TorkilHeggstad's Profile

From: Brooklyn, NY USA

Joined: February 3rd, 2010

About me: I really enjoy growing herbs, tomatoes and other edibles on my fire escape and in my office, and I love cooking, especially when I can use produce and herbs from the fire escape garden. Unfortunately I spend more time reading about food than actually cooking it.

Favorite cookbook: Washoku


Latest review:

February 15th, 2010

Phadd Thai Bann Gog from Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking

This recipe produces the best padd thai I have eaten, better than any I have had in restaurants in New York City. One addition we often make is that we cook some shrimp in the mixture of chopped garlic... read more >


recipe reviews (4)
book reviews (1)
useful review votes (6)

TorkilHeggstad's Reviews


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Cookbook Reviews

Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen: Capturing the Vibrant flavors of a World-Class Cuisine

By Rick Bayless
Scribner - 1996

February 11th, 2010 (edited 11th February 2010)

I love the organization of this book, starting with the various kinds of salsas. Not only are the salsas great tasting, this is also a really nice way to gain an understanding of Mexican food. Bayless is eager to share his deep knowledge of the breadth of this fantastic cuisine and this is a cookbook that can be read cover to cover. Thanks to this book I learned to make my own corn tortillas (using Maseca flour), and knew what to look for in a molcajete. It also helps that we have not had a single dud from this book. We have loved every recipe we have tried. This is cooking from scratch so some of the recipes take quite a bit of time to make and some ingredients may not be available at the local grocery store, but none of the recipes we have tried have been overly difficult to make.