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Crisis of faith
Scientists who use evolutionary psychology to explain religion are ignoring facts and missing the point.
By Margaret Wertheim
[12/24/99]

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"I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr." by Michael Eric Dyson
What would the civil rights leader think if he were alive today?
By Dante Ramos
[12/24/99]

Ivory Tower
Are you there, God?
The Templeton Foundation invests millions so scientists might prove that faith works. But their answers aren't what Sir John Templeton wants to hear.
By Lawrence Osborne
[12/24/99]

Tempting fate
Connie Willis' science fiction tackles time travel and chaos theory with Wodehousian wit.
By Polly Shulman
[12/23/99]

Christie for Christmas
Desperate for more Agatha Christie? Now there are two "new" mysteries by the late queen of clues.
By Jacqueline Carey
[12/23/99]

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Until I picked up a dogeared copy of "The Martha Stewart Cookbook" at a San Francisco used book store last year, my kitchen was a post-collegiate, taste-bud depriving packaged pasta wasteland. But with a little help from Martha, the kitchen in my historic Washington apartment is turning into a place worthy of its elegant architectural setting. My pantry is stocked with fresh herbs and greens, and something else is happening that would both please and shock my parents and friends -- my smoke alarm has been amazingly quiet in recent months. I'm no Alice Waters, but I don't think my cooking would make her wince.

After a long day of editing stories on the latest political scandals, plane crashes and high school shootings at Salon.com's Washington bureau, preparing one of Martha's appetizers, side dishes or, time permitting, main courses, can be as therapeutic as aromatherapy or a shiatsu massage. It's easy not to dwell on George W. Bush's foreign policy stumblings or what Cassie Bernall may or may not have said when you're salivating over sliced pears slathered in gorgonzola or olive oil-bathed sliced tomatoes with mozzarella and basil. Granted, these aren't very elaborate dishes, but they're simple, quick and tummy-pleasing. And I would never think to make these things on my own. Enter Martha.

Why would I eschew more traditional books directed at kitchen newbies like me who can't tell their measuring spoons from their measuring cups? I grew up in two worlds in Napa Valley, where my eating habits were influenced by the comfort foods dished up by my parents and the experimental California cuisine of the local restaurants where I spent my weekends as a busboy. (It was an unusual contrast for a teen -- New England pot roast at home and, occasionally, foie gras at work.) As I set out to cook my own meals, I was looking for a cookbook that would both instruct me on the nuances of baking a chicken and coach me in making some of the froufrou European and Asian peasant foods that have become my guilty pleasures.

Martha's recipes for polenta with mascarpone and pesto -- a dish I often top with a breast of chicken or turkey -- and risotto with porcini mushrooms are always reliable. And her recipe for green enchiladas competes favorably with the best enchiladas I've ever had served to me from the choicest kitchens in Guadalajara and Mexico City.

And here's the best kept secret about "The Martha Stewart Cookbook": Martha's not known for her minimalism, but in fact, her cookbook is filled with spare recipes that are fast and easy to prepare, perfect for the most demanding schedule. And where else are you going to find recipes for simple and erotically charged desserts that take only five minutes to prepare, like pomegranate seeds (fruity salmon roe for vegetarians) or blood oranges bathed in Grand Marnier?

-- Daryl Lindsey

Buy "The Martha Stewart Cookbook" at B&N.com

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Pasta Fresca
By Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman
William Morrow & Co., 270 pages

I've always thought the most amazing first line of any book is "You know more than you think," from Dr. Spock's "Baby and Child Care." But a couple of sentences from the beginning of Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman's "Pasta Fresca" --"The truth is that both fresh pasta and dried pasta are equally good ... Neither is superior to the other" -- had the effect on me, as a beginning cook, that Dr. Spock must have on new parents.

To someone just starting to pay attention to what he might do in the kitchen, afraid of doing the wrong thing or of choosing "inferior" ingredients, those sentences were reassuring, and freeing. "Pasta Fresca" was the first cookbook I turned to when I wanted to do something more than boil some spaghetti, heat some sauce and dump 'em together. The simplicity of the recipes and the implicit confidence La Place and Kleiman show in their readers were a great confidence booster. Imagine going from heated Ragu to linguine all'agnello (that's linguine with lamb sauce, don't you know) -- and not having it look like muck. The great lesson of cooking is one you never stop learning: The ability to do the basics well is not just the foundation of cooking but, in some ways, its height. It's real praise to say La Place and Kleiman know how to keep it simple.

-- Charles Taylor

Buy "Pasta Fresca" at B&N.com

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Sundays at Moosewood
By the Moosewood Collective
Fireside, 733 pages

I baked coconut bread last week -- and though I haven't baked anything in more than a year, my cookbook peeled right open to the page; a decade of flour and coconut milk have stiffened it for easy reference. The recipe is simple -- just nine ingredients, plus the optional raisins -- and so I pounded the dough automatically, pressing it against the walls of the same red mixing bowl I've used for more than a decade, my fingers working from memory.

For seven years, "Sundays at Moosewood" was the only volume in my kitchen. Its recipes, like the one for coconut bread, have become a part of me: Friends now ask about "that apricot chutney you make" and "that cornbread you do"; they think these are mine, and I don't disabuse them. I eventually expanded my cookbook collection, but whenever I need to add something to a menu, or to find a use for some new vegetable that turned up in the market, "Sundays" is still the first place I look. (It's become a family resource, too -- at one point six years ago, the four members of my family actually owned four and a half copies, including one I had joint custody of in Budapest.)

Put together by the collective that runs the Ithaca, N.Y., Moosewood Restaurant, "Sundays" has a vaguely political (and distinctly lefty) approach to cooking: It encourages improvisation, de-emphasizes presentation, fosters cross-cultural exchange. Each chapter is defined by a geographic region ("Provence," "Japan," "Armenia and the Middle East"). Though the book doesn't presume to impose meal plans, each chapter includes appetizers and entrees, and usually soups and sweets. I've mixed the West African groundnut stew with the "jajoukh," a cucumber and yogurt dip; paired the Trinidad mango salsa with a cornbread recipe from the American South. Nobody seems to complain. I'm guessing the folks at Moosewood wouldn't mind either.

-- Rachel Elson

Buy "Sundays at Moosewood" at B&N.com

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