Graze: Inspiration for Small Plates and Meandering Meals:

Makes me want to have a glass of wine & beautiful, yummy food with friends..or alone.

Gorgeous book. Makes me hungry looking at it. If you are coming here for simple recipes you might find a couple but don’t buy the book for that reason. Food can be an art and this is the first food book I’ve seen of this type (outside of an upscale market). It reminds me of an architecture style/design book instead of a cookbook. I have a million art books and home design/decor and now I have one for food! Totally enriches eating experience, I don’t use it for recipes but more for pairing and food combination ideas, inspiration to eat more wholesome. Author is a true expert at pairing foods together! This is her candid approach to eating and I really love how each of her foods have descriptions and reasons behind why she loves them so much and personal experiences that tie her to meals. I’m so happy to find a book about truly food (she has good taste) from a person who is an artist as well (she’s a food stylist!). Excellent intersection for a unique book! I love it

I have to say I’m underwhelmed with this Graze cookbook. I was expecting more. About every 3-4 recipe has a photo. The pics are nice but I wouldn’t call them beautiful. Had I been able to view this book personally I wouldn’t have purchased it.

Like the concept and some of the ideas (e.g. deconstructing a pizza) but at other times it seems that the author started with a beautiful photo and then worked back from that point, rather than starting with the ingredients or the meal idea. As a result there are lots of photos and ideas featuring figs, even though it's something that most people might realistically buy once in a blue moon.

The recipes are good and the photography is excellent. The writing, however, is the most pretentious I have ever encountered. Half the recipes are prefaced with long-winded scene-setting describing useless personal anecdotes which obscure the actual details. The story telling component of this cookbook is overly formulaic- "I'm not this hoighty-toighty woman, I am a more subdued, attainable elitist"...I would not gripe about this if the actual recipes were easier to sift out from the narrative portion of the book.