The Slow Cook Book


Heather Whinney - 2011
    Meat will be gloriously tender, flavors will combine beautifully - and all with minimal attention from the cook. This book celebrates slow cooking in all its forms. Its 200 recipes range from typical slow-cook fare - hearty, warming stews and pot roasts - to more surprising inclusions such as cakes and bakes. Acknowledging the different ways of approaching slow cooking, it contains two methods for each recipe: one using an electric crockpot, the other using a combination of traditional pots, pans, stovetop, and oven. A practical introduction demonstrates techniques step-by-step and provides information on key ingredients and how to use them for the best results. Find everything you need to become a slow-cook expert in this attractive, but great-value, technique resource and recipe book.

Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal


Margaret Visser - 1986
    Presented as a meal, each chapter represents a different course or garnish. Borrowing from Byron's classic poem "Don Juan" for her title ("Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner"), writer Margaret Visser looks to the most ordinary American dinner for her subject - corn on the cob with butter and salt, roast chicken with rice, salad dressed in lemon juice and olive oil, and ice cream - submerging herself in the story behind each food. In this indulgent and perceptive guide we hear the history of Corn Flakes, why canned California olives are so unsatisfactory (they're picked green, chemically blackened, then sterilized), and the fact that in Africa, citrus fruit is eaten rind and all. For food lovers of all kinds, this unexpectedly funny and serious book is a treasure of information, shedding light on one of our most favorite pastimes.

A History of Food in 100 Recipes


William Sitwell - 2012
    But do we know where these everyday recipes came from, who invented them, and using what techniques? This book provides a colourful and entertaining journey through the history of cuisine, celebrating the world's greatest dishes.

Simple to Spectacular: How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication


Jean-Georges Vongerichten - 2000
    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.

Mexico: The Beautiful Cookbook


Marilyn Tausend - 1991
    Mexican food is history itself, a culinary marriage of native Indian foods such as corn, beans, squash, chocolate and chiles with the Spanish contribution of wheat, rice and meats. The merger resulted in one of the world's most intriguing and least understood cuisines.Mexico the Beautiful Cookbook captures the fascinating culinary heritage of Mexico in one stunning volume. The recipes, prepared by Acapulco-based Susanna Palazuelos, represent a vast selection of authentic Mexican dishes, from all of the states of Mexico. Many of them are unusual regional dishes that have been passed along by word of mouth, such as garlic chicken from Veracruz, and San Luis Potosi's own version of enchiladas. The traditional favorites are here--chiles en nogada, tamales, pozole, tortilla soup--along with some contemporary surprises such as tequila mousse, cilantro soup and lobster crepes. With pine nut sauce. Other well-known Mexican cooks have also contributed their own special recipes to the book.All 250 recipes have been photographed by Ignacio Urquiza, one of Mexico's foremost food and travel photographers. He also provided the scenic photographs, which lead the reader through the regions of Mexico, revealing the markets, the countryside, the way the people live and eat in this varied and beautiful country. Marilyn Tausend's text provides an informative accompaniment to the recipes and photos, exploring Mexico's dramatic history through its food.Mexico the Beautiful Cookbook is the essential cookbook for anyone interested in Mexico and Mexican food.

Death by Chocolate: The Last Word on a Consuming Passion


Marcel Desaulniers - 1993
    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.

The School of Essential Ingredients


Erica Bauermeister - 2009
    It soon becomes clear, however, that each one seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Students include Claire, a young mother struggling with the demands of her family; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer learning to adapt to life in America; and Tom, a widower mourning the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Chef Lillian, a woman whose connection with food is both soulful and exacting, helps them to create dishes whose flavor and techniques expand beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of her students’ lives. One by one the students are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of Lillian’s food, including a white-on-white cake that prompts wistful reflections on the sweet fragility of love and a peppery heirloom tomato sauce that seems to spark one romance but end another. Brought together by the power of food and companionship, the lives of the characters mingle and intertwine, united by the revealing nature of what can be created in the kitchen.

Raw Food: A Complete Guide for Every Meal of the Day


Erica Palmcrantz Aziz - 2010
    No one should have to sacrifice time, money, or flavor to enjoy the astounding health advantages of going raw. Learn how to soak and sprout vegetables and nuts to increase the nutritional value, what types of kitchen tools are best for preparing raw food, and which foods to have on-hand for use in raw recipes. Recipes include:Broccoli Saad with RaisinsIndian Cauliflower MashBeet Burgers on Romaine BunsI Can’t Believe It’s Not Salmon PatePapaya CarpaccioStuffed PeppersAnd much more!From creative salads to spicy burritos to chocolate mousse, every recipe will broaden your raw-food horizons. Complete with recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, desserts, and side dishes, Raw Food is an innovative approach to a wholesome way of eating.

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat


Bee Wilson - 2012
    It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks.Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious - or at least edible. Tools shape what we eat, but they have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide of the modernist kitchen. It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson provides a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of everyday objects we often take for granted. Knives - perhaps our most important gastronomic tool - predate the discovery of fire, whereas the fork endured centuries of ridicule before gaining widespread acceptance; pots and pans have been around for millennia, while plates are a relatively recent invention. Many once-new technologies have become essential elements of any well-stocked kitchen - mortars and pestles, serrated knives, stainless steel pots, refrigerators. Others have proved only passing fancies, or were supplanted by better technologies; one would be hard pressed now to find a water-powered egg whisk, a magnet-operated spit roaster, a cider owl, or a turnspit dog. Although many tools have disappeared from the modern kitchen, they have left us with traditions, tastes, and even physical characteristics that we would never have possessed otherwise. Blending history, science, and anthropology, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be, and how their influence has shaped modern food culture. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.

Cook Yourself Thin: The Delicious Way to Drop a Dress Size


Harry Eastwood - 2007
    It’s time to throw out those ready meals, step away from the microwave and discover how to cut calories without compromising on taste. The Cook Yourself Thin team don’t do denial or sums or regimes, but whether you want to lose a few inches, a few pounds, or stay in shape, they’ve got tips and tricks and 80 delicious recipes up their sleeves to make it easy. Simply discover the foods that are your downfall, swap for fantastic skinny alternatives and watch the pounds drop off. Never has dieting been so easy or tasted so good!

Uncorked: The Novice's Guide to Wine


Paul Kreider - 2011
    This entertaining guide is presented in an easy-to-understand format, covering topics on everything from the winemaking process, wine vocabulary, and red wine versus white wine, to tasting and selecting wines for any occasion. With a helpful glossary and brief topic-by-topic chapters, this accessible, snobbery-free guide is the perfect companion for purchasing wines and navigating your way skillfully at parties, dinners, wine tastings, wine shops, and more. Learn how to:Understand the origins of wine and the process of making it Know and speak the language of wine with terms like tannins, oaks, residual sugar, dry, medium- and full-bodied, and more Properly taste and drink wines   Choose wines to complement foods Save money by making choices that suit your palate

Healthy: Slow Cooker Recipes


Judith Finlayson - 2005
    Besides a nutritional analysis, each recipe features: an icon denoting vegan-friendly recipes; 'Mindful morsels', which highlight particular nutritional elements; 'Natural Wonders', which provide an overview of the healthful benefits.

What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water - Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers


Andrew Dornenburg - 2006
    for Best Book on Matching Food and Wine<!--EndFragment--> Prepared by a James Beard Award-winning author team, "What to Drink with What You Eat" provides the most comprehensive guide to matching food and drink ever compiled--complete with practical advice from the best wine stewards and chefs in America. 70 full-color photos.

My Mother's Kitchen: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and the Meaning of Life


Peter Gethers - 2017
    The problem is, although he was raised to love food and wine he doesn't really know how to cook. So he embarks upon an often hilarious and always touching culinary journey that will ultimately allow him to bring his mother's friends and loved ones to the table one last time.The daughter of a restaurateur--the restaurant was New York's legendary Ratner's--Judy Gethers discovered a passion for cooking in her 50s. In time, she became a mentor and friend to several of the most famous chefs in America, including Wolfgang Puck, Nancy Silverton and Jonathan Waxman; she also wrote many cookbooks and taught cooking alongside Julia Child. In her 80s, she was robbed of her ability to cook by a debilitating stroke. But illness has brought her closer than ever to her son: Peter regularly visits her so they can share meals, and he can ask questions about her colorful past, while learning her kitchen secrets. Gradually his ambition becomes manifest: he decides to learn how to cook his mother the meal of her dreams and thereby tell the story of her life to all those who have loved her.With his trademark wit and knowing eye, Peter Gethers has written an unforgettable memoir about how food and family can do much more than feed us--they can nourish our souls.

Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food


Megan Kimble - 2015
    But she cared about where food came from, how it was made, and what it did to her body: so she decided to go an entire year without eating processed foods. Unprocessed is the narrative of Megan's extraordinary year, in which she milled wheat, extracted salt from the sea, milked a goat, slaughtered a sheep, and more--all while earning an income that fell well below the federal poverty line.What makes a food processed? As Megan would soon realize, the answer to that question went far beyond cutting out snacks and sodas, and became a fascinating journey through America's food system, past and present. She learned how wheat became white; how fresh produce was globalized and animals industrialized. But she also discovered that in daily life, as she attempted to balance her project with a normal social life--which included dating--the question of what made a food processed was inextricably tied to gender and economy, politics and money, work and play.Backed by extensive research and wide-ranging interviews--and including tips on how to ditch processed food and transition to a real-food lifestyle--Unprocessed offers provocative insights not only on the process of food, but also the processes that shape our habits, communities, and day-to-day lives.