Pure Food: How to Shop, Cook and Have Fun in Your Kitchen Every Day.

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Upscale and stylish, with a veneer of righteousness, this compilation of 95 recipes strays far from everyday cooking for most homemakers. Cushing, who has achieved a modest measure of recognition on television’s Food Network, promotes her philosophy of cooking as “pure” and “fun.” The claim to purity comes from the use of the best, freshest ingredients, purchased locally, in season. The fun element comes from Cushing’s willingness to try unusual flavour combinations, use a wide range of ingredients, and to deconstruct traditional recipes.

The encouragement to use local, in-season produce appears to be at odds with the author’s direction to use more exotic ingredients. Substitutions and access to the ethnic shops found in big cities seems to be the answer. The upscale tone of the work is apparent from the list of basics to keep on hand, such as smoked paprika, fleur de sel, pomegranate molasses, and ground sumac. Recipes such as sherry-spiked grilled quail or black cod in crazy water entrench the tone.

The recipe selection includes salads and other starters, grains, fruits, main courses with fish, poultry or other meat, vegetable dishes, and desserts. The strength of the collection is the number of unusual flavour combinations, such as pear and squash and oysters and pomegranate.

The recipes require a medium level of cooking knowledge—how to deglaze, for example. A food processor is required for several of the recipes. Imperial measures predominate, with metric given as an afterthought for ingredients lists but not in the methods. There is no nutritional analysis—a surprising omission in a work that claims to emphasize health as one of its themes.

There is a good index—an essential in any cookbook. The format of the book is awkward, somewhat too floppy for use in the kitchen. Most of the numerous colour photos are more decorative than practical.