La Tartine Gourmande: Gluten-Free Recipes for an Inspired Life
Béatrice Peltre - 2012
Welcome to a world where flavors are collected as souvenirs and shared as heirlooms, and where the dishes we create are expressions of our joie de vivre. With nearly 100 recipes and charming anecdotes, La Tartine Gourmande takes you on a journey, not only through the meals of the day but around the world, as Béa revisits her inspiration for each dish. Though her style is largely inspired by her native France, you’ll find a wide array of influences as she brings creative twists to classic recipes—all while remaining effortlessly healthful and balanced. The gluten-free recipes use whole grains like quinoa, millet, buckwheat, and nut flours, lending surprising depth of flavor and nutrients, even to desserts. You’ll taste the best of her adventures abroad from Denmark to New Zealand, her childhood in the French countryside, and the simple wholesomeness of her charmed life at home in Boston. Your mouth will water as Béa recalls the oeufs en cocotte (“baked eggs”) that she ate as a child after collecting fresh eggs from her grandmother’s hen house. Her recipe for this classic dish now includes leeks, spinach, smoked salmon, and cumin. Or try the buttermilk, lemon, and poppyseed pancakes she made every morning in Crete when she was pregnant—they’re now her little daughter Lulu’s favorite. Warm up with a bowl of celeriac, white sweet potato, and apple soup, a dish inspired by a chilly day of horseback riding in New Zealand. You’ll love sharing the saffron-flavored crab and watercress soufflé, a delicious homage to one of her mother’s best-loved Christmas traditions. And since most would agree that “a meal without dessert is like wearing only one shoe,” try the apple, rhubarb, and strawberry nutty crumble, served with vanilla-flavored custard, just the way her husband’s Irish grandfather preferred. Lush styling and photography combined with sweet stories, foodie tidbits, and fresh and original recipes make La Tartine Gourmande perfect for those who love food and the way our lives play around it. This is not just a book about cooking, but a warm invitation to share in the beauty and simple pleasures of a life with food at the heart of it.
A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes
David Tanis - 2008
The other six months, Tanis lives in Paris in a seventeenth-century apartment, where he hosts intimate dinners for friends and paying guests, and prepares the food in a small kitchen equipped with nothing more than an old stove, a little counter space, and a handful of wellused pots and pans. This is the book for anyone who wants to gather and feed friends around a table and nurture their conversation. It’s not about showing off with complicated techniques and obscure ingredients. Worlds away from the showy Food Network personalities, Tanis believes that the most satisfying meals—for both the cook and the guest—are invariably the simplest. Home cooks can easily re-create any of his 24 seasonal, market-driven menus, from spring’s Supper of the Lamb (Warm Asparagus Vinaigrette; Shoulder of Spring Lamb with Flageolet Beans and Olive Relish; Rum Baba with Cardamom) to winter’s North African Comfort Food (Carrot and Coriander Salad; Chicken Tagine with Pumpkin and Chickpeas). Best of all, Tanis is an engaging guide with a genuine gift for words, whose soulful approach to food will make any kitchen, big or small, a warm and compelling place to spend time.
The Pleasures of Cooking for One
Judith Jones - 2009
It’s a fulfilling and immensely economical process, one perfectly suited for our times—although, as Jones points out, cooking for one also means we can occasionally indulge ourselves in a favorite treat.Throughout, Jones is both our instructor and our mentor, suggesting basic recipes—such as tomato sauce, preserved lemons, pesto, and homemade stock—that all cooks should have on hand; teaching us how to improvise using an ingenious strategy of building meals through the week; and supplying us with a lifetime’s worth of tips and shortcuts. From Child’s advice for buying fresh meat to Beard’s challenge to beginning crêpe-makers and Lidia Bastianich’s tips for cooking perfectly sauced pasta, Jones’s book presents a wealth of acquired knowledge from our finest cooks.The Pleasures of Cooking for One is a vibrant, wise celebration of food and enjoying our own company from one of our most treasured cooking experts.
Planet Barbecue!: 309 Recipes, 60 Countries
Steven Raichlen - 2010
Setting out—again—on the barbecue trail four years ago, Steven Raichlen visited 60 countries—yes, 60 countries—and collected 309 of the tastiest, most tantalizing, easy-to-make, and guaranteed-to-wow recipes from every corner of the globe. Welcome to Planet Barbecue, the book that will take America’s passionate, obsessive, smoke-crazed live-fire cooks to the next level. Planet Barbecue, with full-color photographs throughout, is an unprecedented marriage of food and culture. Here, for example, is how the world does pork: in the Puerto Rican countryside cooks make Lechon Asado—stud a pork shoulder with garlic and oregano, baste it with annatto oil, and spit-roast it. From the Rhine-Palatine region of Germany comes Spiessbraten, thick pork steaks seasoned with nutmeg and grilled over a low, smoky fire. From Seoul, South Korea, Sam Gyeop Sal—grilled sliced pork belly. From Montevideo, Uruguay, Bandiola—butterflied pork loin stuffed with ham, cheese, bacon, and peppers. From Cape Town, South Africa, Sosaties—pork kebabs with dried apricots and curry. And so it goes for beef, fish, vegetables, shellfish—says Steven, "Everything tastes better grilled."In addition to the recipes the book showcases inventive ways to use the grill: Australia's Lamb on a Shovel, Bogota's Lomo al Trapo (Salt-Crusted Beef Tenderloin Grilled in Cloth), and from the Charantes region of France, Eclade de Moules—Mussels Grilled on Pine Needles. Do try this at home. What a planet—what a book.