The Relaxed Kitchen

Ever have a dinner party disaster? Did the souffle fall before the first course was served? Was everything just so complicated that you ran fleeing from your house, much to the surprise of your guests? If any or all of these things happened to you, fear not: Brigit Binns, the expert on relaxed and elegant entertaining is on the way. From her years as a chef and cookbook author, Brigit has developed a no-fail, five-part philosophy for elegantly relaxed entertaining: prepare some dishes ahead of lime; use slow cooking recipes that need little attention; serve food at room temperature or chilled; use some store-bought ingredients to skip recipe steps, and prepare a few simple but dazzling dishes to round out the menu.The over 75 recipes are just what you'd expect from a seasoned chef: roasted pepper and sausage torta rustica; Chimichurri skirt steak; butterflied leg of lamb with rosemary; fried almonds with turmeric; smoky shrimp escabeche; Tuscan style artichokes; and, crisped salmon with smoky braised cabbage.