Sandor Katz presents the concepts and processes behind fermentation in ways that are simple enough to guide a reader through their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, and in-depth enough to provide greater understanding and insight for experienced practitioners.While Katz expertly contextualizes fermentation in terms of biological and cultural evolution, health and nutrition, and even economics, this is primarily a compendium of practical information--how the processes work; parameters for safety; techniques for effective preservation; troubleshooting; and more.With two-color illustrations and extended resources, this book provides essential wisdom for cooks, homesteaders, farmers, gleaners, foragers, and food lovers of any kind who want to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for arguably the oldest form of food preservation, and part of the roots of culture itself.Readers will find detailed information on fermenting vegetables; sugars into alcohol (meads, wines, and ciders); sour tonic beverages; milk; grains and starchy tubers; beers (and other grain-based alcoholic beverages); beans; seeds; nuts; fish; meat; and eggs, as well as growing mold cultures, using fermentation in agriculture, art, and energy production, and considerations for commercial enterprises. Sandor Katz has introduced what will undoubtedly remain a classic in food literature, and is the first--and only--of its kind.

    After her many years as a teacher and writer, she realized that there was no comprehensive primer for vegetarian cooking, no single book that taught vegetarians basic cooking techniques, how to combine ingredients, and how to present vegetarian dishes with style. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone teaches readers how to build flavor into vegetable dishes, how to develop vegetable stocks, and how to choose, care for, and cook the many vegetables available to cooks today. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is in every way Deborah Madison’s magnum opus, featuring 1,400 recipes suitable for committed vegetarians, vegans (in most cases), and everyone else who loves good food. For nonvegetarians, the recipes can be served alongside meat, fish, or fowl and incorporated into a truly contemporary style of eating that emphasizes vegetables and fruits for health and well-being.Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is the most comprehensive vegetarian cookbook ever published. The recipes, which range from appetizers to desserts, are colorful and imaginative as well as familiar and comforting. Madison introduces readers to innovative main course salads; warm and cold soups; vegetable braises and cobblers; golden-crusted gratins; Italian favorites like pasta, polenta, pizza, and risotto; savory tarts and galettes; grilled sandwiches and quesadillas; and creative dishes using grains and heirloom beans. At the heart of the book is the A-to-Z vegetable chapter, which describes the unique personalities of readily available vegetables, the sauces and seasonings that best complement them, and the simplest ways to prepare them. “Becoming a Cook” teaches cooking basics, from holding a knife to planning a menu, and “Foundations of Flavor” discusses how to use sauces, herbs, spices, oils, and vinegars to add flavor and character to meatless dishes. In each chapter, the recipes range from those suitable for everyday dining to dishes for special occasions. And through it all, Madison presents a philosophy of cooking that is both practical and inspiring.Despite its focus on meatless cooking, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is not just for vegetarians—it's for everyone interested in learning how to cook vegetables creatively, healthfully, and passionately. The recipes are remarkably straightforward, using easy-to-find ingredients in inspiring combinations. Some are simple, others more complex, but all are written with an eye toward the seasonality of produce. Madison's joyful and free-spirited approach to cooking will send you into the kitchen with confidence and enthusiasm. Whether you are a kitchen novice or an experienced cook, this wonderful cookbook has something for everyone.

    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.

    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.

    It won the James Beard Award, inspired a television show, and has sold over 100,000 copies. All of the original mouth-watering recipes remain, now supplemented by many new recipes carefully crafted by master-chef Marcel Desaulniers. All preparations and ingredients are included with full-color photographs, allowing mere mortals to create chocolate masterpieces such as the eponymous Death by Chocolate, Chocolate Temptation, and Chocolate Dementia.

    Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; Hamilton’s own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton’s idyllic past and her own future family—the result of a prickly marriage that nonetheless yields lasting dividends. By turns epic and intimate, Gabrielle Hamilton’s story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion.

    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.

    Now a butcher, cook, and talented writer, she serves up stories and recipes inspired by beloved books and the food that gives their characters depth and personality. From the breakfast sausage in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods to chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream from Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, these books and the tasty treats in them put her on the road to happiness. Cooking through the books that changed her life, Nicoletti shares fifty recipes, including:* The perfect soft-boiled egg in Jane Austen's Emma* Grilled peaches with homemade ricotta in tribute to Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That"* New England clam chowder inspired by Herman Melville's Moby-Dick* Fava bean and chicken liver mousse crostini (with a nice Chianti) after Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs* Brown butter crêpes from Gillian Flynn's Gone GirlBeautifully illustrated, clever, and full of heart, Voracious will satisfy anyone who loves a fantastic meal with family and friends-or curling up with a great novel for dessert.

    Acclaimed as the Julia Child of Mexican cooking, Kennedy has been an intrepid, indefatigable student of Mexican foodways for more than fifty years and has published several classic books on the subject, including The Cuisines of Mexico (now available in The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, a compilation of her first three books), The Art of Mexican Cooking, My Mexico, and From My Mexican Kitchen. Her uncompromising insistence on using the proper local ingredients and preparation techniques has taught generations of cooks how to prepare--and savor--the delicious, subtle, and varied tastes of Mexico.In Oaxaca al Gusto, Kennedy takes us on an amazing journey into one of the most outstanding and colorful cuisines in the world. The state of Oaxaca is one of the most diverse in Mexico, with many different cultural and linguistic groups, often living in areas difficult to access. Each group has its own distinctive cuisine, and Diana Kennedy has spent many years traveling the length and breadth of Oaxaca to record in words and photographs "these little-known foods, both wild and cultivated, the way they were prepared, and the part they play in the daily or festive life of the communities I visited." Oaxaca al Gusto is the fruit of these labors--and the culmination of Diana Kennedy's life's work.Organized by regions, Oaxaca al Gusto presents some three hundred recipes--most from home cooks--for traditional Oaxacan dishes. Kennedy accompanies each recipe with fascinating notes about the ingredients, cooking techniques, and the food's place in family and communal life. Lovely color photographs illustrate the food and its preparation. A special feature of the book is a chapter devoted to the three pillars of the Oaxacan regional cuisines--chocolate, corn, and chiles. Notes to the cook, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index complete the volume.An irreplaceable record of the infinite world of Oaxacan gastronomy, Oaxaca al Gusto belongs on the shelf of everyone who treasures the world's traditional regional cuisines.

    Bar Tartine--co-founded by Tartine Bakery's Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt--is obsessed over by locals and visitors, critics and chefs. It is a restaurant that defies categorization, but not description: Everything is made in-house and layered into extraordinarily flavorful food. Helmed by Nick Balla and Cortney Burns, it draws on time-honored processes (such as fermentation, curing, pickling), and a core that runs through the cuisines of Central Europe, Japan, and Scandinavia to deliver a range of dishes from soups to salads, to shared plates and sweets. With more than 150 photographs, this highly anticipated cookbook is a true original.

    To search out the finest Spanish recipes, Penelope Casas traveled over 25,000 miles, crisscrossing the country. Region by region, she found local cooks and discovered their secrets, often putting to paper recipes that had never before been set down. In The Foods and Wines of Spain, she brings us savory meat and fish pies from the Celtic lands of Galicia; a legendary bean dish from the coastal mountains of Asturias; the renowned romesco sauce of ground almonds and dried sweet peppers from Cataluña; paellas from the rice paddies of Valencia; simple but exquisite fish dishes from Andalucía; breads from the wheat fields of Castilla; honey-drenched pastries from Extremadura; and much more.

    I love Spanish food, I've been going there since I was a young boy - but until quite recently I don't think people really took the food seriously. Thanks to a handful of really dedicated Spanish chefs and a growing enthusiasm for its rugged flavours, that has all begun to change. To me the underlying point of journeying to Spain would be to discover the 'duende' in the cooking. By that I mean a sense of soul, of authenticity. The word is normally used in flamenco but I think it could be equally applied to the art of Spanish cooking because to my mind, in really good food, there is a communication between the cook and diner that amounts to art.' Rick SteinIn his beautifully designed and illustrated cookbook to accompany a major BBC2, 4-part series, Rick has selected over 140 recipes that capture the authentic taste of Spain today. Spain is a country that tantalises every sense with its colourful sights, evocative music, vibrant traditions and bold cookery. Spanish cooking has a rich history, with flavours reflecting a broad range of cultural influences. Rick samples his way through the specialties and hidden treats of each region, taking in the changing landscape from the mountainous northern regions through the Spanish plains to Mediterranean beaches.With over 100 Spanish recipes and location photographs, this is an essential cookbook for food-lovers as well as a stunning culinary guide to a diverse country.

    Julia’s praise was echoed by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which referred to Dorie’s “wonderfully encouraging voice” and “the sense of a real person who is there to help should you stumble.” Now in a big, personal, and personable book, Dorie captures all the excitement of French home cooking, sharing disarmingly simple dishes she has gathered over years of living in France. Around My French Table includes many superb renditions of the great classics: a glorious cheese-domed onion soup, a spoon-tender beef daube, and the “top-secret” chocolate mousse recipe that every good Parisian cook knows—but won’t reveal. Hundreds of other recipes are remarkably easy: a cheese and olive quick bread, a three-star chef’s Basque potato tortilla made with a surprise ingredient (potato chips), and an utterly satisfying roast chicken for “lazy people.” Packed with lively stories, memories, and insider tips on French culinary customs, Around My French Table will make cooks fall in love with France all over again, or for the first time.

    But American food, like its history, is a world of its own. This enticingly fresh book introduces modern listeners to lost American food traditions and leads them on a tantalizing culinary journey through the evolution of our vibrant cuisine and culture. Covering a hundred different foods from the Native American-era through today and featuring over a dozen recipes and photos, this fascinating history of American food will delight history buffs and food lovers alike.

    A collection of accessible Italian recipes, many culled from the author's popular ''Molto Mario'' cooking show, instructs home chefs on how to simplify and understand everything from purchasing ingredients to mastering elaborate preparation procedures.