What Else is to Eat?

Book excerpt: Coss (How To Manage Your Child's Life-Threatening Food Allergies), a mother of children with food allergies, has written her second book on the topic, to address the issues of how to cook without dairy, eggs, or nuts. However, a large proportion of the approximately 120 recipes in this slim volume are for dishes that would not normally contain these basic ingredients anyway (i.e., Chicken Marsala, Roasted Asparagus, etc.). While these items do indeed meet the criteria, they can also be found in a great many other sources. The book does include some introductory information on dealing with food allergies, such as the importance of avoiding cross-contamination in the kitchen, reading package ingredients lists very carefully, and a short list of resources. The most useful chapters are those on baking, which include recipes for cookies, cakes, and quick breads made without eggs, milk, or nuts. A lack of illustrations and no real explanations on how or what to substitute for these allergens make this work less informative and less useful than it would be otherwise. An optional purchase.