Centro Cooks: A Celebration of the Seasons

Linda Perry is a senior policy analyst with the Ontario Ministry of
Citizenship, Culture and Recreation.

This collection of gourmet recipes, assembled by one of the owners of
the Toronto restaurant Centro, features more than 50 Centro dishes,
ranging from the humble Rice Pudding to the esoteric Ragout of Lobster
and Rabbit Fillet in Summer Truffle Essence. A history of Centro is also
included, along with notes on the restaurateurs, brief biographies of
senior staff, and a lengthy description of a day in the life of Centro.

While the introduction assures the reader that the recipes have been
tested for adaptation to the domestic kitchen, this book is not for the
amateur cook. Many recipes require an array of specialty ingredients,
from white truffle oil, to champagne vinegar, to four curls of Tкte de
Moine cheese shaved in ruffles. Most of the recipes are elaborate and
assume a high level of culinary skill. For each dish, there is a
suggested wine from the cellars of Centro, which boasts “40,000
bottles reflecting the sophisticated and international tastes of
Centro’s clientele.” Unless your local wine merchant can make a
similar claim, you may find yourself caught up in a fruitless label
hunt. Similarly, the brief shopping guide that is provided to help
Torontonians locate some of the more unfamiliar ingredients will be
irrelevant to those who live outside the city limits. This attractively
presented book is best suited to the Toronto-based gourmet cook.