Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been an off and on vegetarian for about fifteen years. Recently I moved our family to a 100% vegetarian diet that includes not using a lot of fat because I am concerned about the long term effects of eating a lot of foods that have saturated fats (cheese in particular, but olive oil as well, which is 14% saturated fat). If you are looking for cookbooks that might offer some help in this respect, do not buy this one. The majority of the recipes are loaded with eggs, olive and vegetable oils, cheese, butter, heavy cream and creme fraiche. We are not talking moderate quantities either--the Mushroom Lasagne has eighteen ounces of cheese, thirteen ounces of ricotta cheese, ten tablespoons of butter and one large egg. The Caramelized Garlic Tart uses one tablespoon of olive oil, but nine ounces of goat cheese, two eggs and thirteen tablespoons of creme fraiche and heavy cream. If Ottolenghi uses olive oil in a recipe, he introduces prodigious quantities of it. The first recipe in the book, "Poached baby vegetables with caper mayonnaise," uses one and one third cups of oil, including one full cup in the poaching liquor. The second recipe in the book, for "Moroccan Carrot Salad," calls for one third cup of olive oil plus more for finishing. There are a some recipes that use two to four tablespoons of olive oil, but they are in a minority. An annoyed reader wrote to the Guardian newspaper complaining about the amount of fat in the the Broccoli and Gorgonzola Pie and Ottolenghi characterized the complaint as "a condescending attempt by someone who, I suspect, doesn't like food to tell others what to eat". This is a childish reaction to a criticism that probably comes from someone concerned about the health implications of too much saturated fat in a diet. Ottolenghi advances the "general sense of over indulgence" over the last few decades as a reason why people include less meat in their diets, but the recipes in this cookbook are the epitomy of over indulgence. Some of them can be modified to meet a higher standard of healthful cooking, but most are not amenable to that kind of change. The book is beautifully photographed and has a padded cover, but potential buyers should be aware that it has a particular bent that makes the cookbook less valuable for many of us.