Real Food: What to Eat and Why


Nina Planck - 2006
    The country's leading expert on farmers' markets and traditional foods tells the truth about the foods your grandmother praised but doctors call dangerous.Everyone loves real food, but they're afraid bacon and eggs will give them a heart attack--thus the culinary abomination known as the egg-white omelet. But it turns out that tossing out the yolk isn't smart. Real Food reveals why traditional foods are not only delicious--everyone knows that butter tastes better--but are actually good for you, making the nutritional case for egg, cream, butter, grass-fed beef, roast chicken with the skin, lard, cocoa butter, and more.In lively, personal chapters on produce, dairy, meat, fish, Nina explains how the foods we've eaten for thousands of years--pork, lamb, raw milk cheese, sea salt--have been falsely accused. Industrial foods like corn syrup, which lurks everywhere from fruit juice to chicken broth, are to blame for the triple epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, not real food.Nina Planck grew up on a vegetable farm in Virginia and learned to eat right from her no-nonsense parents: along with lots of local fruits and vegetables, the Plancks drank raw milk and ate meatloaf, bacon, and eggs with impunity. But the nutritional trends ran the other way--fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol were taboo--and in her teens and twenties, Nina tried vegan, vegetarian, low-fat, and low-cholesterol diets, with unhappy results.When she opened the first farmers' markets in London, Nina began to eat real food again--for pleasure, not health--and to her surprise she lost weight and felt great. She began to wonder about the farmhouse diet back home. Was it deadly, as the cardiologists say? Happily for people who love food, the answer is no.Real Food upends the conventional wisdom on diet and health. Prepare for pleasant surprises on whipped cream and other delights. The days of deprivation are over.(from the flap)

This Is Your Time


Ruby Bridges - 2020
    This volume features photographs from the 1960s and from today, as well as jacket art from The Problem We All Live With, the 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell depicting Ruby’s walk to school.

Drink This: Wine Made Simple


Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl - 2009
    Now she presents a handy guide that will show you how to stop being overwhelmed and intimidated, how to discover, respect, and enjoy your own personal taste, and how to be whatever kind of wine person you want to be, from budding connoisseur to someone who simply gets wine you like every time you buy a bottle. Refreshingly simple, irreverent, and witty, Drink This explains all the insider stuff that wine critics assume you know. It will teach you how to taste and savor wine, alone, with a friend, or with a group. And perhaps most important, this book gives you the tools to learn the only thing that really matters about wine: namely, figuring out what you like.Grumdahl draws on her own experience and savvy and interviews some of the world’s most renowned critics, winemakers, and chefs, including Robert M. Parker, Jr., Paul Draper, and Thomas Keller, who share their wisdom about everything from pairing food and wine to the inside scoop on what wine scores and reviews really mean. Readers will learn how to master tasting techniques and understand the winemaking process from soil to cellar. Drink This also reveals how to get your money’s worth out of wine without spending all you’ve got.At last there’s a reason for wary wine lovers to raise a glass in celebration. Savor the insider’s viewpoint and straight talk of Drink This, and watch your intimidation of wine transform into well-grounded, unshakeable confidence.

Pot on the Fire: Further Exploits of a Renegade Cook


John Thorne - 2000
    Fisher" (Connoisseur). From nineteenth-century famine-struck Ireland to the India of the British Raj, from the bachelor's kitchen to the Italian cucina, Thorne is an entertaining, erudite, and inventive guide to culinary adventuring and appreciation.

The Man Who Ate Everything


Jeffrey Steingarten - 1997
    He succeeded at all but the last: Steingarten is "fairly sure that God meant the color blue mainly for food that has gone bad." In this impassioned, mouth-watering, and outrageously funny book, Steingarten devotes the same Zen-like discipline and gluttonous curiosity to practically everything that anyone anywhere has ever called "dinner." Follow Steingarten as he jets off to sample choucroute in Alsace, hand-massaged beef in Japan, and the mother of all ice creams in Sicily. Sweat with him as he tries to re-create the perfect sourdough, bottle his own mineral water, and drop excess poundage at a luxury spa. Join him as he mounts a heroic--and hilarious--defense of salt, sugar, and fat (though he has some nice things to say about Olestra). Stuffed with offbeat erudition and recipes so good they ought to be illegal, The Man Who Ate Everything is a gift for anyone who loves food.

I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence


Amy Sedaris - 2006
    Take a cue from entertaining expert Amy Sedaris and host an unforgettable fete that will have your guests raving. No matter the style or size of the gathering-from the straightforward to the bizarre-I Like You provides jackpot recipes and solid advice laced with Amy's blisteringly funny take on entertaining, plus four-color photos and enlightening sidebars on everything it takes to pull off a party with extraordinary flair. You don't even need to be a host or hostess to benefit-Amy offers tips for guests, too!  (Number one: don't be fifteen minutes early.) Readers will discover unique dishes to serve alcoholics (Broiled Frozen Chicken Wings with Applesauce), the secret to a successful children's party (a half-hour time limit, games included), plus a whole appendix chock-full of arts and crafts ideas (from a mini-pantyhose plant-hanger to a do-it-yourself calf stretcher), and much, much more!

Ingredient: Seeing Beneath the Surface of Food to Take Control in the Kitchen


Ali Bouzari - 2016
    An ingredient is a tomato, a tortilla, or some tarragon. An Ingredient (with a capital "I") is a fundamental building block or recurring theme that works behind the scenes in everything we cook. There are millions of ingredients, but only eight Ingredients: Water, Sugars, Carbs, Lipids, Proteins, Minerals, Gases, and Heat.Each Ingredient has its own personality, a set of things it does or doesn’t do. Ever been blown away by a wonderfully fragrant dish? From soup and mashed potatoes to French toast and barbecue, lipids act like glue to stick aromas to your food. Is a batter too thin or sauce not clinging correctly? The best bets for thickening any liquid are carbs and proteins, which we can find anywhere from a bag of flour to a roasted garlic clove or a piece of braised meat. This book teaches you the personalities of the Ingredients, where to find them, and how to put them to work.Ingredient isn’t a book of recipes, nor is it a definitive treatise on the science of the kitchen. It’s an illustrated guide to visualizing and controlling food’s invisible moving parts, regardless of your skill level or how you like to cook.Through this lively, engaging, and accessible guide, renowned culinary scientist Ali Bouzari shifts our focus from secret ingredients to the secrets of Ingredients.

Cats: Nature and Nurture


Andy Hirsch - 2019
    Equipped with teeth, claws, and camouflage to survive everywhere from deserts to mountaintops, how did these ferocious felines make the leap from predators to playmates... and are they even done leaping?Every volume of Science Comics offers a complete introduction to a particular topic—dinosaurs, the solar system, robots, and more. Whether you're a fourth grader doing a natural science unit at school or a thirty year old with a secret passion for airplanes, these books are for you!

32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line


Eric Ripert - 2016
    The winner of four James Beard Awards, co-owner and chef of a world-renowned restaurant, and recipient of countless Michelin stars, Ripert embodies elegance and culinary perfection. But before the accolades, before he even knew how to make a proper hollandaise sauce, Eric Ripert was a lonely young boy in the south of France whose life was falling apart.Ripert's parents divorced when he was six, separating him from the father he idolized and replacing him with a cold, bullying stepfather who insisted that Ripert be sent away to boarding school. A few years later, Ripert's father died on a hiking trip. Through these tough times, the one thing that gave Ripert comfort was food. Told that boys had no place in the kitchen, Ripert would instead watch from the doorway as his mother rolled couscous by hand or his grandmother pressed out the buttery dough for the treat he loved above all others, tarte aux pommes. When an eccentric local chef took him under his wing, an eleven-year-old Ripert realized that food was more than just an escape: It was his calling. That passion would carry him through the drudgery of culinary school and into the high-pressure world of Paris's most elite restaurants, where Ripert discovered that learning to cook was the easy part--surviving the line was the battle.Taking us from Eric Ripert's childhood in the south of France and the mountains of Andorra into the demanding kitchens of such legendary Parisian chefs as Joel Robuchon and Dominique Bouchet, until, at the age of twenty-four, Ripert made his way to the United States, 32 Yolks is the tender and richly told story of how one of our greatest living chefs found himself--and his home--in the kitchen.Praise for Eric Ripert's 32 Yolks"Passionate, poetical . . . What makes 32 Yolks compelling is the honesty and laudable humility Ripert brings to the telling."--Chicago Tribune"With a vulnerability and honesty that is breathtaking . . . Ripert takes us into the mind of a boy with thoughts so sweet they will cause you to weep. He also lets us into the mind of the man he is today, revealing all the golden cracks and chips that made him more valuable to those around him."--The Wall Street Journal"Eric Ripert makes magic with 32 Yolks."--Vanity Fair"32 Yolks may not be what you'd expect from a charming, Emmy-winning cooking show host and cookbook author. In the book, there are, of course, scenes of elaborate meals both eaten and prepared. . . . But Ripert's story is, for the most part, one of profound loss."--Los Angeles Times "This book demonstrates just how amazing Eric's life has been both inside and outside of the kitchen. It makes total sense now to see him become one of the greatest chefs in the world today. This is a portrait of a chef as a young man."--David Chang

The Slug


Elise Gravel - 2014
    It covers such topics as the slug's two pairs of tentacles, one pair for seeing, one pair for smelling (it can see you're a kid and smell like broccoli), its breathing hole (on the side of its head!), and its pretty gross mucous covering (in order to find a partner, the slug can follow another slug's mucous trail. True love!). Although silly and off-the-wall, The Slug contains real information that will tie in with curriculum.

Whose Poop Is That?


Darrin Lunde - 2017
    By investigating visual clues, young readers can learn to identify the animal through its droppings. For instance, find a sample of poop with bits of bone and tufts of hair. Turn the page to learn it came from a fox!Kelsey Oseid's illustrations are both accurate and beautiful. Backmatter includes further information about the poop and what scientists can learn from an animal's droppings."A primer on poop and a guessing game, especially for those just beyond toilet training" -- Kirkus Reviews "Gross-out details will provoke glee...but kids will learn plenty about the variety and importance of animal waste, too" --Publisher's Weekly"As accessible to newly independent readers as it is to younger listeners" -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books"Sure to appeal to curious youngsters. Recommended for collections that can't get enough titles on poop" -- School Library Journal"The kid-friendly illustrations and matter-of-fact tone make this title an informative, rather than a gross-out, pick, though is certainly what will get kids reaching for the shelves" -- Booklist"Friendly and inviting to novice naturalists" -- Horn Book"What are you waiting for? Come get the "scoop on poop"!" -- NSTA Recommends

Meal


Blue Delliquanti - 2019
    Though her enthusiasm is infectious, it rubs some of her fellow cooks the wrong way, especially Chanda Flores, Yarrow's personal hero and executive chef of an exciting new restaurant. Her people have been eating bugs for centuries, and she's deeply suspicious of this newbie's attempt to turn her traditions into the next foodie trend. While Chanda and her scrappy team of talented devotees struggle to open on time, Yarrow must win over Chanda -- and Milani, the neighbor she's been crushing on for weeks -- or lose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to achieve her dreams.

The Disney Princess Cookbook


Cynthia Littlefield - 2013
    With simple step-by-step instructions, mouth-watering photos of each dish, and helpful tips from the Princesses themselves, this cookbook makes it easy to whip up some kitchen magic!

The Secret Garden Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden


Amy Cotler - 1999
    It also delights in good food and a robust appetite, and the health and strength they can bring. Written at a time when many children were going hungry and even starving, Burnett's beloved story celebrates the magic of fresh air, new milk, homemade currant buns, and hearty, simple fare. Inside the pages of this cookbook are recipes for Mary's favorite foods, in and out of the garden, from porridge to roasted potatoes and eggs, all inspired by The Secret Garden and all adapted by chef and culinary historian Amy Cotler from traditional Victorian recipes. Ms. Cotler has supplemented these simple, wholesome recipes with fascinating tidbits on Victorian foods and Victorian eating customs. The result is a scrumptious tribute to Burnett's classic novel, a fascinating glimpse into the cooking customs of a historical period that is now long past, and a step-by-step guide to making delicious, tasty treats to enjoy in your own secret garden.

Sex is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and YOU


Cory Silverberg - 2015
    Much more than the "facts of life" or “the birds and the bees," Sex Is a Funny Word opens up conversations between young people and their caregivers in a way that allows adults to convey their values and beliefs while providing information about boundaries, safety, and joy.The eagerly anticipated follow up to Lambda-nominated What Makes a Baby, from sex educator Cory Silverberg and artist Fiona Smyth, Sex Is a Funny Word reimagines "sex talk" for the twenty-first century.