The Coffee Dictionary: An A-Z of Coffee, from Growing & Roasting to Brewing & Tasting


Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood - 2017
    Informative and handily sized, this eminently giftable package covers everything that goes into brewing the perfect cup. There's something new to learn on every page! More than 200 entries, colorfully illustrated with artwork throughout, expertly explain everything from terms and techniques, beans and roasts, to equipment and methods. Newbies and connoisseurs will while away the hours "pouring" over the amazing amount of information in this chic and essential reference—a perfect brew for coffee lovers!

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen


Harold McGee - 1984
    Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment.On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques.Among the major themes addressed throughout this new edition are:Traditional and modern methods of food production and their influences on food qualityThe great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredientsTips for selecting the best ingredients and preparing them successfullyThe particular substances that give foods their flavors and that give us pleasureOur evolving knowledge of the health benefits and risks of foodsOn Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.

The Curious Barista's Guide to Coffee


Tristan Stephenson - 2015
    The ultimate guide to the history, science and community behind coffee. Here, Tristan Stephenson explores the origins of coffee, its journey around the world and cultural influence. A section on Farming, Roasting & Assessing coffee takes an in-depth look at the growing and harvesting process, the evolution of the coffee roaster and the science behind the many flavours of coffee. There is also advice on buying coffee, understanding the differences between espresso blends and single origin coffee, packing and storing. We then move into Espresso and get to grips with grinding and making espresso-based drinks including the latte, cappuccino, flat white and macchiato, as well as pouring latte art and introducing chocolate, sugar and syrups. Other Brewing Methods showcases a selection of classic brewing techniques that bring the coffee to your kitchen table, from the mocha pot and French press to pourover and siphon brewers. Finally a section on Enjoying Coffee offers 25 recipes for coffee-based drinks and baked treats to serve them with. From iced to Irish, espresso martinis to coffee beer, this is an essential anthology for the coffee enthusiast.

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science


J. Kenji López-Alt - 2015
    Kenji López-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new—but simple—techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.

Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza


Ken Forkish - 2012
    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.

The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life


Timothy Ferriss - 2012
    It’s a choose-your-own-adventure guide to the world of rapid learning.#1 New York Times bestselling author (and lifelong non-cook) Tim Ferriss takes you from Manhattan to Okinawa, and from Silicon Valley to Calcutta, unearthing the secrets of the world’s fastest learners and greatest chefs. Ferriss uses cooking to explain “meta-learning,” a step-by-step process that can be used to master anything, whether searing steak or shooting 3-pointers in basketball. That is the real “recipe” of The 4-Hour Chef.You'll train inside the kitchen for everything outside the kitchen. Featuring tips and tricks from chess prodigies, world-renowned chefs, pro athletes, master sommeliers, super models, and everyone in between, this “cookbook for people who don’t buy cookbooks” is a guide to mastering cooking and life.The 4-Hour Chef is a five-stop journey through the art and science of learning:1. META-LEARNING. Before you learn to cook, you must learn to learn. META charts the path to doubling your learning potential.2. THE DOMESTIC. DOM is where you learn the building blocks of cooking. These are the ABCs (techniques) that can take you from Dr, Seuss to Shakespeare.3. THE WILD. Becoming a master student requires self-sufficiency in all things. WILD teaches you to hunt, forage, and survive.4. THE SCIENTIST. SCI is the mad scientist and modernist painter wrapped into one. This is where you rediscover whimsy and wonder.5. THE PROFESSIONAL. Swaraj, a term usually associated with Mahatma Gandhi, can be translated as “self-rule.” In PRO, we’ll look at how the best in the world become the best in the world, and how you can chart your own path far beyond this book.

The Big Book of Kombucha: Brewing, Flavoring, and Enjoying the Health Benefits of Fermented Tea


Hannah Crum - 2016
    This complete guide, from the proprietors of Kombucha Kamp, shows you how to do it from start to finish, with illustrated step-by-step instructions and troubleshooting tips. The book also includes information on the many health benefits of kombucha, fascinating details of the drink’s history, and recipes for delicious foods and drinks you can make with kombucha (including some irresistible cocktails!). “This is the one go-to resource for all things kombucha.” — Andrew Zimmern, James Beard Award–winning author and host of Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods

How to Make Tea: The Science Behind the Leaf


Brian R. Keating - 2015
    We’ve been drinking tea for thousands of years, yet few of us realize that all tea types—from elegant lapsang to pungent pu-erh—come from the same plant. But how are there so many different styles? It comes down to science: geography, biology, chemistry, and physics; the application of heat and pressure; and the magic of time and enzymes.  How to Make Tea breaks down these elements and lays out the techniques, tools, and methods needed to brew at home. With this guide, tea lovers of all stripes will become experts on the art and science of tea. Learn to extract the best from every cup.

Craft Coffee: A Manual: Brewing a Better Cup at Home


Jessica Easto - 2017
    Unlike other coffee books, this one focuses exclusively on coffee--not espresso--and explores multiple pour-over, immersion, and cold-brew techniques on 10 different devices.Thanks to a small but growing number of dedicated farmers, importers, roasters, and baristas, coffee quality is at an all-time high. But for nonprofessionals, achieving cafe quality at home can seem out of reach. With dozens of equipment options, conflicting information on how to use that equipment, and an industry language that, at times, doesn't seem made for the rest of us, it can be difficult to know where to begin.Craft Coffee: A Manual, written by a coffee enthusiast for coffee enthusiasts, is a comprehensive guide to improving your brew at home. The book provides all the information readers need to discover what they like in a cup of specialty coffee--and how to replicate the perfect cup day after day. From the science of extraction and brewing techniques to choosing equipment and deciphering coffee bags, Craft Coffee focuses on the issues--cost, time, taste, and accessibility--that home coffee brewers negotiate and shows that no matter where you are in your coffee journey, you can make a great cup at home.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking


Julia Child - 1961
    Featuring 524 delicious recipes, in its pages home cooks will find something for everyone, from seasoned experts to beginners who love good food and long to reproduce the savory delights of French cuisine, from historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. Here Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle break down the classic foods of France into a logical sequence of themes and variations rather than presenting an endless and diffuse catalogue of dishes. Throughout, the focus is on key recipes that form the backbone of French cookery and lend themselves to an infinite number of elaborations--bound to increase anyone's culinary repertoire. With over 100 instructive illustrations to guide readers every step of the way, Mastering the Art of French Cooking deserves a place of honor in every kitchen in America.

The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide


Mary Lou Heiss - 2007
    In this sweeping tour through the world of tea, veteran tea traders Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss chronicle tea's influence across the globe and provide a complete reference for choosing, drinking, and enjoying this beverage.The Story of Tea begins with a journey along the tea trail, from the lush forests of China, where tea cultivation first flourished, to the Buddhist temples of Japan, to the vast tea gardens of India, and beyond. Offering an insider'­s view of all aspects of tea trade, the Heisses examine Camellia sinensis, the tea bush, and show how subtle differences in territory and production contribute to the diversity of color, flavor, and quality in brewed tea. They profile more than thirty essential tea varietals, provide an in depth guide to tasting and brewing, and survey the customs and crafts associated with tea. Sharing the latest research, they discuss tea's health benefits and developments in organic production and fair trade practices. Finally, they present ten sweet and savory recipes, including Savory Chinese Marbled Eggs and Green Tea Pot de Crâme, and resources for purchasing fine tea.Vividly illustrated throughout, The Story of Tea is an engrossing tribute to the illustrious, invigorating, and elusive leaf that has sustained and inspired people for more than two thousand years.

Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits


Jason Wilson - 2010
    (By the way, the short answer is no.) A unique blend of travelogue, spirits history, and recipe collection, Boozehound explores the origins of what we drink and the often surprising reasons behind our choices.  In lieu of odorless, colorless, tasteless spirits, Wilson champions Old World liquors with hard-to-define flavors—a bitter and complex Italian amari, or the ancient, aromatic herbs of Chartreuse, as well as distinctive New World offerings like lively Peruvian pisco. With an eye for adventure, Wilson seeks out visceral experiences at the source of production—visiting fields of spiky agave in Jalisco, entering the heavily and reverently-guarded Jägermeister herb room in Wolfenbüttel, and journeying to the French Alps to determine if mustachioed men in berets really handpick blossoms to make elderflower liqueur.  In addition, Boozehound offers more than fifty drink recipes, from three riffs on the Manhattan to cocktail-geek favorites like the Aviation and the Last Word. These recipes are presented alongside a host of opinionated essays that cherish the rare, uncover the obscure, dethrone the overrated, and unravel the mysteries of taste, trends, and terroir. Through his far-flung, intrepid traveling and tasting, Wilson shows us that perhaps nothing else as entwined with the history of human culture is quite as much fun as booze.From the Hardcover edition.

Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food


Jeff Potter - 2007
    Author and cooking geek Jeff Potter helps you apply curiosity, inspiration, and invention to the food you prepare. Why do we bake some things at 350°F / 175°C and others at 375°F / 190°C? Why is medium-rare steak so popular? And just how quickly does a pizza cook if you “overclock” an oven to 1,000°F / 540°C? This expanded new edition provides in-depth answers, and lets you experiment with several labs and more than 100 recipes— from the sweet (a patent-violating chocolate chip cookie) to the savory (pulled pork under pressure).When you step into the kitchen, you’re unwittingly turned into a physicist and a chemist. This excellent and intriguing resource is for inquisitive people who want to increase their knowledge and ability to cook.• Discover what type of cook you are and learn how to think about flavor• Understand how protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, caramelization, and otherreactions impact the foods we cook• Gain firsthand insights from interviews with researchers, food scientists, knife experts, chefs, and writers—including science enthusiast Adam Savage, chef Jaques Pépin, and chemist Hervé This

True Brews: How to Craft Fermented Cider, Beer, Wine, Sake, Soda, Mead, Kefir, and Kombucha at Home


Emma Christensen - 2013
    All you need is the know-how.               That’s where Emma Christensen comes in, distilling a wide variety of projects—from mead to kefir to sake—to their simplest forms, making the process fun and accessible for homebrewers. All fifty-plus recipes in True Brews stem from the same basic techniques and core equipment, so it’s easy for you to experiment with your favorite flavors and add-ins once you grasp the fundamentals.               Covering a tantalizing range of recipes, including Coconut Water Kefir, Root Beer, Honey–Green Tea Kombucha, Pear Cider, Gluten-Free Pale Ale, Chai-Spiced Mead, Cloudy Cherry Sake, and Plum Wine, these fresh beverages make impressive homemade offerings for hostess gifts, happy hours, and thirsty friends alike.

The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting, and Drinking, with Recipes


James Freeman - 2012
    Famous for its complex and flavorful coffees, Blue Bottle delights its devoted patrons with exquisite pour-overs, delicious espressi, and specialized brewing methods.Yet as coffee production becomes more sophisticated with specialized extraction techniques and Japanese coffee gadgets, the new artisan coffees can seem out of reach. The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee explains this newworld from farm to cup, exploring the bounty of beans available and the intricate steps that go into sourcing raw coffee from around the globe. Blue Bottle founder James Freeman coaches you through brewing the perfect cup ofcoffee, using methods as diverse as French press, nel drip, siphon, and more to produce the best flavor.For coffee lovers who want to roll up their sleeves and go deeper, Freeman explains step by step how to roast beans at home using standard kitchen tools—just like he did when starting out. The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee also introduces a home technique for cupping, the industry method of tasting coffees for quality control, so you can hone your taste and share your meticulously roasted coffee with friends.Rounding out the book are more than thirty inventive recipes from Blue Bottle pastry chef and former Miette bakery owner Caitlin Freeman thatincorporate coffee or just taste particularly good with coffee, such as Saffron Vanilla Snickerdoodles, Stout Coffee Cake with Pecan-Caraway Streusel, Affogato with Smoky Almond Ice Cream, Coffee Panna Cotta, and more.With more than one hundred stunning photographs showing coffee’s journey from just-harvested cherry to perfect drink, this distinctive and deep guide to the new breed of amazing coffees from one of the top artisan coffee makers will change the way you think about—and drink—coffee.