Book picks similar to
Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass by Natalie MacLean
non-fiction
wine
food
nonfiction
Guerrilla Tacos: Recipes from the Streets of L.A.: A Cookbook
Wesley Avila - 2017
Avila's approach stands out in a crowded field because it's unique: the 50 base recipes in this book are grounded in authenticity but never tied down to tradition. Wes uses ingredients like kurobata sausage and sea urchin, but his bestselling taco is made from the humble sweet potato. From basic building blocks to how to balance flavor and texture, with comic-inspired illustrations and stories throughout, Guerrilla Tacos is the final word on tacos from the streets of L.A.
Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home
Jeni Britton Bauer - 2011
Unique flavors, prepared from top-quality ingredients combined with minimally processed milk from grass-fed cows, transformed Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, a small artisanal scoopery in Columbus, Ohio, into a nationally acclaimed (and beloved) brand.Now with her debut cookbook, Jeni Britton Bauer is on a mission to help foodies create perfect ice creams, yogurts, and sorbets—ones that are every bit as perfect as hers—in their own kitchens. Frustrated by icy and crumbly homemade ice cream, Bauer invested in a $59 ice cream maker and proceeded to test and retest recipes until she devised a formula to make creamy, sturdy, lickable ice cream at home. Her recipe for a milk-based American-style ice cream contains no eggs, which allows her amazing flavor combinations to shine. Filled with irresistible color photographs, this cone-tastic book contains 100 of Jeni’s signature recipes—from her Goat Cheese with Roasted Cherries to her Salty Caramel to her Bourbon with Toasted Buttered Pecans. Fans of easy-to-prepare desserts with star quality will scoop this book up. How cool is that?
Uncorked: My Journey Through the Crazy World of Wine
Marco Pasanella - 2012
Pasanella takes the reader into the underbelly of his store and the industry, which is steeped in history yet fanatical about technology and brimming with larger-than-life personalities. Infused with rich details of his historic waterfront building in New York City and his sojourns to Tuscany, Pasanella's memoir is one of transformation through a project many fantasize about but few commit to. A colorful cast of characters rounds out this fascinating journey through the world of wine.
The Flavour Thesaurus: Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook
Niki Segnit - 2010
"Following the instructions in a recipe is like parroting pre-formed sentences from a phrasebook. Forming an understanding of how flavors work together, on the other hand, is like learning the language: it allows you to express yourself freely, to improvise, to cook a dish the way you want to cook it.""The Flavor Thesaurus "is the inquisitive cook's guide to acquiring that understanding--to learning the language of flavor.Breaking the vast universe of ingredients down to 99 essential flavors, Segnit suggests classic and less well-known pairings for each, grouping almost 1,000 entries into flavor families like "Green & Grassy," "Berry & Bush" and "Creamy Fruity." But "The Flavor Thesaurus" is much more than just a reference book, seasoning the mix of culinary science, culture and expert knowledge with the author's own insights and opinions, all presented in her witty, engaging and highly readable style. As appealing to the novice cook as to the experienced professional, "The Flavor Thesaurus "will not only immeasurably improve your cooking--it's the sort of book that might keep you up at night reading.""Cooking is an art, like writing or painting, and great cooks are artists. And although the ultimate source of creativity remains elusive, all painters have their color wheel, all writers their vocabulary. And now, in the form of this beautiful, entertaining and exhaustively researched book, cooks have their own collection of essential knowledge: "The Flavor Thesaurus."
Soup: A Way of Life
Barbara Kafka - 1998
Though the subject is so familiar to us all, her approach is totally original, just as it was in her award-winning Roasting: A Simple Art and Microwave Gourmet. In a wonderfully diverse collection of nearly three hundred recipes from all over the world--some traditional, some newly minted, many so simple they require no cooking at all, each of them very much a part of our spiritual and emotional lives--she offers up a lifetime worth of pleasure:icy soups for steamy days (ceviche soup with ginger) and hot soups for cold days (winter duck soup)rustic potages (great green soup) and elegant consommes (beef madrilene)simple soups to start (Moroccan tomato) and complex soups that make a meal (beef short ribs in a pot)fifteen-minute specials (mussels and tomato soup) and those that simmer all day (pot-au-feu)a magical garlic broth, among other vegetable broths and bases, gives vegetarians hundreds of recipes to enjoy As always, Barbara's intelligence and talent for innovation have resulted in a vast body of ideas to make your life in the kitchen easy and interesting. Nearly thirty stocks are offered, as well as dozens of ways to use seasonal produce to cook and freeze soup bases for year-round fresh taste. You'll find cooking times for everything from dumplings and piroshki to noodles and pasta, simmering times for every possible cut of meat, and yields and blanching times for dozens of vegetables. There are easy-to-follow charts to answer every cooking question.And then there's Barbara's "memory pieces." Woven through the recipes, they form a book within a book, one family's personal and culinary history. They're fascinating and warming and enriching on their own. They also remind us why soup is a vital part of our lives. And why Barbara Kafka is a vital part of our cooking experience.
Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering
Joanna Gaines - 2018
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.
The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir
Josh Kilmer-Purcell - 2010
Another riotous, moving, and entirely unique story of his attempt to tackle the next phase of life with his partner… on a goat farm in upstate New York.
Ottolenghi Simple: A Cookbook
Yotam Ottolenghi - 2018
Each dish can be made in 30 minutes or less, with 10 or fewer ingredients, in a single pot, using pantry staples, or prepared ahead of time for brilliantly, deliciously simple meals. Brunch gets a make-over with Braised Eggs with Leeks and Za'atar; Cauliflower, Pomegranate, and Pistachio Salad refreshes the side-dish rotation; Lamb and Feta Meatballs bring ease to the weeknight table; and every sweet tooth is sure to be satisfied by the spectacular Fig and Thyme Clafoutis. With more than 130 photographs, this is elemental Ottolenghi for everyone.
Life Is Meals: A Food Lover's Book of Days
James Salter - 2006
Life Is Meals is rich with culinary wisdom, history, recipes, literary pleasures, and the authors' own memories of successes and catastrophes.For instance: The menu on the Titanic on the fatal night? Reflections on dining from Queen Victoria, JFK, Winnie-the-Pooh, Garrison Keillor, and many others? The seductiveness of a velvety Brie or the perfect martini? How to decide whom to invite to a dinner party?and whom not to? John Irving's family recipe for meatballs; Balzac's love of coffee? The greatest dinner ever given at the White House? Where in Paris Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter had French onion soup at 4:00 a.m.? How to cope with acts of God and man-made disasters in the kitchenSophisticated as well as practical, opinionated, and indispensable, Life Is Meals is a tribute to the glory of food and drink, and the joy of sharing them with others. "The meal is the emblem of civilization," the Salters observe. "What would one know of life as it should be lived, or nights as they should be spent, apart from meals?"
The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma's Table
Rick Bragg - 2018
She measures in "dabs" and "smidgens" and "tads" and "you know, hon, just some." She cannot be pinned down on how long to bake corn bread ("about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the mysteries of your oven"). Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken and dressing, biscuits and butter rolls. The irresistible stories in this audiobook are of long memory -- many of them pre-date the Civil War, handed down skillet by skillet, from one generation of Braggs to the next. In The Best Cook in the World, Rick Bragg finally preserves his heritage by telling the stories that framed his mother's cooking and education, from childhood into old age.
The Cornbread Gospels
Crescent Dragonwagon - 2007
Over time, she came to understand: Not only is hot, just baked cornbread delicious, it evokes—powerfully—the heart, soul, and taste of home. There is an abundance of satisfying cornbreads, as Crescent discovered when she followed the cornbread trail from the Appalachians to the Rockies to the Green Mountains. Traveling to family reunions, potlucks, tortilleras, stone-grinding mills, and the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, she heard the stories, tasted the breads, learned the secrets. Join her in this overflowing cornucopia: over 200 irresistible recipes for cornbreads, muffins, fritters, pancakes, and go-withs. Cornbreads from below the Mason-Dixon line (Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread, Truman Capote’s Family’s Alabama Cornbread) meet those from above (Durgin-Park Boston Cornbread, Vermont Maple-Sweetened Cornbread). Southwestern offerings—Chou-Chou’s Dallas Hot Stuff Cornbread, delectable homemade tamales, and tortillas from scratch—meet internationals like India’s Makki Ki Roti. A Thanksgiving with Crescent’s Sweet-Savory Cornbread Dressing is rapturous. Desserts like Very Lemony Gorgeous Cornmeal Pound Cake make any meal exceptional. Along with this, Crescent gives us the greens, the beans, the salads, stews, and soups that accompany cornbread to perfection. And she tells us the stories, too. Enthusiastic and heartfelt, this thoughtful, exuberant love song to America’s favorite breadstuff and all that goes with it will embrace readers and cooks everywhere.
Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times
Suzan Colon - 2009
Her mother suggested, “Why don’t you look in Nana’s recipe folder?” In the basement, Suzan found the tattered treasure, full of handwritten and meticulously typed recipes, peppered with her grandmother Matilda’s commentary in the margins. Reading it, Suzan realized she had found something more than a collection of recipes—she had found the key to her family’s survival through hard times.Suzan began re-creating Matilda’s “sturdy food” recipes for baked pork chops and beef stew, and Aunt Nettie’s clam chowder made with clams dug up by Suzan’s grandfather Charlie in Long Island Sound. And she began uncovering the stories of her resilient family’s past. Taking inspiration from stylish, indomitable Matilda, who was the sole support of her family as a teenager during the Great Depression (and who always answered “How are you?” with “Fabulous, never better!”), and from dashing, twice-widowed Charlie, Suzan starts to approach her own crisis with a sense of wonder and gratitude. It turns out that the gift to survive and thrive through hard times had been bred in her bones all along.Cherries in Winter is an irresistible gem of a book. It makes you want to cook, it makes you want to know your own family’s stories, and, above all, it makes you feel rich no matter what.
Taste: My Life through Food
Stanley Tucci - 2021
He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the recipes and into the stories behind them.Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about growing up in Westchester, New York, preparing for and filming the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia, falling in love over dinner, and teaming up with his wife to create conversation-starting meals for their children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burnt dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.Written with Stanley's signature wry humour and nostalgia, Taste is a heartwarming read that will be irresistible for anyone who knows the power of a home-cooked meal.
99 Drams of Whiskey: The Accidental Hedonist's Quest for the Perfect Shot and the History of the Drink
Kate Hopkins - 2009
She had an unquenchable thirst to learn more about "the drink" and set out on an ambitious itinerary researching its history. Combining comprehensive research with informal narrative, Hopkins entertains and educates the readers on whiskey's place in the history of the world. She visited historians and pub owners, went to distilleries owned by corporations who sell thousands of gallons per day, and artisans who sell thousands of gallons per year, and interviewed the aficionados and the common drinkers, because one of the best aspects of whiskey is not just its taste, but the stories about the drink that are told around the bar. As an added bonus, she discusses the fine art of distilling, the proper ways to drink whiskey, and provides tasting notes on different brands, all in the hope of discovering the best shot of the liquor.
Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last
Wright Thompson - 2020
Julian Van Winkle, the third-generation head of his family's business, is now thought of as something like the Buddha of Bourbon - Booze Yoda, as Wright Thompson calls him. He is swarmed wherever he goes, and people stand in long lines to get him to sign their bottles of Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve, the whiskey he created to honor his grandfather, the founder of the family concern. A bottle of the 23-year-old Pappy starts at $3000 on the internet. As Julian is the first to say, things have gone completely nuts.Forty years ago, Julian would have laughed in astonishment if you'd told him what lay ahead. He'd just stepped in to try to save the business after his father had died, partly of heartbreak, having been forced to sell the old distillery in a brutal downturn in the market for whiskey. Julian's grandfather had presided over a magical kingdom of craft and connoisseurship, a genteel outfit whose family ethos generated good will throughout Kentucky and far beyond. There's always a certain amount of romance to the marketing of spirits, but Pappy's mission statement captured something real: We make fine bourbon - at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon. But now the business had hit the wilderness years, and Julian could only hang on for dear life, stubbornly committed to preserving his namesake's legacy or going down with the ship.Then something like a miracle happened: it turned out that hundreds of very special barrels of whiskey from the Van Winkle family distillery had been saved by the multinational conglomerate that bought it. With no idea what they had, they offered to sell it to Julian, who scrambled to beg and borrow the funds. Now he could bottle a whiskey whose taste captured his family's legacy. The result would immediately be hailed as the greatest whiskey in the world - and would soon be the hardest to find.But now, those old barrels were used up, and Julian Van Winkle faced the challenge of his lifetime: how to preserve the taste of Pappy, the taste of his family's heritage, in a new age? The amazing Wright Thompson was invited to be his wingman as he set about to try. The result is an extraordinary testimony to the challenge of living up to your legacy and the rewards that come from knowing and honoring your people and your craft. Wright learned those lessons from Julian as they applied to the honest work of making a great bourbon whiskey in Kentucky, but he couldn't help applying them to his own craft, writing, and his upbringing in Mississippi, as he and his wife contemplated the birth of their first child. May we all be lucky enough to find some of ourselves, as Wright Thompson did, in Julian Van Winkle, and in Pappyland.