This is a visually stunning volume. It's one of the prettiest cookbooks I've ever seen, and would make an ideal gift book. Recipes are divided into sections by country--each reflecting a different part of Kiros's heritage and history. Several of them are intriguing and unusual--particularly the sections on Cyprus and Finland. Less interesting is the section on South Africa which includes recipes for such exotica as fried chicken, garlic bread, and buffalo wings with blue cheese.

That complaint aside, the photography is stunning, the prose is charming, the family history aspect is a lovely excuse for the book, and I'm eagerly anticipating diving in to the more unusual recipes offered here. ( )

Beautiful cookbook, luscious pictures, wanders from Finland to Greece -- the gift of a friend who calls it her favorite cookbook. ( )

Among the many reasons I'm enjoying (and recommending) this book:
excellent photos, concise and clear recipes, surprisingly approachable descriptions of techniques and methods that I'd thought to be difficult, and a narrative that flows enjoyably like a good conversation.

Available at your local indie bookstore: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780740781520 ( )

I received this as part of the Early Reviewers program last winter--and was super-excited to sit down and look it over.

Like many reviewers here, I agree that the book is beautiful. The images are lush and inspiring. And I love that it includes cuisines that are so often overlooked by other cookbooks.

I also deeply appreciate the detailed level of instruction in the recipes. In the marinated herrings recipe (p. 21), there are directions on how to go about filleting a herring. What a great inclusion for those of us who don't just know such things (or haven't already learned it from another cookbook!)

On the other hand, some instructions are less-than-clear. Again in the marinated herrings recipe (p. 21), she calls for "4 (2 1/4 lb) lightly smoked salted herrings. I'm a fishetarian, I guess, because I cook vegetarian but eat fish out at restaurants. So I have no idea what the average size of a herring might be. And this wording doesn't help. Does she mean 4 herrings for a total of 2 1/4 lbs or should each herring weigh 2 1/4 lbs?

And at the end of the day, the book fails me because it has yet to work its way into the regular rotation of cookbooks. I've flagged a couple to try (but have been put off by either the vast quantities of butter, heavy cream, and oil involved or the length of time involved--which is surprising considering I'm known for spending entire weekends happily cooking!) and have made just one (a potato salad I enjoyed but not so much that it would replace others in my repertoire).

It's almost too pretty to be useful as a COOK book, yet there's not quite enough narrative to make me read it like a coffee table book (I'd say Marcella Cucina does more on that score.) Nevertheless, I'll keep it and hope to use it if for no other reason than the inclusion of cuisines otherwise missing from my "international" cookbooks. ( )

Gorgeous, gorgeous photographs. The book is beautifully designed but the same elements that make it look nice also get in the way of using it TO COOK FROM. The heft and size of the physical book is lovely but the pages don't stay open. The setup of ingredient lists above recipe titles and instructions make the page visually interesting with white space and everything but are difficult to read and follow.

I wanted more details about the dishes--like what they were. Something like Baked Ham needs no explanation, but the blurb for the Skordalia recipe leaves me in the dark. That recipe is accompanied by a lovely photo of a table with plants on it. No help! Yes, you get the gist of the dish by reading the ingredients and instructions, but a cookbook shouldn't be a puzzle. The Pastitsio has a picture but it is so close up as to defeat the purpose of illustration. Including information like this is a side dish, casserole, condiment, etc. would have cleared this up and made the book more accessible.

A glossary or some extra information on unusual and hard-to-find ingredients and/or substitutions would also have been helpful.

The collection of recipes is unusual, from dishes I've never heard of (see above) to items like Garlic Bread.

I made the Cinnamon and Cardamom Buns and they were excellent. It took a little looking around to find a substitute for fresh yeast (and I wish all the baking measures were in weight, not volume) but they came out fine. (And outside of professional bakeries, how many people in the US use fresh yeast?) I'm looking forward to trying other recipes.

*Early Reviewer*

Tessa Kiros sure knows how to put together a beautiful book! I have enjoyed her book Apples for Jam but think this one is even better. The chapters in the book are arranged by location, all places that have had a special place in Kiros' heart. The chapters on Greece and Cyprus are my particular favorites.

I have flagged countless recipes in this book to try. From Pastitsio and Moussaka to chickpea salad and Finnish meatballs, there is something here for everyone.

This is more than just a cookbook, but one of those special books that you can curl up in bed with. Highly recommended. ( )

Recipes from the diverse cultures of Finland, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, and Italy are each given a full chapter with 20 some recipes. It allows for diversity and depth all in one book. The book is further enriched by fabulous photographs of food, scenery, and people along with stories of the family and friends who inspired the recipes. I'm looking forward to trying a slew of them. ( )

Fascinating book. Great stories to pull you into the food. I look very much forward to recreating these meals and creating my own memories of great times in the kitchen with family and friends. ( )

First, the good. The premise of collecting recipes from the various cultures that have made Tessa Kiros who she is does bring some fresh and unusual recipes into the collection (I can honestly say I don't have other Finnish recipes so readily accessible). The photography is incredible, the production values and book design are outstanding, and Kiros' reminiscences of her family are somewhat -- somewhat -- engaging.

And yet not so engaging that I was as drawn in and enraptured as I expected to be, given the lush look and layout. I never felt compelled to keep reading, never felt wholly connected to the author or her stories, didn't mark recipes as "must try" (and my seven full shelves of cookbooks are stuffed with books that are dog-eared and bookmarked, so I am a marker of such). I didn't learn as much about the cultures as I had expected to, and once past the (again) gorgeous photography, didn't feel that I was given enough to make this cookbook the one I would reach for rather than Vefa's Kitchen, or Diana Kennedy's In My Mexican Kitchen, or any Julia, or my Time-Life international series or even an old copy of Sheila Lukins' "All Around the World." I'm sure that if I were on an exhaustive recipe search through all of my cookbooks for an interesting potato dish, this one might make one or two rounds of the cut, and if I were to show someone "this is how to photograph food," I'd reach for it first. But overall, I wound up feeling disappointed and even a bit let down.

(One quibbliest of quibbles from someone who has done her share of publication look-and-feel along with page and layout design: I would have chosen a different typeface for the actual recipes, or at least a different case and weight. The all-caps Times-ish serif face is deeply unattractive and cluttery.) ( )

I received "Falling Cloudberries" through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. This was exciting for me, because I've had it on my wishlist for a couple of years.

It was WELL worth the wait; Kiros has put together a beautiful package. There are beautiful pictures throughout the book: some landscapes; some random items she's come across in her travels; and my favorites, pictures of relatives Kiros mentions in the stories she tells. As she shares recipes that remind her of the places she's been and people she's grown up with or visited, she shares little bits of memories of those places and people. The story-telling takes the book from being a straight-up cookbook to being a book I enjoy just paging through and reading, even if it's just randomly opening to a page and going on from there.

When I receive a new cookbook, I usually flag the recipes I want to try, but there were way too many in "Falling Cloudberries" for this to be an efficient way of noting interesting recipes. Kiros's recipes seem to be a nice mix of exotic and unassuming, and I'm looking forward to getting to try them out -- even more so now that I know the stories behind many of them. ( )

Food porn. Maybe it's the plating of the author, or the stylist, or the photographer, but wow!
Ricotta Tart with a Chocolate Crust, p.331; very good, nice orange flavor.
Pineapple, Cinnamon, and Allspice Cake, p.255; good, interesting flavors, more effort than results merited, cook 5 minutes less.
Summer Pudding, p.375; tasty but a physical disaster. The recipe requires an exact bowl and plate. Meanwhile, the mascarpone cream with berries alone is worthy of becoming a standard.
Zabaglione Semifreddo, p.332, yummy, but too much knee-throbbing whisking of the custard. I'd pay for Marco's to make for me.
Prego Rolls, p.232, very good. Pound meat, reduce marinade in skillet more. ( )

I received my copy of this book in the Library Things Early Reviewer Program. My immediate reaction upon opening my package was: “Wow, this is a beautiful book with beautiful pictures.” I was thrilled. However, I quickly had a couple of other observations. It is a heavy book which is not quite so nice when holding it to read and I didn’t care for the layout for use as a cookbook. The design is not the most practical for the use of the reader who actually wants to cook from the book.

For each recipe, ingredients are listed first, then the name of the recipe, then a personal blurb about the recipe or the food. Directions for the recipe are given last and in smaller print then the personal blurb which make them harder to read while cooking. However, the directions are very thorough and go over to a second page in some cases. It would have been better if the second page was always a facing page but some of them finish after turning the page.

Quite a few of the foods have pictures of the finished product. Serving suggestions and variations are frequently given. I like that Kiros also encourages the cook to add a little more or a little less of some ingredients depending on personal taste.

There are many pictures. In addition to pictures of the food, some are of family members and some are scenic. Family members are identified, but the scenic pictures do not have any caption. I would have liked added information for those.

The contents are:
Food from Many Kitchens
Family Tree
Falling Cloudberries - Finland
Oregano, Oranges, and Olive Groves - Greece
Cinnamon and Roses - Cyprus
Monkeys’ Weddings - South Africa
Washing Lines and Wishing Wells - Italy
Suitcase of Recipes - World
Index

I have marked several recipes that I hope to try:
Pork Schnitzels - Finland
Hasselback Potatoes - Finland
Chickpea, Feta, and Cilantro Salad - Greece
Baked Lima Beans with Onions, Tomatoes, and Parsley - Greece
Kourapiedes - Greece
Pita Bread - Cyprus
Greek-Cypriot Salad - Cyprus
Kamut Bread - South Africa
Apple Cake with Toffee Topping - South Africa
Ricotta Tart with a Chocolate Crust - Italy

I have tried the Cinnamon and Cardamom Buns from the Finland chapter. They were delicious. I am quite pleased to have won this book and be able to add it to my library. It is a wonderful book to browse and I do hope to try some of the other recipes I have listed. Kiros has written a very nice book. My only wish would be for a more user friendly layout. ( )

What can I say. I was lucky a second month in row to obtain a copy of Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes by Tessa Kiros through Library Things Early Reviewer Program. This has to be the most beautifully designed and written cookbook I have come across in awhile. Both travel memoir and cookbook, Tessa offers up a wealth of recipes from various chapters in her globetrotting life between Finland, South Africa, Greece, Cyprus , and Italy. Half Finnish and Half Greek-Cypriot, Tessa recollects memories and recipes from her grandfathers in Finland and Cyprus. It took me a long time to decide what to prepare from this book. Both the savory and sweet recipes are mouth watering. With some new life changes and diet changes,I gravitated to the Greek sections, as the flavors of the Mediterranean are perfect for one trying to reduce salt intake. Cherished family photos , drawings, and honest non slick styling capture the essence of the food.This book will have a place of honor in my vast collection of cookbooks.

Stuffed Vegetables
This has to be the favorite of what I tried out so far. Hollowed out array of Zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, stuffed with rice, and the vegetable pulp, and slowly roasted with potatoes in lemon , Olive oil and tomato juices. The uncooked rice is mixed with the ground beef and pork and seasoned with mint, paprika, salt and pepper and the vegetable pulp. Potatoes are quartered , and all is placed in a baking dish with tomato juice, water, and olive oil and slow baked for 1 1/2 hours. Served warm or room temperature.Its generous recipe that feeds 6-8, and I reduced it , but still ate off for days. Perfect for a family or easy but filling entertaining. It 's presence makes quite a statement on a any table.

Lemon Oregano Chicken
A simple dinner of a whole chicken , spatchcocked, and broiled in lemon juice, olive oil, butter,and oregano. First browned in skillet , then placed in a broiler, the chicken cooks in a reduced time while full of flavor.
Here are some highlights of the various regions Tessa covers:
Finnish Recipes
Lingonberry or Cranberry Jam
Sipis Strawberry Cake
Finnish Mustard
Greek Recipes
Taramasalata
Bougatsa
Octopus Stifado
Cyprus
Tava (Cypriot Baked Lamb and Potatoes with Cumin and Tomatoes)
Pita Bread
Loukoumades ( Deep Fried Honey and Cinnamon Syrup Puffs)
Mastika Ice Cream
South Africa
Prego Rolls
Barbecued Spare Ribs
Milk Tart
Italy
Olive Oil Bread
Fried Mozzarella and Anchovy Filled Zucchini Flowers
Baccala with Red Onions
World
Chicken, Coconut, and Cashew Curry
Caramel Ice Cream
Ludi's Chicken ( )

Falling Cloudberries is beautiful, engaging, and filled with the kind of recipes that call to you from the pages, saying, don't be shy, this is home cooking, anyone can make this, and you can, too. More than a cookbook, but less than a memoir, Falling Cloudberries is a commonplace book, a collection of recipes, memories and photographs of food, families, and places the author has lived. It is designed to look like a scrapbook, with lovely chintz endpapers and spine, and a script font for the title and section headings.

The wonderful thing about this cookbook is that, like any good scrapbook, the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. The recipes, while interesting, are generally not complex; they are mostly common foods from the countries Tessa Kiros has lived. For me that is part of their appeal. I attend a yearly Greek festival each year. I love going for many reasons, but the best part is the food. I opened Falling Cloudberries at random, and there they all were, my Greek favorites: Lamb with lemon and oregano, pastitsia, fried haloumi cheese, loukoumades. In the South African section there is a recipe for garlic bread tucked in among more exotic offerings. There are less familiar recipes, too, including a number of enticing desserts, but this is mostly comfort food from Scandinavia, Greece, South Africa, and other places Tessa Kiros has lived.

The vignettes that go along with these recipes are small, evocative passages, sensuous memories that recall a taste, a smell, the family member who shaped the dough or seasoned the chicken, the sight of octopus drying on a clothesline, the sad music from the ice-cream van.

The photographs are really what make me keep coming back to this book . They are not just perfectly presented plates of finished dishes and stunning landscapes, nor are they how-to photos. Not every recipe has a photo, and not all the photos are of the food. They are large, full colored, abundant, and like the writing, evocative-- I could almost taste the black-eyed peas swimming in their glistening puddles of olive oil, or feel the heat radiating off the wall of a Greek church. The sepia-toned photos of Kiros's family look like interesting people I wish I'd known and been able to share a meal with.

Overall, this is a lovely book to look through, to open at random and taste, and to be inspired by when looking for something new to cook . The recipes I've tried have been easy to follow and were eaten with great appreciation by my family. My only complaint is that the type used for the actual recipe directions is so much smaller than anything else in the book that it can be a bit difficult to read. In spite of that, I wholeheartedly recommend Falling Cloudberries as a memorable addition to your cookbook library. ( )

The recipes are divided by cuisine; Finnish from her mother, Greek and Cyprus from her father, South African where she grew up, and Italian where she lives with her husband. There is also a small section of international foods that she loves. Interwoven with the recipes are family stories of why she likes these recipes and her memories associated with each dish.

The photographs are breathtaking. There was one of picture of a onion with a green stalk and purple veined skin that had me speechless. I kept going back to look at that photo. Just the beauty of that one simple vegetable. Part of me wants to take the book apart and frame the individual pages.

Physically this is a thick novel sized book rather than a larger coffee table size. The only complaint I have is the type for the recipes. It is a bit small and the ingredients are in all caps which made it harder to read.

Anyone would be glad to have this beautiful book as part of a collection

I also have Apples for Jam by the same author, both books are beautiful. Just reading both books inspires me to get busy cooking. They are so gorgeous I hate to ruin them in the kitchen but the recipes are tempting. Apples for Jam is a bit stained but that's the sign of a good cookbook, at least in my house. Both books have little stickies notes on the pages with recipes I want to try. I enjoy the history she gives before the recipes and the wonderful photos, not just of food but of the places she has visited.
This is a delightful book not just for cooks but for those who love to travel and enjoy different foods when they travel. If by Grandma, who loved to travel and experience new things, had written a cookbook it might have looked like this one. ( )

You know the saying "don't judge a book by it's cover"? That definitely does not apply in this case. First of all, it's gorgeous. I took the dust jacket off to keep from tearing it while reading, and was delighted to see that the inside matched the dust jacket. No, plain gray or brown. The inside is every bit as beautiful from the blue flowered design on the flyleaf, to the pictures of recipes and life. I say recipes and life, because that's what this book is, it's cookbook and a memoir all in one.

The author of the book, Tessa Kiros, opens the book with the following quote, "These are the recipe I grew up with: the recipes that have woven their way through the neighborhoods of my mind, past indifference and into love. Those that have stayed while others might have fluttered away with a gentle spring breeze." What a growing up she did, she was born in London to a Finnish mother and a Greek-Cypriot father. When she was four, they moved to South Africa, and she now lives in Italy with her husband, Giovanni. Wow. Kind of makes my - born in Illinois, grew up in Missouri, and moved to Tennessee, seem kind of lame.

So, it is with that rich background of cultures and influences that she puts together this collection of recipes and stories. And quite a collection it is. She begins with Finland - from her mother and her mother's side of the family, then to Greece and Cyprus - for her father, South Africa - from her upbringing, Italy - where she currently resides with her husband, and a section called suitcase - a lovely collection gathered along the way.

I started out listing all of the recipes that I wanted to try (but they soon became too numerous, this book is 397 pages, after all). A very shortened version of my list:

Finland - Potato Pancakes, Salmon Dill and Potato Soup, Cranberry Jam
Greece - Dolmades, Skordalia, Lemon and Oregano Chicken
Cyprus - Fried Haloumi Cheese, Green Olives with Coriander Seeds
South Africa - Lemon Vanilla Jam
Italy - Olive Oil Bread, Pasta with Sardines and Wild Fennel
Suitcase - Caramel Ice Cream, Milk Honey and Cinnamon Ice Cream

I can't begin to say enough nice things about this book. I absolutely loved it. It's big, gorgeous, filled with delicious sounding recipes, gorgeous photos, and a sweet family history. ( )

This book is really beautiful, with a great cover and nice big pictures throughout. (It has the weight and shape of a novel, not of a cookbook that you'd be able to leave open on a counter and read from--style definitely won out over practicality here)

I have to admit that the recipes in the beginning weren't that engaging to me, a lot of meat and potatoes, so I found myself skimming quite a bit until I got to the Italy section and the 'suitcase of recipes' section, both of which had many recipes that piqued my interest (and matched my palate better). If your comfort food is hearty, bone-sticking meals built around cream and starch, you'll find a lot to like in the beginning of the book. :)

I thought the desserts were great throughout, and appreciated the variety and number of recipes included (too often, I think their inclusion is an afterthought in cookbooks).

Overall, a beautiful book to page through with the author's story nicely tying together the disparate cuisines. ( )

Jealous of Kiros' diverse family recipes and map-skipping travels, I read "Falling Cloudberries" from cover to cover, bookmarking tasty bites with flavors that span the globe. I was inspired to cook something immediately, but choosing a recipe proved difficult. My sweet tooth argued for dessert. But would it be the crumbly crisp Cinnamon and Cardamom Buns from Finland? Bougatsa from Greece, layered filo with sweet, custard-like filling? Cream cheese-filled Bourekia cookies from Cyprus? In the end, Kiros' grandfather's Rice Pudding recipe (page 192), a mildly sweet and comforting dish, was the perfect footnote for the dinner I'd already eaten.

Part memoir, part family scrapbook and entirely food-driven, this is the cookbook I wish I had written. Reading it feels familial, infused with childhood and nostalgia. Finished with my initial reading, I flipped through the book a second time to make my grocery list. The book already looked like a member of my (admittedly large) cooking library, torn paper scraps marking favored items and desserts with my notes for accompaniments. It being April, I'm baking up the South African cinnamon-swirled Bobba's Babka (page 246) for Easter brunch. Hopefully my family will love the recipe as much as I do.

Served with a bit of nostalgia, this recipe collection provides a great balance of flavors with an approachable, continental flair. When this book arrived in the mail, I celebrated. There's a beautiful heft to the book — brimming with gorgeous patterns, color photography and thick, glossy pages — that makes it seem a prize, certainly worthy of celebration and, perhaps, a bit more of that lovely rice pudding. ( )

Tessa Kiros's cookbook, Falling Cloudberries, is a marvelous trove of family recipes and photographs. Arranged by region, the recipes are lavishly illustrated and each is annotated with a small paragraph regarding its history and meaning to Kiros.

However, while the recipes are accurate (based on a random sampling), the instructions are, sadly, sometimes lacking. While this may be fine for experienced cooks, a novice may find some of the instructions difficult to follow. For example, “Cinnamon and Cardamom Buns” requires a rather tricky bit of cutting and twisting to shape the buns. Kiros attempts to make the directions clear, but an illustration (even a pen and ink drawing) would not go amiss.

The regional arrangement of recipes lends a tone of credibility to the cookbook, but the home chef should be cautious in making authoritative statements that a recipe is actually from a particular location. In particular, the South African section has a number of recipes (“Garlic Bread”, “Chicken Wings with Blue Cheese Dressing”, “Fried Chicken”, “Barbecued Spare Ribs”) that while accurate, are not necessarily unique to the region. Her few truly South African recipes (including “Milk Tart”) are far better examples of true South African cooking.

These few issues may be easily overlooked, though, in favor of the lush photography, and the unique combination of Finnish, Greek, and Cypriot recipes that comes with a diverse and well-preserved heritage. The small vignettes that Kiros provides for each recipe’s context are beautiful, and I often wished for deeper and longer stories to match with the family photographs.

This is a cookbook that will not go awry on a home cook’s shelf, and the Mediterranean recipes will make a fantastic addition to any cook’s repertoire.

The minute I opened this cookbook, I could not stop flipping the pages to see what recipe Kiros had in store for us next! There were certainly plenty of beautiful photographs to support the delicious-sounding recipes. I appreciated that Kiros has had such a well-traveled life/family and I am happy that she chose to share her recipes, as well as familial anectdotes, with us - I can't wait to try some of them! ( )

I love this cookbook. I love the pictures the most and the little history that she chats about in her books. ( )

I found this in a bookshop and had to have it - apart from the fact it is truly the most beautiful cook book I had ever seen, it also matched the sorts of foods I understand - something Northern, something Mediterranean, something middle-eastern and a good dab of colonial southern hemisphere hospitality. I was also warmed by the stories of Tessa's family and how the food came to be in her life - this is the sort of recipe scrapbook we should all keep. Recommend the cinnamon buns for sheer bliss on a winter's day. ( )

This beautifully bound and illustrated cook book was a gift from one of my lodgers. It is the sort of cookbook you can read in bed as it gives much more than just recipes. Tessa Kiros is a young cook, half Greek, half Finnish, who grew up in South Africa, before setting off to follow a career cooking all over the world. She is married to an Italian and lives in Tuscany. This explains the four distinct areas of cooking which feature in the book, which is also a family history. The recipes are all family friendly, and cover a wide spectrum of tastes and textures. I particularly like her recipe for Pastitsio, and the recipe for Caramelised Pear Ice Cream is simply divine. ( )