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By Ann Hodgman

Jan. 7, 2000

Now that we had all this land the most exciting prospect was growing our own food on a large scale and achieving some measure of self-sufficiency. Moving to Lake House brought back to me my childhood dream of living on a farm. Although Sting and I are both from urban working-class backgrounds, it is with some sense of going back to our roots that we have come to Lake and are trying to live off the land. My father and Sting's father were both keen vegetable-growers …

What's the dumbest thing about this passage?

The Lake House Cookbook By Trudie Styler and Joseph Sponzo Clarkson Potter, 224 pages Nonfiction Buy this book at B&N.com In the Kitchen with the Chippendales By Stacy Rae Rubalcaba Courage Books, 128 pages Nonfiction Cocktail Food: 50 Finger Foods with Attitude By Mary Corpening Barber and Sara Corpening Whiteford; photographs by Carin Krasner Chronicle Books, 132 pages Nonfiction Buy this book at B&N.com BowlFood Cookbook By Lynne Aronson and Elizabeth Simon Workman Publishing, 322 pages Nonfiction Buy this book at B&N.com

A) Claiming that the biggest thrill of owning a 16th century English manor on 60 acres is that it permits one to grow one's own food.
B) The fact that Trudie Styler calls her husband Sting instead of Gordon.
C) The notion of a jillionaire rock star "living off the land."
D) This equation: "My father was a keen vegetable gardener" + "We bought a mansion" = "We are going back to our roots."

The answer, of course, is E). Starting any review with this hoary old multiple-choice formula. But what I'm tryyyyyyyying to get at is: Celebrities write some of the most worthless cookbooks ever to wind up on the secondhand book table at the church rummage sale. Trudie Styler's The Lake House Cookbook is only the tip of the, uh, dumpling.

Still, "The Lake House Cookbook" is a good place to start because it's pocked with so many of the scars that afflict this genre. Styler and her minions assume that because she's semi-famous, her life is automatically interesting. Of course rich people are always fun to spy on, even when they're behaving so much like Marie Antoinette gamboling around the Petit Trianon that they should wear neck protectors. But it doesn't follow that what they eat is worth learning how to cook, especially when -- as in Styler's case -- their meals are prepared by a professional chef.

"More exciting than a restaurant, more spontaneous than party catering, Lake House is a chef's playground," chef Joseph Sponzo writes. (He is the book's main author; Styler makes a few observations about organic farming and house renovation, then turns the text over to him.) "Working at Lake House is ideal for me because the majority of ingredients come straight from the farm and garden, all of them rich with flavor and nutrients." And what about us, Joe? How can we get into the playground? Well, we can't.

"Lake House ducks are incredible," Sponzo marvels in his roast duck recipe. "They have just the right amount of fat to meat and a real gaminess of flavor that is not overpowering." Where people who are not married to Sting might find good ducks is never mentioned, though Sponzo does tell us where we can pick lavender to garnish the potatoes we serve with our duck. "We have it growing in the front walk at Lake House." (Even Martha Stewart doesn't slam the door in her readers' faces this hard.) Moving on to chocolate soufflés with chocolate dog tuiles, Sponzo says, "The tuiles for this dessert were inspired by Finbar and Gideon, the two Irish wolfhounds at Lake House, but you could make the tuiles a different shape if you prefer." No! No! I want my cookies shaped like Sting's dogs!

The recipes in "The Lake House Cookbook" are mostly unachievable by the home cook, who is unlikely to feel like making spring vegetables with carrot ravioli, truffle vinaigrette and parmesan tuiles even if he or she has access to "10 pea shoots with flowers" and three kinds of asparagus (white, green and wild). The photography is exquisite, but what else would you expect? As far as I can see, this book's target audience consists of two people: Trudie Styler and Joe Sponzo. Maybe they thought it would come in handy for her on his days off.

Next page | Cooking in the raw with the Chippendales