Here, Wahaca chef and food writer Thomasina Miers shares the recipes she has gathered since she first fell in love with Mexico, reinventing the classics with accessible ingredients to demonstrate how exciting and delicious traditional Mexican food can be.

    She had never before considered making her own peanut butter and pita bread, let alone curing her own prosciutto or raising turkeys. And though it sounded logical that "doing it yourself" would cost less, she had her doubts. So Reese began a series of kitchen-related experiments, taking into account the competing demands of everyday contemporary American family life as she answers some timely questions: When is homemade better? Cheaper? Are backyard eggs a more ethical choice than store-bought? Will grinding and stuffing your own sausage ruin your week? Is it possible to make an edible maraschino cherry? Some of Reese's discoveries will surprise you: Although you should make your hot dog buns, guacamole, and yogurt, you should probably buy your hamburger buns, potato chips, and rice pudding. Tired? Buy your mayonnaise. Inspired? Make it. With its fresh voice and delightful humor, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter gives 120 recipes with eminently practical yet deliciously fun "Make or buy" recommendations. Reese is relentlessly entertaining as she relates her food and animal husbandry adventures, which amuse and perplex as well as nourish and sustain her family. Her tales include living with a backyard full of cheerful chickens, muttering ducks, and adorable baby goats; countertops laden with lacto-fermenting pickles; and closets full of mellowing cheeses. Here's the full picture of what is involved in a truly homemade life -- with the good news that you shouldn't try to make everything yourself -- and how to get the most out of your time in the kitchen.

    Example: Being thrown out of the kitchen because one’s Easter bread kneading technique isn’t up to par. As Adriana says: “When the Trigianis reach out and touch someone, we do it with food.” Like the recipes that have been handed down for generations from mother to daughter and grandmother to granddaughter, the family’s celebrations are also anchored to the life and laughter around the table. We learn how Grandmom Yolanda Trigiani sometimes wrote her recipes in code, or worked from memory, guarding her recipes carefully. And we meet Grandma Lucia Bonicelli, who never raised her voice and believed that when people fight at the dinner table, the food turns to poison in the body.Adriana Trigiani’s voice springs to life from the first page of Cooking with My Sisters, a collection of beloved family recipes that the Trigianis have been enjoying for generations. But there’s much more here than just the food. Peppered with hilarious family anecdotes, poignant letters, and exquisite color photographs, Cooking with My Sisters draws us into the warm and witty world of the Trigiani clan. Each recipe has a story behind it, and each chapter has tips from different sisters, reflecting the unique personalities of the latest generation of Trigiani women.Here are mainstay meals, featured in sections such as “The Big Life” and “The Big Wow,” which include the chapters “Pasta, or as We Called It, Maccheroni” and “Food We Hated as Kids but Love to Serve Now.” Accessible to any cook, the recipes range from Chicken and Polenta, Zizi Mary’s Rice Soup, and Gnocchi to favorite desserts like Grandmom’s Buttermilk Cake–and all the delectable dishes are geared toward bringing your family together.Written with Adriana Trigiani’s trademark humor and verve, this wonderful book will appeal to anyone who values the bonds that food, community, and cultural tradition can provide.From the Hardcover edition.

    Everything the cook longs for is here: cobblers and crisps, cakes and cookies, puddings and soufflés, pies and pastries, ice creams and sauces. Extensive sidebars - profiles of cooks, engaging recollections of favorite desserts, quotations from hundreds of literary works, and excerpts from fascinating old recipes - make this an indispensable, lively volume. Winner of a James Beard Award and a Julia Child Award!

    Whether it's getting weeknight dinners on the table fairly fast (Basil Beef, Rhubarb Chops, or Carrot Juice Chicken) or leisurely cooking for dining at a slightly slower pace (Lamb Tagine, Holiday Hen, or Fennel Bass), Laura Calder shares recipes she's created at home in her own French kitchen.

    It includes dinner party staples such as Slow-Roast Shoulder of Lamb or Cottage Pie with Dauphinoise Potato Topping, special summer lunches such as Fiery Red Rice Salad and Summer Pudding, and of course, her trademark cakes and bakes.Accompanied by Mary's no-nonsense, no-fuss advice on preparing ahead, each fool-proof meal is made easy, so that you can cook with confidence.Whether a family lunch or a simple one-pot supper for friends, Mary's carefully tested recipes and comprehensive advice make Mary Berry Cooks the perfect kitchen companion.

    Step-by-step instructions for making fresh pasta offer plenty of variations on the classic egg pasta, while a glossary of pasta shapes, a source list for unusual ingredients, and a handy guide for stocking the pantry with pasta essentials encourage the home cook to look beyond simple spaghetti. No matter how you sauce it, The Glorious Pasta of Italy is sure to have pasta lovers everywhere salivating.

    In The Farm, Knauer brings his creations to your kitchen. From Cold-Spring-Night Asparagus Soup to Brick Chicken with Corn and Basil Salad, the 150 recipes in this book will help you make the most of your market, garden, or CSA. They are fresh, modern spins on American classics, with ingredients anyone can obtain. Each one is simple, distinctive, and satisfying, getting the best food to the table in the least amount of time. They are both homey and sophisticated. You’ll find recipes that incorporate all parts of the vegetable, like Pasta with Radishes and Blue Cheese, which incorporates the radish leaves as well as the root, and spritely Swiss Chard Salad. You’ll learn how to make great food from simple ingredients you have on hand, like Potato Nachos. You’ll discover recipes for less-familiar produce from your market or your backyard, such as Chicken with Garlic Scape Pesto and Dandelion Green Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing. Many of these recipes have been in Knauer’s family for generations, like Pennsylvania Dutch-Style Green Beans or Cloud Biscuits. You won’t want to miss his expertly tweaked renditions of his mother and grandmother’s desserts: Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie, Blueberry Belle Crunch, and Mary’s Lemon Sponge Pie. Whether you want to learn how to roast a pig, make your own hot sauce, or brew hard cider, The Farm brings artisanal cooking home, even as Knauer’s vivid stories trace a year in the seasons of the farm.

    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.

    Here, for the first time, they get personal and pull back the curtain on their lives, their families, and the recipes they like to cook when they are off camera.