Asian Wraps: Deliciously Easy Hand-Held Bundles To Stuff, Wrap, And Relish by Nina Simonds
Morrow Cookbooks, 2000

Review by Kathleen Daelemans with Rita Daelemans

Mom's rating: "Absolutely 5 Stars! Your father's rating is less than that because he's 'tired of eating things wrapped in lettuce every night.' 'They're tasty and all, honey, but where's the main course?' He forgets his doctor told him to lose weight. Anything less than a 32 ounce Porter House steak is an appetizer to your father."

Mom's Pros
"There are a lot of recipes in the book that look appealing and they all look fairly simple to make. None of the ingredients required a cook's thesaurus or a trip to Asia. Every recipe seemed like I could get it cooked and served in an hour and most of the recipes combined sensible portions of protein and generous amounts of vegetables so we can fill up on the right stuff. There are meat, fish and even a few Tofu recipes I'm going to try. Your father will be thrilled about that. I'll try the tofu recipes on an ice cream nights.

"There's an Asian Slaw recipe on page 159 that looks really, really good. It's got Napa cabbage, red pepper, ginger, rice wine or sake, grated carrots, soy sauce, salt, sugar and black vinegar. 'That doesn't sound like dinner, Mom.' It's just a slaw. I'm going to serve it with grilled steak. Steak night is the only way I can get your father to try new things."

Mom's Cons
"There's nothing deep fried in the book, everything seems light and fresh. The flavors are exciting and new. 'That's not a con, Mom.' I don't have any, Kathleen. I really like the book and I think Nina's trying to keep her weight down too. I always like it when authors have to struggle with their weight because they never include recipes that call for you to deep fry fat in 4 quarts of cream."

Favorite Features
"There's one recipe to a page and almost all of the pages have a picture opposite them which means I don't have to think as much except for one recipe that has a full page picture of a bottle of water heaven only knows why. I guess Nina wants us to drink water. I'll drink to Nina's brilliance at insisting on pictures in her cookbook. All books with slightly exotic food should have pictures so we're not intimidated. Not that I can ever make my version look like Nina's but the photos give me something to strive for."

From Mom's Kitchen Notebook

Seared Garlic Beef with Roasted Rainbow Peppers, page 98. "Rating: A. Marinated beef grilled and then stir fried with peppers and onions served with a sauce and wrapped in warm tortillas. Your father loved it. What else is there to say?"

Vietnamese Fresh Mint Salad, Page 62. "Rating: B+. Seasoned ground pork, shredded carrots and pickled onions wrapped in Boston lettuce leaves with an Asian sauce. Very tasty, excellent flavors, your father didn't roll over and die, it filled us up and was easy to make but there was too much sauce and it was too liquidy but maybe I did it wrong."

Can't Wait to Try:

• Hot and Sour Slaw with Shrimp
• Curried Chicken Salad with Grapes (on a night your father is out of town)
• Fresh Chinese Spring Rolls cuz they look cute in the picture and they're not deep fried

Of Note: For many of the reasons we love this book, we're fans of Simonds' A Spoonful of Ginger, and Irresistible Health-Giving Recipes from Asian Kitchens and her book Asian Noodles, Deliciously Simple Dishes to Twirl, Slurp and Savor.