This is a pretty cookbook, and it has some recipes that sound/look tasty. However, there is something really off about the tone of this book. I love Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Everyday, which this bears some relation to in (and Swanson blurbed this book), but while Swanson's book is smart and serious, this book feels like a dumbed-down version of the whole food-eating thing. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the author seems to be erring more on the side of diet food than just natural food, and I'm not a fan of that at all. Overall, the book has a feel and look that reminds me of a Food Network celebrity chef cookbook, and I am also not into that. It's like the author is being packaged as a sort of low-rent Giada deLaurentiis. Who needs that? I want good food and a food philosophy that seems well-thought-out. I also found it baffling that this book seems like a vegetarian cookbook, but then there are maybe 5 fish recipes randomly sprinkled in, and one with turkey. It just seems very random, and suggests to me that there isn't a lot of thought behind the makeup of this book. I also dislike the author's rhetoric of "a tastier take on whole foods." Who is still saying whole foods don't taste good?? People have been cooking whole foods in delicious ways forever, but even if we put that aside, there have been many, many well-known cookbooks that are all about whole foods and have been very well-received by non-"hippies." So why do we need this erratic, confused, and not very interesting version? Everything about this book is a bit off, as if it's trying to be something it doesn't quite understand. Just buy Heidi Swanson's books and bypass this one.
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