He tasted it long ago, in a restaurant, and has been trying to reproduce it ever since. Without success. Now, on the theory that practice makes perfect, he sets out to bake peasant bread every week until he gets it right. He bakes his loaf from scratch. And because Alexander is nothing if not thorough, he really means from scratch: growing, harvesting, winnowing, threshing, and milling his own wheat.   An original take on the six-thousand-year-old staple of life, 52 Loaves explores the nature of obsession, the meditative quality of ritual, the futility of trying to re-create something perfect, our deep connection to the earth, and the mysterious instinct that makes all of us respond to the aroma of baking bread.

    The result is this collection of more than 120 old-fashioned recipes that deserve a place in home kitchens today.Americas Test Kitchen

    From Brioche au Chocolat and Lemon Raspberry Cake to perfect croissants, Flour Bakery-owner Joanne Chang's repertoire of baked goods is deep and satisfying. While at Harvard she discovered that nothing made her happier than baking cookies leading her on a path that eventually resulted in a sticky bun triumph over Bobby Flay on the Food Network'sThrowdown. Almost 150 Flour recipes such as Milky Way Tart and Dried Fruit Focaccia are included, plus Joanne's essential baking tips, making this mouthwatering collection an accessible, instant classic cookbook for the home baker.

    With menus for the four seasons, she shares the ways her family prepared and enjoyed food, savoring the delights of each special time of year:• The fresh taste of spring—the first shad, wild mushrooms, garden strawberries, field greens and salads . . . honey from woodland bees . . . a ring mold of chicken with wild mushroom sauce . . . the treat of braised mutton after sheepshearing.• The feasts of summer—garden-ripe vegetables and fruits relished at the peak of flavor . . . pan-fried chicken, sage-flavored pork tenderloin, spicy baked tomatoes, corn pudding, fresh blackberry cobbler, and more, for hungry neighbors on Wheat-Threshing Day . . . Sunday Revival, the event of the year, when Edna’s mother would pack up as many as fifteen dishes (what with her pickles and breads and pies) to be spread out on linen-covered picnic tables under the church’s shady oaks . . . hot afternoons cooled with a bowl of crushed peaches or hand-cranked custard ice cream.• The harvest of fall—a fine dinner of baked country ham, roasted newly dug sweet potatoes, and warm apple pie after a day of corn-shucking . . . the hunting season, with the deliciously “different” taste of game fattened on hickory nuts and persimmons . . . hog-butchering time and the making of sausages and liver pudding . . . and Emancipation Day with its rich and generous thanksgiving dinner.• The hearty fare of winter—holiday time, the sideboard laden with all the special foods of Christmas for company dropping by . . . the cold months warmed by stews, soups, and baked beans cooked in a hearth oven to be eaten with hot crusty bread before the fire.The scores of recipes for these marvelous dishes are set down in loving detail. We come to understand the values that formed the remarkable woman—her love of nature, the pleasure of living with the seasons, the sense of community, the satisfactory feeling that hard work was always rewarded by her mother’s good food. Having made us yearn for all the good meals she describes in her memories of a lost time in America, Edna Lewis shows us precisely how to recover, in our own country or city or suburban kitchens, the taste of the fresh, good, natural country cooking that was so happy a part of her girlhood in Freetown, Virginia.

    The skills of butchery meet the world of fresh produce in this essential, inspiring guide that demystifies the world of vegetables. In step-by-step photographs, “vegetable butcher” Cara Mangini shows how to break down a butternut squash, cut a cauliflower into steaks, peel a tomato properly, chiffonade kale, turn carrots into coins and parsnips into matchsticks, and find the meaty heart of an artichoke. Additionally, more than 150 original, simple recipes put vegetables front and center, from a Kohlrabi Carpaccio to Zucchini, Sweet Corn, and Basil Penne, to a Parsnip-Ginger Layer Cake to sweeten a winter meal. It’s everything you need to know to get the best out of modern, sexy, and extraordinarily delicious vegetables.

    For Portland-based baker Ken Forkish, well-made bread is more than just a pleasure—it is a passion that has led him to create some of the best and most critically lauded breads and pizzas in the country. In Flour Water Salt Yeast, Forkish translates his obsessively honed craft into scores of recipes for rustic boules and Neapolitan-style pizzas, all suited for the home baker. Forkish developed and tested all of the recipes in his home oven, and his impeccable formulas and clear instructions result in top-quality artisan breads and pizzas that stand up against those sold in the best bakeries anywhere. Whether you’re a total beginner or a serious baker, Flour Water Salt Yeast has a recipe that suits your skill level and time constraints: Start with a straight dough and have fresh bread ready by supper time, or explore pre-ferments with a bread that uses biga or poolish. If you’re ready to take your baking to the next level, follow Forkish’s step-by-step guide to making a levain starter with only flour and water, and be amazed by the delicious complexity of your naturally leavened bread. Pizza lovers can experiment with a variety of doughs and sauces to create the perfect pie using either a pizza stone or a cast-iron skillet. Flour Water Salt Yeast is more than just a collection of recipes for amazing bread and pizza—it offers a complete baking education, with a thorough yet accessible explanation of the tools and techniques that set artisan bread apart. Featuring a tutorial on baker’s percentages, advice for manipulating ingredients ratios to create custom doughs, tips for adapting bread baking schedules to fit your day-to-day life, and an entire chapter that demystifies the levain-making process, Flour Water Salt Yeast is an indispensable resource for bakers who want to make their daily bread exceptional bread.

    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.

    Born in the East. Raised in the East End. In keeping with its contemporary twist on authentic Thai cuisine (sometimes based on western ingredients), Rosa's Thai Cafe celebrates traditional Thai cooking techniques and features over 100 recipes, including dishes from the menu at Rosa's as well as family favourites and regional dishes from founder Saiphin Moore's regular trips back home. Recipes range from the aromatic Beef Massaman Curry to the Soft Shell Crab Salad, Larb Spring Rolls, homemade Sriracha Sauce and Mangoes with Sticky Rice.

    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.

    Magnolia Table includes 125 classic recipes—from breakfast, lunch, and dinner to small plates, snacks, and desserts—presenting a modern selection of American classics and personal family favorites. Complemented by her love for her garden, these dishes also incorporate homegrown, seasonal produce at the peak of its flavor.Full of personal stories and beautiful photos, Magnolia Table is an invitation to share a seat at the table with Joanna Gaines and her family.

    For the foods of Italy, explained David, expanded far beyond minestrone and ravioli, to the complex traditions of Tuscany, Sicily, Lombardy, Umbria, and many other regions. David imparts her knowledge from her many years in Italy, exploring, researching, tasting and testing dishes. Her passion for real food, luscious, hearty, fresh, and totally authentic, will inspire anyone who wishes to recreate the abundant and highly unique regional dishes of Italy.

    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.

    Completely updating it for the first time since 1979, Marion Cunningham made Fannie Farmer once again a household word for a new generation of cooks.What makes this basic cookbook so distinctive is that Marion Cunningham, who is the personification of the nineteenth-century teacher, is always at your side with her forthright tips and comments, encouraging the beginning cook and inspiring the more adventurous. She knows what today's cooks are looking for, and she has a way of instilling confidence and joy in the act of cooking.In giving the book new life, Mrs. Cunningham has been careful always to preserve the best of the old. She has retained all the particularly good, tried-and-true recipes from preceding editions, retesting and rewriting when necessary. She has rediscovered lost treasures, including delicious recipes that were eliminated when practically no one baked bread at home. This is now the place to find the finest possible recipes for Pumpkin Soup, Boston Baked Beans, Carpetbag Steak, Roast Stuffed Turkey, Anadama Bread, Indian Pudding, Apple Pie, and all of the other traditional favorites.The new recipes reflect ethnic influences--Mediterranean, Moroccan, Asian--that have been adding their flavors to American cooking in recent years. Tucked in among all your favorites like Old-Fashioned Beef Stew, New England Clam Chowder, Ham Timbales, and Chicken Jambalaya, you'll find her cool Cucumber Sushi, Enchiladas with Chicken and Green Sauce, or a layered dish of Polenta and Fish to add variety to your repertoire. Always a champion of old-fashioned breakfasts and delectable desserts, Mrs. Cunningham has many splendid new offerings to tempt you.Throughout, cooking terms and procedures are explained, essential ingredients are spelled out, basic equipment is assessed. Mrs. Cunningham even tells you how to make a good cup of coffee and how to brew tea properly.For the diet-conscious, there is an expanded nutritional chart that includes a breakdown of cholesterol and fat in common ingredients as well as in Fannie Farmer basic recipes. Where the taste of a dish would not be altered, Mrs. Cunningham has reduced the amount of cream and butter in some of the recipes from the preceding edition. She carefully evaluates the issues of food safety today and alerts us to potential hazards.But the emphasis here is always on good flavor, fresh ingredients, and lots of variety in one's daily fare, which Marion Cunningham believes is the secret to a healthy diet. Dedicated to the home cooks of America, young and old, this thirteenth edition of the book that won the hearts of Americans more than a century ago invites us all--as did the original Fannie Farmer--to cherish the delights of the family table.

    In this companion book to his 26-part Public Television series, he takes us, with boyish enthusiasm, through Mexican markets, street stalls and home kitchens to bring us the great dishes of Mexico, one “plate” at a time.Rick Bayless has been acclaimed widely as America's foremost proponent of Mexico's thrillingly diverse cuisine. In this companion book to his 26-part Public Television series, he takes us, with boyish enthusiasm, through Mexican markets, street stalls and home kitchens to bring us the great dishes of Mexico, one “plate” at a time. And each “plate” Rick presents here is a Mexican classic. Take guacamole, for instance. After teaching us the essentials for a perfect, classic guacamole, Rick shows how to spin contemporary interpretations, like his Roasted Poblano Guacamole with garlic and parsley. Rick's cuisine is always lively, but rooted in strong traditions. Always the teacher, Rick begins each “plate” with some never-before-found features: traditional benchmarks (Rick's idea of the best guacamole), when to think of the recipes (weeknight dinners or casual party food), and advice for American cooks (Rick's insight into the ingredients that make the dish). He rounds out each “plate” with suggestions for working ahead. To complete the journey into the Mexican mindset, Rick, with help from his testers, ends each “plate” with a question-and-answer section detailing just about everything a home cook might want to know: What are the best cuts of beef for grilled tacos? The best cheeses for quesadillas? Is one grill better than another? Rick draws from his years of living in Mexico, pulling us into the Mexican kitchen, to teach us how to create authentic Mexican dishes in our American kitchens. Rick is an Indiana Jones of the stove, a Julia Child of Mexican cuisine in black jeans and a T-shirt. Rick's goal: to enable folks all across the United States to create dishes that weave in the rich tapestry of Mexican flavor with ingredients that are widely available. He always provides ingredients that make the dish authentic, but he also delivers with the right substitute if an ingredient is hard to find. Experience food you can't wait to make in a new and user-friendly cookbook that contains the full range of dishes—Starters, Snacks and Light Meals; Soups, Stews and Sides; Entrées; Desserts and Drinks. Rick serves up such classic Mexican plates as Tomatillo-Braised Pork Loin, Quick-Fried Shrimp with Sweet Toasty Garlic, Chiles Rellenos, Cheesy Enchiladas Suizas, and Mexican Vanilla-Scented Flan. And for an exciting taste of the unexpected, try Rick's contemporary interpretations of the classics—Crispy Potato Sopes with Goat Cheese and Fresh Herbs, Grilled Salmon with Lemon-and-Thyme-Scented Salsa Veracruzana, Broiled Flank Steak with Tomato-Poblano Salsa and Rustic Cajeta Apple Tarts with Berry “Salsa.” Food and friends, food and family. Good cooking, for Rick, is the unspoken animator of friends and family as they gather to share a meal. Rick's recipes lend themselves to weeknight family meals or celebrations. Take part in a tamalada, the tamal-making party before the party, or the ritual of a barbacoa, an earthy experience that Rick has made possible with a kettle grill in the backyard. 24 color photographs of finished dishes Photographs of Mexican location shots throughout

    In this accompanying book to the major BBC series, Rick shares his favourite recipes and some well-known classic dishes inspired by the fragrant ingredients and recipes he sampled from local chefs, family-run restaurants, street vendors and market stalls.In Cambodia, Rick learns how to make a national dish Samlor kako, a stir-fried pork and vegetable soup flavoured with an array of spices; in Vietnam he is shown the best recipe for Pho Bo, a Vietnamese beef noodle soup; and in Thailand, Rick tries Geng Leuong Sai Gung Lai Sai Bua, a yellow curry made with prawns and lotus shoots that you won't find outside the country.Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey includes over 150 new recipes from Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Bali each complemented by Rick's colourful anecdotes from the trip and beautiful on-location photography. This is a visually-stunning culinary tribute to Southeast Asian cooking that evokes the magic of bustling markets, the sizzle of oil and the aromatic steam from a Far Eastern kitchen.