Sasha in Good Taste: Recipes for Bits, Feasts, Sips, and Celebrations by Sasha Pieterse, Photography by Elizabeth Messina

I love cookbooks and have a nice collection of them.  My very first cookbook was a Betty Crocker cookbook that my Dad gave me when I was 18.  I’ve received and collected many cookbooks since then and love to try out new recipes. My kids are in on the act now too and pick out recipes to try as well.  I’ve been using this to get the kids to try new things.  When they pick it out and cook (or help to cook it) they want to try it out. My fourteen-year-old son has become quite the baker. 

Sasha in Good Taste is a beautiful book that looks like the pictures are set for Instagram.  The book is split into the following chapters:  But Why, Though, Savory, Sweet, Sips, Party Prep, It’s all in the Details, and Party Prep.  This book is mostly about entertaining guests.  In the “But Why, Though” section, I figured out that Sasha was an actress on Pretty Little Liars, she’s lived all over the world, she likes to eat healthy, and entertain.  The book has a lot of pictures with interesting ways to decorate and to set up snacks for guests.  The pictures were fun to look at.

The book was light on actual recipes.  The kids and I looked through it to pick out some recipes to make.  I also looked through the alcoholic drinks with my husband to pick out a few to try.  Unfortunately, many of the recipes had ingredients that were not available where we live without driving to a specialty store in a larger town (lavender extract, elderflower liquor, pink Himalayan sea salt).  We didn’t try out those recipes.  We decided to try the “Dirty Diana” chocolate cookies.  My 14-year-old son also made his favorite chocolate cookies so we could compare.  The Dirty Diana cookies lost the cookie battle and were just okay. The recipe had cane sugar in it, and it was large and crunchy even after cooking.  I pulled them out as directed before they were all of the way done, but they were still dry.  I had added a bit of water to the dough to help with the lack of liquid before I cooked them as well as they were too dry to shape.  I think more eggs or addition of milk or water was needed for the recipe.  I could make the cookies taste better with some tinkering on the recipe, but we will probably just stick to my son’s recipe.

Overall, the pictures and ideas for setting up a party were excellent, but the recipes were sparse and needed hard to find ingredients.  The one recipe we tried out was lackluster.

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow Books.  Thank-you!