And the book itself, rather like its controversial author, represents something new in cookery books. Ramsay has, of course, made a reputation for himself not just for his considerable abilities as a chef, but as a short tempered martinet, tearing into his luckless students with expletive-filled rage. But that spleen is crucial to the man's philosophy (born out of a desire for perfection), and it is conveyed between the delicious-looking recipes presented here (cooking, as Ramsay forcibly reminds us, can't be made up as you go along -- you've got to work, work, work). The recipes themselves look absolutely amazing, such as pan-roasted fillet of John Dory with Cromer Crab, crushed new potatoes and a basil vinaigrette (and it should be noted that Quentin Bacon's beautiful photographs are a massive asset to the book, doing full justice to the visual appeal of the food). In deserts, too, the aspirational appeal here is impressive -- perhaps most of us would not be able to turn out (without trial and error) a raspberry, lemon and basil millefeuille with milk ice cream that looks quite as breathtaking as it does here, but Ramsay's book is calculated to inspire us. Perhaps reading Chef is the perfect way to help us try to cook like Gordon Ramsay; for most of us, a spell in his restaurant kitchen would mean blood on the floor -- here we can learn from his cookery genius without having to put up with the tirades. What more could any aspiring chef want? --Barry Forshaw

    The book to accompany the second season of the prime-time flagship BBC2 TV series

    In fact, people in just about any field can learn from Charlie's methods. For this breakthrough business guide, journalist Paul Clarke conducted in-depth interviews with Charlie and his associates, distilling invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs and hospitality professionals who are committed to creating highly respected and innovative businesses. Anyone who wants to improve their business will be sure to learn something new from this Midwestern dynamo.

    Chefs at many fine restaurants offer guests an amuse-bouche, a bite-sized treat that excites the tongue and delights the eye, before the meal is served. Nobody does it better than the celebrated executive chef/partner of Chicago’s Tru, Rick Tramonto. Amuse-bouche are a fa-vorite of diners at Tru, many of whom come expressly to enjoy the “grand amuse"--an assortment of four different taste sensations.Amuse-Bouche offers an array of recipes, from elegant and sophisticated to casual and surprising—but always exquisite—that will inspire home cooks to share these culinary jewels with their guests. From Black Mission Figs with Mascarpone Foam and Prosciutto di Parma to Curried Three-Bean Salad, from Soft Polenta with Forest Mushrooms to Blue Cheese Foam with Port Wine Reduction, Tramonto’s creations will embolden the novice and the experienced cook alike to experiment with unfamiliar ingredients and techniques.Organized by type of amuse and season of the year, the book also includes a directory of sources for specialty products. With more than a hundred recipes and with fifty-two full-page color photographs by James Beard Award--winning photographer Tim Turner, Amuse-Bouche enchants the eyes as much as an amuse pleases the palate.

    Simple to Spectacular introduces a unique concept developed by one of the world's top chefs, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything and the New York Times's hugely popular column "The Minimalist." Ever since their award-winning collaboration on Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef, the acclaimed duo has been cooking up a repertoire of new dishes that can be prepared in any of five progressively sophisticated ways.Simple to Spectacular features a total of 250 recipes in 50 groups. Each group begins with a simple, elegant recipe--a few ingredients combined for maximum effect--followed by fully detailed, increasingly elaborate variations. For example, a recipe for Grilled Shrimp with Thyme and Lemon leads to Grilled Shrimp and Zucchini on Rosemary Skewers, Grilled Shrimp with Apple Ketchup, Thai-style Grilled Shrimp on Lemongrass Skewers, and Grilled Shrimp Balls with Cucumber and Yogurt.Every aspect of the meal is covered, from superb soups and salads to unforgettable side dishes, entrees, and desserts. In Simple to Spectacular, everything--from the basics to innovations by a four-star chef--is tailored for a quick Tuesday night dinner or an elegant weekend party.  And in the now-classic Vongerichten-Bittman style, all of the recipes can be made in the kitchen of any home cook. With 80 full-color photographs giving a mouthwatering view of the Simple-to-Spectacular transformations, readers and cooks will eagerly explore the possibilities.Jean-Georges Vongerichten (right) won the 1998 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef and Best New Restaurant. His Manhattan restaurants include Vong, Jo Jo, The Mercer Kitchen, and Jean Georges, which earned a rare four-star rating from the New York Times.  In Simple to Spectacular, two titans of the food world have created a truly groundbreaking cookbook.  Here are 250 superb recipes arranged in a uniquely useful way: a basic recipe and four increasingly sophisticated variations, with each group (there are 50 groups in all) based on a given technique.  This ingenious organization enables cooks of all levels of expertise to understand how a recipe is created and to re-create the brilliantly simple recipes and dazzling variations from one of our best food writers and home cooks teamed with one of America's greatest chefs.

    And definitely the sweariest.For over three years now, Esther Walker has been entertaining foodies with her hilarious Recipe Rifle blog. Charting her progress from bad cook to, well, not-so-bad cook, she is blistering honest about what works, and what doesn’t, in the kitchen. If a recipe works for her, it will probably work for you. If it doesn’t, she will swear quite a lot.Crammed full of recipes, tips for entertaining, stories of pregnancy and tales of her husband (restaurant critic Giles Coren) coming home drunk, The Bad Cook will make you laugh out loud. It will also make you want to start cooking.

    Now you can relieve your worst IBS symptoms by adopting a low FODMAP diet. FODMAPs are simple carbohydrates that can be the hidden culprits behind digestive disorders. The Low FODMAP 28-Day Plan, from New York Times and Amazon best-selling publisher Rockridge Press, is a straightforward 4-week plan for removing FODMAPs from your diet and banishing digestive pain forever. With easy guidelines and simple recipes, you’ll learn how to identify and avoid FODMAP foods, and make healthy and delicious FODMAP free meals in your own kitchen. With The Low FODMAP 28-Day Plan you will soothe your digestive system and make it easy to enjoy meals again, with:•105 recipes for delicious, nutritious low FODMAP dishes including Huevos Rancheros, Maple-Soy Glazed Salmon, Butterscotch Pudding, and Spiced Popcorn •A “symptom tracker” so you can log what you’re eating and how it affects your symptoms •An easy-to-follow quickstart guide to help you begin a low FODMAP diet •Comprehensive lists of foods to enjoy or avoid based on their FODMAP content, •10 tips for sticking to a low FODMAP diet when dining out

    No longer is the choice simply red or white, or wines from California, France, or Italy. The typical shopper today has access to wines from those regions plus South Africa, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia. If that isn’t confusing enough, Asian, Creole, and Latin American dishes might find their way onto the same table. Perfect Pairings, by well-known Master Sommelier and respected restaurant industry veteran Evan Goldstein, provides straightforward, practical advice for how to pair wine with each meal. The quintessential resource for matching wine and food, Perfect Pairings acts as a guide to wine, wine terminology, and wine-growing regions as well as a cooking guide: this versatile coffee table book includes 58 companion recipes developed by celebrated chef Joyce Goldstein that showcase each type of wine.Perfect Pairings combines in-depth explorations of twelve grape varietals, sparkling wines, and dessert wines with guidance about foods that enhance the wide range of styles for each varietal. Whether the Chardonnay is earthy and flinty, or rich, buttery, and oak-infused; whether the Pinot Noir fruity and tropical, or aged and mature, Goldstein explains how to match it with dishes that will make the wine sing. His clear, educational, and entertaining approach towards intimidating gastronomical questions provides information for all readers, professional and amateur chefs alike. * 16 full-color photos * Six seasonal and special occasion menus * Tips for enhancing food and wine experiences, both at home and in restaurants * Glossary of wine terminology * Overview of the world’s primary wine-growing regions * Recommendations of more than five hundred wines, ranging in price from everyday to splurge

    Virgil Marcel is flying to London as a guest of the ancient and mysterious Everlasting Club. Virgil is the obnoxious, spoiled rotten son of Frank Marcel, founder of the Golden Boy chain, Howard Johnson-like restaurants in California; the only work he's done since college is to revamp his father's one fancy restaurant, now the last word in L.A. chic. In London, a black chauffeur, Butterworth, drives Virgil blindfolded to the club, where his host Kingsley, an upper-class twit, explains the club's tradition of ``indulging in excess.'' Virgil eats and drinks with the same swinish abandon as the other members, all male, but gets into trouble when he French-kisses the naked girl who is the motionless table decoration. So begins this story of gastronomic and erotic debauch; Nicholson cuts between England (where Virgil will be kidnapped by the sexy dinner-table centerpiece, then rescued by the God-fearing Butterworth) and California, where Frank, in the course of investigating his wife's supposed infidelity, discovers his prized chef Leo ejaculating into the sauces. Nicholson sustains a tone of campy menace (by now there's a whiff of cannibalism in the air) as he brings all these characters to London in a plot that zigs and zags entertainingly, though with increasing improbability. Even more troubling, though, are the factual accounts of gastronomic and other excesses interspersed throughout. Aside from the borderline tackiness of linking those notorious modern cannibals, the Andean crash survivors, to the high jinks of the club, these passages suggest authorial obsessions run amok. Spicy fare, though some may find the aftertaste disagreeable.

    But it's not just about food in this renowned Chicago hot spot. It's about a subtle relationship between food, wine, ambiance, and service--a relationship Trotter has perfected by hiring passionate staff with the ability to surpass his incredibly high standards. In LESSONS IN SERVICE, journalist Edmund Lawler reveals the secrets behind Trotter's unequaled success and shows other businesses how to improve their levels of service. From unconventional motivational techniques, staff empowerment, and mentoring to role playing, preservice meetings, and an obsessive pursuit of excellence--Trotter leaves nothing to chance. The service is a nightly ballet that leaves guests feeling pampered, educated, and of course, wonderfully satisfied. Follow the advice of Charlie Trotter, and no matter what your business, your customers will keep coming back again and again.- Charlie Trotter's was nominated for the James Beard Foundation's 2001 Outstanding Service Award, and the restaurant received the Beard Foundation's Best Restaurant in America Award in 2000.- Charlie Trotter's books have sold over 300,000 copies.

    Here are the top five ways to use food to boost your metabolism and drop the pounds.* Choose foods that are high in protein and low in unhealthy fats.* Choose foods that are high in essential fatty acids, such as the all important omega-3 fatty acids, which are healthy for your heart and brain in particular.* Choose foods that are high in fiber, as these foods require the body to expend more energy in the digestive process.* Choose spicy foods.* Choose foods that are high in minerals like calcium.Foods that fit into these five categories will often be very useful in helping you boost your metabolism and lose weight. As you will see in this book, the best metabolism boosting foods will sometimes even meet more than one of the five criteria.Our health researchers selected the 101 best foods for helping you boost your metabolism. Through making the proper food choices, you should have no trouble losing even the most stubborn weight. The food selections that you will read about in this book were not picked randomly, but instead were chosen for a variety of specific reasons. We not only looked for foods that successfully boost metabolism, but also we looked for foods that are simultaneously nutritious.

    We travelled the world searching for the perfect steak, but discovered that beef from traditional breeds, reared the old-fashioned way right here in Britain, and cooked simply over real charcoal, packed more flavour than anything we tried on our travels.'The critics have hailed Hawksmoor as one of the great restaurant openings of recent years. Their credo is simple: the best ingredients - dictionary-thick steaks from Longhorn cattle traditionally reared in North Yorkshire by multi-award-winners The Ginger Pig, dry-aged for at least thirty-five days, simply cooked on a real charcoal grill. Their cocktails, wines and desserts too have been applauded to the echo.Hawksmoor at Home is a practical cookbook which shows you how to buy and cook great steak and seafood and indeed much else (including how to cook the both the 'best burger in Britain' and the 'best roast beef in Britain'); how to mix terrific cocktails and choose wine to accompany your meal. Above all Hawksmoor at Home entertains and informs in the inimitable 'Hawksmoor' way.

    But it doesn’t need to be so. Peter Miller makes lunch every day at his bookshop in Seattle. It may be only a salad or a sandwich, but he and his team put it together each day without a formal kitchen. It is a moment set aside, away from the computer and the clock.Lunch at the Shop is a call to lunch. On the most basic level, the book is a primer for making lunch for a few people at work, including more than 50 tried-and-tested, deliciously simple recipes. However, the essence of the book is about adopting a lifestyle that allows food to be savored every day, in a way that is easy, fresh, healthy, and a pleasure. “You may not know it yet, but you are hungry for what is bound and written on these pages. As he did for me, Peter Miller will help fill you up. I’m sure of it.” —Matthew Dillon, James Beard Award–winning chef of Sitka & Spruce, The Corson Building, and Bar Sajor

     Reducing FODMAP intake by consuming low-FODMAP foods and avoiding high-FODMAP foods may help to control or eliminate symptoms associated with these digestive diseases and may lead to a more comfortable belly. The countless number of books on the low-FODMAP diet serves as an indirect measure of the successfulness of the diet. For a varied and balanced low-FODMAP diet it is helpful to have information on the FODMAP rating for more than 50 foods. The FODMAP Navigator offers charts with FODMAP ratings for more than 500 foods, food additives and prebiotics. This FODMAP Navigator is an excellent chart book for everybody intending to go on or already conducting a low-FODMAP diet.

    Part travelogue, part cookbook, part naturalist's encounter, and part love letter, Kaminsky's book takes us from Kentucky, Burgundy, and Madrid to the Yucatán and back to Brooklyn to tell the tale of the pig. From the wondrous techniques of tailgate chefs to Mayan home cooking, competitive barbecuing, and the ancient rite of the pig killing that has bound communities together over the centuries, Pig Perfect brings together an oddball pork-loving band of chefs, farmers, and food lovers and offers a tasty history of the oft underappreciated pig.