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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, October 1, 2003

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Adorable recipe cards are gotta-haves

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

A short while ago, some odd-looking goodies landed on my desk. They looked like cookbooks, with titles and a beautiful food shots on the covers, but they were small boxes filled with cards — bigger than conventional playing cards or even a tarot deck, but smaller than a paperback.

Each card has a recipe on one side and a photograph of the dish on the other. They're printed by Chronicle Books as adjuncts to popular books in their catalog.

And they are just ... well ... cute. They make you want them.

Every home cook who has walked by my desk and seen them has picked them up, exclaimed over them, shuffled through them and returned them only with the greatest reluctance.

(An aside: People who like to cook and/or read tend to hang around my desk because it's generally piled high with reading material and recipe collections sent to me for review. Books not retained for reference are auctioned off in the newsroom for charity.)

The other day I had a long and silly conversation with someone about how you could use the cards to make a decorative element in your kitchen. (Shellac them to the wall? Cover the fridge with them? Affix them to tiles with Varathane and make them a splashboard? Get a little easel and prop a different card up each day?) We agreed the darn things are just too good-looking to stuff into a drawer.

Chronicle publishes a number of card decks ("The Yoga Deck, 50 Poses and Meditations," "50 Guilty Pleasures," "52 Fun Family Games"), but these are the first with recipes.

"Cocktail Food, 50 Finger Foods with Attitude" ($14.95), is a companion to "Cocktail Food" by Sara Corpening Whiteford and Mary Corpening Barber. There's an instruction sheet that summarizes the author's advice on preparing a spread for a cocktail party. Some are a bit complex, such as tartlets and rice paper rolls. Others are more simple, use prepared products and don't involve cooking, per se.

"The Il Fornaio Pasta Deck ($14.95) is a companion to Marizio Mazzon's "The Il Farnaio Pasta Book," a book that I bought because the food looked so delicious (though I've never cooked any of the dishes). These recipes can be quite involved, are made from scratch and are exquisitely photographed.

How practical are the cards? The point with these is not to cook from them but to look at them. As I said, they make you want them. If you can't find these in local book or gift shops, you can order them at (800) 722-6657.