When I first started buying cookbooks, I was attracted to books that seemed vast and comprehensive, with tiles like 1,000 Indian Recipes, The Soup Bible, How to Cook Everything, and The Cake Bible. I wanted big and heavy hard covers with lots of pictures. I was an excited culinary student who wanted to learn how to cook every dish known to man. I still want to learn every dish, but years later, I now realize it will take 4 lifetimes, possibly more. What makes it even harder is that there are dishes and books you want to go back to and repeat.
The idea behind this dish is a Broiled Vegetable Terrine in one of my first cookbooks, The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia. I made that recipe with the guidance of my wonderful neighbor, at the time, Carol Gelles, who ironically wrote and gave me a copy of 1,000 Vegetarian Recipes. For the 3-ish years that I lived next door to her, I accumulated a ton of great cooking memories. As I flipped through The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia recently, I landed on a picture of the vegetable terrine, which made me smile, think of Carol, and then really want to make it again. The original recipe has an onion and raisin mixture that I thought was a little awkward in the dish and also made it more work so I removed that but left the wonderful concept of layering that give you different textures in each bite. The colors will impress your guests, but the natural sweetness of fresh vegetables is what will have them asking for more.
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