lot of the standard Southern foods. When I came to work here at Duke, all of a sudden I'm in this mixed-cultural environment. That's what made the job, working with college students and people from all over the world." Students and staff at Duke, he said, may come from Russia, China, Japan, India and other countries. Murray not only has fed them, but also has learned from them. "People come and bring recipes from their home country. I'd stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them and see the way they prepare stuff." The book includes an eclectic mix. It has fried green tomatoes and collard greens. It has tons of seafood recipes, such as oyster stew and fried catfish. It has plenty of standard American fare, such as meatloaf, and macaroni and cheese. It also features a smorgasbord of ethnic dishes: Indian scallop curry, Turkish-style eggplant salad, Russian potato salad, Armenian vegetable casserole. It's an impressive mix of what he calls "comfort food with class" or "classy food that's comfortable." The back of the book contains a cookbook within a cookbook, and it is devoted to vegetarian cuisine. "We have lots of vegetarians, vegans at the school. I always like to do something special for them," he said. "I love taking care of people. Sometimes, just a good meal can make people happy." That attitude earned him the Joseph G. Pietrantoni Outstanding Employee Award in 2004 and the Duke Presidential Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the school, in 2005. "I've never looked at this as a job. I love what I'm doing," Murray said. Murray said he's grateful to have met so many interesting people during his long career. "I wanted to give something back to the world. I wanted to share," he said. "I'm hoping that when a person picks up my cookbook, they'll find something in there that will make them smile." Down Home Coastal, Exotic, and Traditional Cooking is sold at Duke's Gothic Bookstore in Durham and on Amazon.com. mhastings@wsjournal.com
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