Piano lessons spawned how-to cookbook

The idea for Mark Scarbrough and Bruce Weinstein's most recent cookbook started with a piano.

"When we moved to the country, one of my great dreams was to have a piano," said Scarbrough, in a phone interview from their home in Connecticut that's so rural they sometimes can't go shopping because of a bear sleeping in front of the garage doors.

So they acquired a piano, and Scarbrough feared his future was filled with the mind-numbing scales associated with rudimentary piano education.

"But," he said, "I found a teacher who said, 'At your age, you don't need to do those scales; we'll just develop exercises based on the pieces you want to play.' Believe it or not, that led to this cookbook. It's a technique book, but the techniques are centered around . . . actual dishes people might make."

The result is "Cooking Know-How" (John Wiley & Sons Inc., $34.95), an unconventional and internationally flavored book that explains how to make bean soup to vindaloo, along with variations on every dish. Scarbrough and Weinstein are among the featured authors who will be coming to Richmond for the Junior League of Richmond's annual Book & Author Dinner on Tuesday at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

"Our process is Bruce cooks, and I write," said Scarbrough, 48, who taught American literature in college before he took a job one summer writing about food for a small Internet start-up company: America Online. He branched out into writing screenplays and syndicated columns, and eventually landed in New York to pursue writing full-time.

Weinstein attended Johnson & Wales Culinary University and then detoured into advertising before returning to the food world. He and Scarbrough teamed up to write "The Ultimate Ice Cream Book" in 1999, which proved to be the first in the "ultimate" series that includes 10 other cookbooks. They're also regular contributors to such magazines as Eating Well and Cooking Light.

For past books, the two would come up with the recipes together and then go their separate ways: Weinstein to the kitchen and Scarbrough to the computer, where he would turn their notes into a manuscript.

"This time was different," said Scarbrough. "I followed him every step of the way. I wanted to know the 'why' of it. That's when I ran to food experts or chemists or botanists to explain to me 'why.'"

Such as: Why is it important to brown meat before making a stew?

To seal in the juices? Nothing but an old saw, Scarbrough said. You brown the meat to enrich the broth, not to flavor the meat. "Browning releases juices that allows surface proteins and sugars to be burned onto the meat's exterior and the pot's bottom," he wrote.

Each of the book's 64 chapters focuses on a particular dish -- cacciatora, frittata or roasted birds, for examples -- and then, in a departure from typical cookbooks, offers easy-to-follow, side-by-side variations using different ingredients.

There also are random little snippets of advice that show up along the way, such as one for perfect mashed potatoes:

Microwave four to six smallish Russets (without poking holes or peeling them) on high for 8 or 9 minutes in a semi-covered dish. Let them stand covered for 2 or 3 minutes and then mash with a potato masher or beat with an electric mixer, adding milk, sour cream, broth, Dijon mustard, or whatever you wish.

It is not only more nutritious, as you're not boiling away anything, but it's also relatively simple, said Scarbrough.

"We are very much centered on the idea of dinner on the table at 6 o'clock," he said.

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or .