Shanghai Station is a compelling tale of political terror and personal vengeance that unfolds in 1918 in China's colorful, turbulent port city of Shanghai. Well-born Alexander Karlov arrives in Shanghai with a mission, for the Bolsheviks have brutally killed his mother and abducted his twin sister. Vengeance commands Alexander's soul. It also entangles him in perilous allianceswith the Cossack hit man Ivan Semyonov; with Mei-lan, a woman who knows Shanghai's darkest secrets; with "Big Ear," leader of the city's most powerful Triad; with the French police; and with a spirited young American woman who calls herself Jesse James."

    While they’re closed, we need to nourish them.Beyond the basics of providing food and drink, restaurants fulfill a human need for connection. They’re a gathering place for family and friends, for first dates and breakups and birthdays and weddings. They’ve been there for us in good times and bad. Now it’s time for us to give back.To help support America’s restaurant industry, Penguin Random House is publishing Family Meal: Recipes from Our Community, a digital-only collection featuring 50 easy recipes from our family of food and drink authors that you can’t find anywhere else. Readers will get an exclusive look at what these culinary masters are cooking at home right now–recipes that feed, sustain, and provide connection to the world outside. From Mushroom Bolognese to Shrimp and Chorizo White Bean Stew to Chocolate Chip Olive Oil Cookies to Quarantine Wine Pairings, learn what Ina Garten, Samin Nosrat, Hugh Acheson, Dan Barber, Bobby Flay, Alison Roman, Christina Tosi, Kwame Onwuachi, Ruth Reichl, Claire Saffitz, Danny Trejo, and many others are cooking for comfort. All proceeds from Family Meal will benefit the Restaurant Workers’ Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund, which supports on-the-ground efforts in the restaurant community during this challenging time.

    In 1848, the East India Company engaged him to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China - territory forbidden to foreigners - to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea. For centuries, China had been the world's sole tea manufacturer. Britain purchased this fuel for its Empire by trading opium to the Chinese - a poisonous relationship Britain fought two destructive wars to sustain. The East India Company had profited lavishly as the middleman, but now it was sinking, having lost its monopoly to trade tea. Its salvation, it thought, was to establish its own plantations in the Himalayas of British India. There were just two problems: India had no tea plants worth growing, and the company wouldn't have known what to do with them if it had. Hence Robert Fortune's daring trip. The Chinese interior was off-limits and virtually unknown to the West, but that's where the finest tea was grown - the richest oolongs, soochongs and pekoes. And the Emperor aimed to keep it that way.

    Baby food is strained, pureed or mashed adult food - just a different version of the food you prepare for yourself.Here are three good reasons to make baby food at home:Knowing what's in it, therefore ensuring healthy and wholesome meals. Tailoring the texture to your baby's preferences. Shaping baby's tastes and helping him/her learn what fresh foods taste like. Whether choosing to make all baby's food at home, or just some of it, the blender is a great way to offer new flavors in a baby-friendly texture. Once a child begins to eat table food, there is always an occasion for a fruit smoothie or a nutritious blended dip.Here's a sampling of the deliciously easy recipes:Six Months and Older Peach and Pear Bananarama, Melon Madness, Zucchini and Nectarines, Roasted Vegetable PureeEight Months and Older Vegetable Paella, Humus for Beginners, Chicken with Red Peppers and Corn, Beefy BroccoliNine Months and Older Lemon Raspberry Yogurt, Over the Top Applesauce, Spinach and Tomatoes with Ricotta, Fisherman's PieTwelve Months and Older Orange Banana Smoothie, Very Berry Pears, Broccoli and Cauliflower Melt, Veggie Cream Sauce All the recipes in Blender Baby Food are accompanied by suggested age guidelines. Also included are lots of great tips for making baby food, storage and freezing guidelines as well as the appropriate way to thaw and reheat food. Plus, none of the recipes calls for any of the salt, sugar, starches or fillers found in many commercially prepared baby foods. Blender Baby Food helps parents give their baby the best nutritional advantage.

    Touchdown could mean that we've just won another football National Championship or it could indicate that a tornado is on the ground.  I could never be a storm chaser. I'm the one the storm chases. Funnels circle around me like shark fins as I bow my head in a school hallway, kneel down in a convent, or give birth to a newborn baby wailing in unison with the tornado sirens.  I huddle with toddlers in showers and beg for shelter in a McDonald's freezer. I remain a sitting duck in a second-floor apartment, and find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time while in the emergency room with storm victims.Life in the Rocket City is a thrill ride which is not for the faint of heart, this I know. So brace yourself for a front row seat on a ride through Tornado Valley! Alabama is the home of the world's deadliest twisters, and Huntsville is in the heart of the arena. Our space history is out of this world, but our tornado history will blow you away.Take a rollercoaster ride through the history of Alabama tornadoes before plunging into the gripping story of the Day of Devastation. Witness the stars falling on Alabama in 1833. Then get ready for the sky to fall! The plot twists as Huntsville's torrid tornado past comes alive in the 1974 Super Tornado Outbreak. The rollercoaster corkscrews as it encounters an unexpected twister in 1989 that slingshots the reader into the angry vortex on Airport Road. The ride cruises before taking another gut-wrenching dive that catapults its riders into an inverted twist from yet another Anderson Hills tornado in 1995. The town turns upside-down but Huntsville survives, revives, and thrives. But the worst is yet to come. Another tornado season is just around the corner. Beware of the month of April, especially on a Wednesday.The warning sirens wail, we're bombarded by softball-sized hail, and an EF3 tornado slams into the jail. It's just another day in Alabama, but the countdown clock is ticking. The next tornado warning could be "the one." Our voice drops to a whisper when we mention an EF5. We realize life is too short. The coaster accelerates. Can you feel the torque? We have no idea what's around the next bend. Suddenly, the nightmare comes true as the ride zooms out of control, this time in a free-fall on April 27, 2011. Alabama is bombarded by a record 62 tornadoes in one day. Abruptly, the ride comes to a screeching halt. The adrenaline rush subsides. You've just experienced Huntsville's Havoc. Immediately the passengers ask one another, "Do you want to ride again?" Some will and some swear, never again.

     This area was dangerous and many who had ventured there alone had never returned. But slowly over the course of this century settlers continued to push further west until regions such as West Virginia were populated with more and more adventurous young men and women. The settlement of these lands did not occur without difficulties and colonizers frequently came into conflict with the local Native American populations. Wills De Hass’s remarkable book History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of West Virginia is a fascinating history of how the lands of the west were first settled by white emigrants in the eighteenth century and how these settlers came into frequent strife with the Native American tribes who had previously lived there. Beginning with Columbus’ discovery of this great continent Wills De Hass charts the colonization of this expansive land. He records with brilliant detail the early encounters that Europeans had with the men and women that they found already living across the region and explains how various nations from across the Atlantic made their first tentative footholds on this newly discovered land. De Hass records how settlers were not only conflict with Native Americans but also with each other as this region descended into war, firstly during the French and Indian War and shortly afterwards during the American War of Independence. Particularly fascinating throughout the book are the biographical sketches of various well-known frontiersmen who were particularly influential in the Ohio Valley and northwestern Virginia. This book is perfect for anyone interested in the early settlement of western regions prior to 1795 and how this area was frequently in conflict as settlers attempted to assert their rights against the wishes of the Native American populations. Wills de Hass was a lecturer and writer on archaeological and historical subjects. His book History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of Western Virginia was first published in 1851 and De Hass passed away 1910.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Drawing on his personal experiences raising pigs as well as his sharp investigative instincts, Estabrook covers the range of the human-porcine experience. He embarks on nocturnal feral pig hunts in Texas. He visits farmers who raise animals in vast confinement barns for Smithfield and Tyson, two of the country’s biggest pork producers. And he describes the threat of infectious disease and the possible contamination of our food supply. Through these stories shines Estabrook’s abiding love for these remarkable creatures. Pigs are social, self-aware, and playful, not to mention smart enough to master the typical house dog commands of “sit, stay, come” twice as fast as your average pooch. With the cognitive abilities of at least three-year-olds, they can even learn to operate a modified computer. Unfortunately for the pigs, they’re also delicious to eat.Estabrook shows how these creatures are all too often subjected to lives of suffering in confinement and squalor, sustained on a drug-laced diet just long enough to reach slaughter weight, then killed on mechanized disassembly lines. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Pig Tales presents a lively portrait of those farmers who are taking an alternative approach, like one Danish producer that has a far more eco-friendly and humane system of pork production, and new, small family farms with free-range heritage pigs raised on antibiotic-free diets. It is possible to raise pigs responsibly and respectfully in a way that is good for producers, consumers, and some of the top chefs in America.Provocative, witty, and deeply informed, Pig Tales is bound to spark conversation at dinner tables across America.

    But the contemporary struggle between globalization and national sovereignty to determine the meaning of Mexican food is far from new. In fact, Mexican food was the product of globalization from the very beginning -- the Spanish conquest -- when European and Native American influences blended to forge the mestizo or mixed culture of Mexico. The historic struggle between globalization and the nation continued in the nineteenth century, as Mexicans searching for a national cuisine were torn between nostalgic "Creole" Hispanic dishes of the past and French haute cuisine, the global food of the day. Indigenous foods, by contrast, were considered strictly d class . Yet another version of Mexican food was created in the U.S. Southwest by Mexican American cooks, including the "Chili Queens" of San Antonio and tamale vendors of Los Angeles. When Mexican American dishes were appropriated by the fast food industry and carried around the world, Mexican elites rediscovered the indigenous roots of their national cuisine among the ancient Aztecs and the Maya. Even this Nueva Cocina Mexicana was a transnational phenomenon, called "New Southwestern" by chefs in the United States. Rivalries within this present-day gourmet movement recalled the nineteenth-century struggles between Creole, Native, and French foods. Planet Taco also seeks to recover the history of people who have been ignored in the struggles to define authentic Mexican, especially those who are marginal to both nations: Indians and Mexican Americans.

    Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life the woman behind the label, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, in this utterly intoxicating book that is as much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered and fascinating woman.

    In Vegetable Harvest, Patricia Wells presents a collection of recipes inspired by the garden she tends at her home in Provence.No one has done more than Patricia to bring the art and techniques of French cooking into American kitchens. Now, in her tenth cookbook, she covers every kind of produce favored by French cooks from north to south. In addition, there are charming profiles of French farmers, home gardeners, and cooks, with sixty-five stunning color photographs.From arugula to zucchini, Patricia offers up a wealth of dishes that incorporate vegetables, herbs, nuts, legumes, and fruits fresh from the garden. And her recipes aren't limited to summer's bounty—there are plenty for fall squash and winter potatoes, too.The recipes in Vegetable Harvest include everything from appetizers, soups, and salads, to meats, poultry, and pasta. There are classics like Spicy Butternut Squash Soup, Roast Leg of Lamb with Honey and Mint Crust, and Pea and Mint Risotto, as well as innovative new dishes that are sure to become time-honored favorites, such as Potato-Chive Waffles with Smoked Salmon, Capers, and Crème Fraîche, Tomato and Strawberry Gazpacho, and Zucchini Blossoms Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Basil. To finish your meal with a flourish, there are decadent, fruity desserts like Pistachio-Cherry Cake with Cherry Sorbet, Rhubarb-Berry Compote in Grenadine, and Crunchy Almond-Pear Cake. In addition, there is a chapter on pantry staples that includes Patricia's recipes for Zesty Lemon Salt, Truffle Butter, and Fresh Cilantro Sauce.And while Patricia's wonderful dishes sound sinful, they are in fact quite healthful, low in fat and calories; nutritional information is given for each recipe.With Vegetable Harvest, you'll be eating the best nature has to offer—fresh, flavorful produce—all year round.

    In various forms, spices have served as appetizers, digestives, antiseptics, therapeutics, tonics, and aphrodisiacs. Dangerous Tastes explores the captivating history of spices and aromatics: the fascination that they have aroused in us, and the roads and seaways by which trade in spices has gradually grown. Andrew Dalby, who has gathered information from sources in many languages, explores each spice, interweaving its general history with the story of its discovery and various uses. Dalby concentrates on traditional spices that are still part of world trade: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, saffron, and chili. He also discusses aromatics that are now little used in food but still belong to the spice trade and to traditional medicine: frankincense, myrrh, aloes-wood, balsam of Mecca. In addition, Dalby considers spices that were once important but that now are almost forgotten: long pepper, cubebs, grains of Paradise. Dangerous Tastes relates how the Aztecs, who enjoyed drinking hot chocolate flavored with chili and vanilla, sometimes added annatto (a red dye) to the drink. This not only contributed to the flavor but colored the drinker's mouth red, a reminder that drinking cacao was, in Aztec thought, parallel with drinking blood. In the section on ambergris, Dalby tells how different cultures explained the origin of this substance: Arabs and Persians variously thought of it as solidified sea spray, a resin that sprung from the depths of the sea, or a fungus that grows on the sea bed as truffles grow on the roots of trees. Some Chinese believed it was the spittle of sleeping dragons. Dalby has assembled a wealth of absorbing information into a fertile human history that spreads outward with the expansion of human knowledge of spices worldwide.

    Imagine getting dinner on the table for your family in forty-five minutes or less. In this inspired and indispensable new cookbook, Paula Deen’s sons show you how to whip up 125 delicious Southern-style recipes quicker than you can say, “Come and get it!”The Deen brothers know a lot about cooking good food fast. They hosted the Food Network hit Road Tasted, appear regularly on Good Morning America, and are co-owners (with their mom) of Savannah’s famous The Lady & Sons Restaurant. Their fast-paced lifestyles require no-fuss meals without a lot of prep. Jamie’s a family man who’s got to work, serve supper, and still chase after his three-year-old son. Bobby, one of People magazine’s most eligible bachelors, appreciates a good meal before heading out to work at his restaurant or for a night on the town. They’re the perfect guys to write a guide to swift dishes that don’t stint on taste or Southern authenticity.This mouthwatering collection offers dishes that really deliver on flavor yet can be prepared within a budget. There are no hard-to-find ingredients or tricky techniques to follow, just the tasty, irresistible cooking that the Deens have come to be known for. For lunch, dinner, or late-night snacks, if you’ve got meat in mind, how about Speedy Mini-Meat Loaves with Baked Sweet Potato Wedges? If chicken’s your choice, Broiled Pesto Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes is a satisfying possibility. And if you’re really on the go, there are whole chapters devoted to simple grilling and crockpot cooking.Lighter fare includes Turkey and Black Bean Burgers with Corny Salsa and Jerk Shrimp Kebabs with Tomatoes, Onions, and Peppers, and main-course salads such as Jamie’s Nutty Orange Chicken Salad. If you have kids, they will love Yummy Orange Beef Fingers. In fact, in honor of Jamie’s son, there’s a whole chapter devoted to kids’ food called “Jack’s Favorites” (which might become your kids’ favorites too!). And what’s a meal without dessert? Jamie and Bobby offer their favorite temptations, ranging from Chocolate Peanut-Butter Malteds to Quick Blackberry Cream Pie.Seasoned with wonderful never-before-seen color photos of the entire Deen family and sprinkled liberally with Jamie’s and Bobby’s down-home charm, and including signature dishes from The Lady & Sons Restaurant, The Deen Bros. Take It Easy is a treat in itself for anyone with a full life and an empty stomach.

    Kuh takes readers inside this high-stakes business, sharing little-known anecdotes, describing legendary cooks and bright new star chefs, and relating his own reminiscences. Populated by a host of food personalities, including Julia Child, M.F.K. Fisher, and James Beard, Kuh's social and cultural history of America's great restaurants reveals the dramatic transformations in U.S. cuisine. "If you believe we are what we eat, this is the book that tells you who we are." (The San Diego Union-Tribune) ßAUTHORBIO: Patric Kuh is a Paris-trained chef who has worked in preeminent restaurants in France, New York, and California. He has written a novel, as well as numerous articles for Gourmet, Esquire, Salon.com, and Los Angeles magazine.

    The author also explores the seasonal and ceremonial observances still practised by Hungarian Americans: bacon cookouts, fall grape festivals, weddings, Christmas, New Year's, and Easter.