The Reporter's Kitchen: Essays


Jane Kramer - 2017
    Her first dish, a tinned-tuna curry, was assembled on a tiny stove in her graduate student apartment while she pondered her first writing assignment. From there, whether her travels took her to a tent settlement in the Sahara for an afternoon interview with an old Berber woman toiling over goat stew, or to the great London restaurateur and author Yotam Ottolenghi's Notting Hill apartment, where they assembled a buttered phylo-and-cheese tower called a mutabbaq, Jane always returned from the field with a new recipe, and usually, a friend.For the first time, Jane's beloved food pieces from The New Yorker, where she has been a staff writer since 1964, are arranged in one place--a collection of definitive chef profiles, personal essays, and gastronomic history that is at once deeply personal and humane. The Reporter's Kitchen follows Jane everywhere, and throughout her career--from her summer writing retreat in Umbria, where Jane and her anthropologist husband host memorable expat Thanksgivings--in July--to the Nordic coast, where Jane and acclaimed Danish chef Rene Redzepi, of Noma, forage for edible sea-grass. The Reporter's Kitchen is an important record of culture distilled through food around the world. It's welcoming and inevitably surprising.

Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books


Cara Nicoletti - 2015
    Now a butcher, cook, and talented writer, she serves up stories and recipes inspired by beloved books and the food that gives their characters depth and personality. From the breakfast sausage in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods to chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream from Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, these books and the tasty treats in them put her on the road to happiness. Cooking through the books that changed her life, Nicoletti shares fifty recipes, including:* The perfect soft-boiled egg in Jane Austen's Emma* Grilled peaches with homemade ricotta in tribute to Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That"* New England clam chowder inspired by Herman Melville's Moby-Dick* Fava bean and chicken liver mousse crostini (with a nice Chianti) after Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs* Brown butter crêpes from Gillian Flynn's Gone GirlBeautifully illustrated, clever, and full of heart, Voracious will satisfy anyone who loves a fantastic meal with family and friends-or curling up with a great novel for dessert.

Inside the Test Kitchen: 120 New Recipes, Perfected


Tyler Florence - 2014
    Join him as he perfects, simplifies, and totally re-invents your favorite dishes in surprising, spectacular ways.   Have you ever wondered which cheese, exactly, will make the stretchiest, cheesiest mac and cheese? Or if you can make Hollandaise sauce without fear, a double boiler, or even a whisk? Or if, instead of having to choose between onion rings or French fries, you can make onion rings crusted with French fries? Tyler Florence has. These are the kinds of questions he obsesses over when he thinks about how to make cooking both easier and more exciting.   For years, while shuttling between his restaurants and TV shoots, Tyler's kept a notebook of ideas to push his own recipes out of their comfort zone. Now, for the first time in his career, he’s established a culinary lab where he can dive deep into the hows, whys, and why-nots of his cooking. He brings you Inside the Test Kitchen to see his experiments, the wins and the fails, and of course, the delicious, foolproof, and surprising recipes that come out of it.   Go from tricks to make basics brilliant—like saucing Double-Creamed Spinach with pureed spinach, or using boiling-hot brine to make a Super-Crisp Roast Chicken— to simpler ways to make the classics, like a nearly no-stir Time Saver Risotto and a Three-Minute Hollandaise, to pure reinvention, like Fronion Rings and almost-instant Modern Burger Buns.   Through these 120 recipes, Tyler invites you to question culinary sacred cows, push your skills to the next level, and make food more delicious than they would have thought possible.

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace


Tamar Adler - 2011
    F. K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf— written in 1942 during wartime shortages—An Everlasting Meal shows that cooking is the path to better eating. Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks. In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs know: that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them. She explains how to smarten up simple food and gives advice for fixing dishes gone awry. She recommends turning to neglected onions, celery, and potatoes for inexpensive meals that taste full of fresh vegetables, and cooking meat and fish resourcefully. By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.

Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine


Edward Lee - 2018
    In a nation of immigrants who bring their own culinary backgrounds to this country, what happens one or even two generations later? What does their cuisine become? It turns into a cuisine uniquely its own and one that Lee argues makes America the most interesting place to eat on earth. Lee illustrates this through his own life story of being a Korean immigrant and a New Yorker and now a Southerner. In Off the Menu, he shows how we each have a unique food memoir that is worthy of exploration. To Lee, recipes are narratives and a conduit to learn about a person, a place, or a point in time. He says that the best way to get to know someone is to eat the food they eat. Each chapter shares a personal tale of growth and self-discovery through the foods Lee eats and the foods of the people he interacts with—whether it’s the Korean budae jjigae of his father or the mustard beer cheese he learns to make from his wife’s German-American family. Each chapter is written in narrative form and punctuated with two recipes to highlight the story, including Green Tea Beignets, Cornbread Pancakes with Rhubarb Jam, and Butternut Squash Schnitzel. Each recipe tells a story, but when taken together, they form the arc of the narrative and contribute to the story we call the new American food.

A16: Food + Wine


Nate Appleman - 2008
    Wine director Shelley Lindgren is renowned in the business for her expeditionary commitment to handcrafted southern Italian wines. In A16: FOOD + WINE, Appleman and Lindgren share the source of their inspiration—the bold flavors of Campania. From chile-spiked seafood stews and savory roasts to delicate antipasti and vegetable sides, the recipes are beguilingly rustic and approachable. Lindgren's vivid profiles of the key grapes and producers of southern Italy provide vital context for appreciating and pairing the wines. Stunning photography captures the wood-fired ambiance of the restaurant and the Campania countryside it celebrates.

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen


Laurie Colwin - 1988
    Equal parts cookbook and memoir, Laurie Colwin's "Home Cooking" combines her insightful, good-humored writing style with her lifelong passion for wonderful cuisine in essays such as "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant," "Repulsive Dinners: A Memoir," and "Stuffed Breast of Veal: A Bad Idea." "Home Cooking" is truly a feast for body and soul.

Poole's: Recipes and Stories from a Modern Diner


Ashley Christensen - 2016
    Poole's is her master class in making the best foundational recipes and then turning these into exceptional sides, mains, and desserts--all inspired by the food at her James Beard award-winning restaurant, Poole's Downtown Diner. The ingredient-driven recipes range from beloved Southern favorites like Pimento Cheese, Buttermilk Fried Chicken with Hot Honey, and Dark Chocolate Pecan Pie to modern updates like Turnip Green Fritters with Whipped Tahini, the one-dish Pork Cassoulet with Pit Peas and Collards, and Zucchini Doughnuts with Marscapone.From the Hardcover edition.

David Tanis Market Cooking: Recipes and Revelations, Ingredient by Ingredient


David Tanis - 2017
    Sections on universal ingredients—such as alliums (garlic, onion, shallots, leeks, etc.)—offer some of the simplest yet most satisfying recipes in the world. Consider the onion in these three marvelous incarnations: Lebanese Caramelized Onions, American Buttermilk Fried Onion Rings, and French Onion and Bacon Tart. And the chile section encourages readers to use real chiles (rather than reach for bottled hot sauce) on an everyday basis in recipes from Morocco to India, from Mexico to China, with wonderful results. A masterwork of recipes, approach, technique, and philosophy, David Tanis Market Cooking is as inspiring as it is essential. This is how to become a more intuitive and spontaneous cook. This is how to be more discerning in the market and freer in the kitchen. This is how to transform the freshest ingredients into one perfectly delicious dish after another, guided by the core beliefs that have shaped David Tanis’s incomparable career: Food doesn’t have to be fussy to be satisfying. Seasonal vegetables should be central to a meal. Working with food is a joy, not a chore.

My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life


Ruth Reichl - 2015
    No one was more stunned by this unexpected turn of events than its beloved editor in chief, Ruth Reichl, who suddenly faced an uncertain professional future. As she struggled to process what had seemed unthinkable, Reichl turned to the one place that had always provided sanctuary. “I did what I always do when I’m confused, lonely, or frightened,” she writes. “I disappeared into the kitchen.”My Kitchen Year follows the change of seasons—and Reichl’s emotions—as she slowly heals through the simple pleasures of cooking. While working 24/7, Reichl would “throw quick meals together” for her family and friends. Now she has the time to rediscover what cooking meant to her. Imagine kale, leaves dark and inviting, sautéed with chiles and garlic; summer peaches baked into a simple cobbler; fresh oysters chilling in a box of snow; plump chickens and earthy mushrooms, fricasseed with cream. Over the course of this challenging year, each dish Reichl prepares becomes a kind of stepping stone to finding joy again in ordinary things. The 136 recipes collected here represent a life’s passion for food: a blistering ma po tofu that shakes Reichl out of the blues; a decadent grilled cheese sandwich that accompanies a rare sighting in the woods around her home; a rhubarb sundae that signals the arrival of spring. Here, too, is Reichl’s enlivening dialogue with her Twitter followers, who become her culinary supporters and lively confidants. Part cookbook, part memoir, part paean to the household gods, My Kitchen Year may be Ruth Reichl’s most stirring book yet—one that reveals a refreshingly vulnerable side of the world's most famous food editor as she shares treasured recipes to be returned to again and again and again.

Y'all Come Eat


Jamie Deen - 2008
    - Chapters spotlight the Deen brothers' specialties--from Bobby's all-time favorite goulash to Jamie's amazing cheeseburger pies.- Fresh and upbeat, it's spiced up with lively Deen brothers' tidbits and stories giving you an inside look at their lives.- Deen family photos and recent photos of the brothers shaking it up in the kitchen with family and friends add a special touch.

My Paris Kitchen: Recipes and Stories


David Lebovitz - 2014
    In that time, the culinary culture of France has shifted as a new generation of chefs and home cooks—most notably in Paris—incorporates ingredients and techniques from around the world into traditional French dishes.      In My Paris Kitchen, David remasters the classics, introduces lesser-known fare, and presents 100 sweet and savory recipes that reflect the way modern Parisians eat today. You’ll find Soupe à l’oignon, Cassoulet, Coq au vin, and Croque-monsieur, as well as Smoky barbecue-style pork, Lamb shank tagine, Dukkah-roasted cauliflower, Salt cod fritters with tartar sauce, and Wheat berry salad with radicchio, root vegetables, and pomegranate. And of course, there’s dessert: Warm chocolate cake with salted butter caramel sauce, Duck fat cookies, Bay leaf poundcake with orange glaze, French cheesecake...and the list goes on. David also shares stories told with his trademark wit and humor, and lush photography taken on location around Paris and in David’s kitchen reveals the quirks, trials, beauty, and joys of life in the culinary capital of the world.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl


Ree Drummond - 2008
    Drummond colorfully traces her transition from city life to ranch wife through recipes, photos, and pithy commentary based on her popular, award-winning blog, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, and whips up delicious, satisfying meals for cowboys and cowgirls alike made from simple, widely available ingredients. The Pioneer Woman Cooks—and with these “Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl,” she pleases the palate and tickles the funny bone at the same time.

Besh Big Easy: 101 Home Cooked New Orleans Recipes


John Besh - 2015
    Besh Big Easy will feature all new recipes and easy dishes, published in a refreshing new flexibound format and accessible to cooks everywhere. Much has changed since Besh wrote his bestselling My New Orleans in 2009. His restaurant empire has grown from two to twelve acclaimed eateries, from the highly praised Restaurant August to the just opened farm-to-table taqueria, Johnny Sanchez. John's television career has blossomed as well. He’s become known to millions as host of two national public television cooking shows based on his books and of Hungry Investors on Spike TV. Besh Big Easy is dedicated to accessibility in home cooking and Orleans cuisine. "There's no reason a good jambalaya needs two dozen ingredients," John says. In this book, jambalaya has less than ten, but sacrifices nothing in the way of flavor and even offers exciting yet simple substitutions. With 101 original, personal recipes such as Mr. Sam’s Stuffed Crabs, Duck Camp Shrimp & Grits, and Silver Queen Corn Pudding, Besh Big Easy is chock-full of the vivid personality and Louisiana flavor that has made John Besh such a popular American culinary icon. Happy eating!

Delancey: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage


Molly Wizenberg - 2014
    So when Brandon decided to open a pizza restaurant, Molly was supportive—not because she wanted him to do it, but because the idea was so far-fetched that she didn’t think he would. Before she knew it, he’d signed a lease on a space. The restaurant, Delancey, was going to be a reality, and all of Molly’s assumptions about her marriage were about to change.Together they built Delancey: gutting and renovating the space on a cobbled-together budget, developing a menu, hiring staff, and passing inspections. Delancey became a success, and Molly tried to convince herself that she was happy in their new life until—in the heat and pressure of the restaurant kitchen—she realized that she hadn’t been honest with herself or Brandon.With evocative photos by Molly and twenty new recipes for the kind of simple, delicious food that chefs eat at home, Delancey is a moving and honest account of two young people learning to give in and let go in order to grow together.