Jam Today Too

The Revolution Will Not Be Catered

2014 INDIES Finalist
Finalist, Cooking (Adult Nonfiction)

If you’re looking for a good reason why Tod Davies is an acclaimed cookbook author, look no further than page 60 of Jam Today Too, her latest book, where, in her typical style, she explains what she did with the day old hunk of cabbage she had lying around: “I just shredded what was left and put it on a warm plate. Then I put a serving of roast duck on top of it. A quarter of lime on the plate. And when I finished the duck, I spritzed the lime on top of the cabbage, and ate it as a salad, with the warm duck drippings mixing with the lime in a particularly enticing way.”

Three ingredients, served so stupidly simply, with a big glass of Willamette Pinot Noir … well, yes, Ms. Davies, we get it, and you’ve got a lot of nerve in this golden age of fussy celebrity-chef cookbooks.

Jam Today Too (as well as her first book, Jam Today) is shift-causing in its practicality. Local food denizens and home cooks with above average kitchen skills will relish Davies’s spontaneous, whatever’s-on-hand creativity. “My idea of a triumph,” she writes, “is finding something at the grocery store that is priced cheap because no one else really gets what a great deal it is.” Such as the duck wings she found for ninety-nine cents a pound—a jackpot which led to a splendid handful of pages describing how she tossed the wings, five quartered carrots, and a bunch of peeled garlic into a pyrex baking dish, popped it in the oven for a couple hours while she sipped wine, ate the whole mess in one sitting, dumped all the bones in a soup pot, and made a rich stock. Which led to a Cream of Mushroom Duck Soup, in which she purees the raw mushrooms and onions before adding the simmering broth.

Though some of her recipes are more developed and detailed, the aforementioned is a deadly accurate portrait of what an original voice Davies is. She’s all attitude. Jam Today Too is a treatise on how to develop a sane, honest, joyful relationship with food and cooking (and good red wine).

Reviewed by Matt Sutherland

Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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