Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook Review

Titan Books has published a hardback book titled Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook available from numerous online retailers and high street book stores. Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook is based upon the hugely successful Firefly TV series starring Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau and the late great Ron Glass. Despite only spanning one season of 14 episodes from 2002 until 2003; Firefly lives long in the memory as one of the greatest TV series in history and deservedly continued with a blockbuster film named Serenity in 2005 that starred every core cast member from Firefly and Chiwetel Ejiofor portraying the role of the Operative, although Firefly has not been continued in TV or film form since. Does Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook deliver what it sets out to by producing a detailed official cookbook to the Firefly TV series?

Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook is in expert hands as it is written by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel as she is a passionate artist and fan of fantasy; having created for the Game of Thrones food blog titled Inn at the Crossroads before going onto co-author New York Times bestseller A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook. Chelsea Monroe-Cassel continues to be focused on bringing more fantasy worlds to life via food, photography, art and digital media.

Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook begins as it means to go on with a note from Kaylee suggesting that every crew member onboard the Serenity informs her of their favourite food, so that Kaylee can create a shiny cookbook encompassing her family’s meals. Meanwhile, an introduction titled Food in the ‘Verse describes how families situated in varying income and planetary locations expect to eat and the quality of their respective meals before covering flours, butter, seasonings, sweeteners, protein and meats.

Shindigs suggests starter, main and dessert courses for family celebrations, alongside canapés and cocktails for formal parties, while the basics chapter instructs upon the prep time, dietary categories, difficulty, ingredients, methods, variations or what the food could be utilised in conjunction with for white sauce, brown sauce, sweet chilli sauce, five-spice mix, dough for bao, pastry dough and biscuits.

Recipes for Shipboard Living is a chapter that is stuffed to the brim with 23 recipes that include suggestions from different crew members including Captain Malcolm Reynolds’ spare ribs, Shepherd Derrial Book’s couscous with roasted vegetables, Wash’s mashed sesame spuds, Kaylee’s family soup and much more besides. All 23 recipes carefully explain the prep and cooking time, course and dietary categories, difficulty, ingredients and method. Meanwhile, the Recipes from the Border and Beyond chapter has a further 16 recipes; the Recipes from the Core Worlds, Upper Crust chapter contains 18 recipes; and the Recipes from the Core Worlds, Underbelly chapter includes yet another 10 recipes.

The index is even helpful as it provides an alphabetical listing of recipes within the categories of snacks, savoury, sweet and drink. A dietary information chart showcases if a recipe is gluten free, vegetarian or vegan and if simple alterations can change it into a different dietary category, while a culinary conversion chart including imperial, cups and metric volume; imperial and metric weight; Fahrenheit, Celsius and gas temperature; and imperial and metric length provides extremely helpful assistance in understanding how to perfect each recipe.

The quality of writing is simply brilliant as it believably describes each recipe’s origins from the perspective of the respective character’s favourite recipe before effortlessly showcasing how to create each recipe in such a detailed manner.

Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook is beautifully presented with an incredible hardback front and back cover design featuring food and characters eating food during the Firefly TV series situated on the top and bottom third of the front cover, while the book title is displayed with an inlay on a suede stylised material in the centre of the front cover artwork. Meanwhile, the back cover artwork showcases a poetic quote, alongside a synopsis of Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook within the suede centre third of the back cover, while images of food are on the top and bottom of the back cover artwork. However, there is also a lot of excellent photography relating to almost every recipe, alongside a presentation of every recipe that simplifies the recipe by making it easy to understand; despite the complexity in detail for each and every recipe.

Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook’s value is reflected by the 80 recipes that accurately follow the food eating habits of the entirety of the crew onboard the Serenity throughout the duration of the Firefly TV series within the 160 page cookbook.

Firefly and Serenity fans can look forward to future Firefly novels from Titan Books including Generations by Tim Lebbon in October 2019. Firefly and Serenity fans should also look at other Firefly books from Titan Books including novels titled Firefly: Big Damn Hero from James Lovegrove, Nancy Holder and Joss Whedon that released on November 20th 2018 in America and the UK at https://titanbooks.com/9525-firefly-big-damn-hero/ and The Magnificent Nine by James Lovegrove and Joss Whedon in March 2019 at https://titanbooks.com/9528-firefly-the-magnificent-nine/
Further Firefly books include Firefly Encyclopedia’s coverage of the television series that released on November 6th 2018 in America and December 11th 2018 in the UK at https://titanbooks.com/9187-firefly-encyclopedia/

Analysis
• Title: Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook
• Writer: Chelsea Monroe-Cassel
• Publisher: Titan Books
• Length: 160 pages
• Cover: Hardback

Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook can be purchased in the UK from Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Firefly-Damn-Cookbook-Chelsea-Monroe-Cassel/dp/1789092418/ and Forbidden Planet at https://forbiddenplanet.com/276435-firefly-the-big-damn-cookbook-hardcover/

Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook can be purchased in America and Canada from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Firefly-Damn-Cookbook-Chelsea-Monroe-Cassel/dp/1789092418/

You can also find Titan Books’ official website including a back catalogue of captivating books at https://www.titanbooks.com/ and product details regarding Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook at https://titanbooks.com/70041-firefly-the-big-damn-cookbook/