Menu No 3: Lobster, Smoke, Allium, Tomato, Vanilla, Olive Oil

  The third in an imaginative series of small books, each of which offers a charming dinner menu.  There is an emphasis on reducing food waste by thoughtful use of ingredients, and on careful preparation to prevent last minute fuss. There are twelve different recipes in this small book (5" x 7", 36 pages). In addition to Voll's notes on shopping and cooking ahead, there is also a short rumination on preserving that may include the first reference to Homer we've seen prefacing a jam recipe. Menu No. 3 offers recipes for Gin Cocktail Grilled Lobster with Parsley and Scallion Butter Charred Vegetables with Creamy Scallion Dressing Hush Puppies Green Salad Olive Oil Gelato with Tomato Jam a bonus As for author Brian Voll, a self-taught, trial-and-error, home cook, he says, I was born in Indiana to a mother who loved to cook and considered her kitchen a laboratory to try any and every interesting or unusual recipe that she came across. Her five children were her guinea pigs, and when a re