Antoni in the Kitchen


Antoni Porowski - 2019
    With appealing vulnerability, he shows cooks of all levels how to become more confident and casual in the kitchen. The verve and naturalness of his approach earned raves from Food & Wine and Bon Appétit to GQ and the New York Times, which noted his dishes prove that “sometimes simple is anything but simplistic.” Some of the recipes in this book are weeknight healthyish meals, while others are perfect for off-the-cuff entertaining. Visual stunners, they’re often composed of fewer than five ingredients. Whether Bastardized Easy Ramen; Malaysian Chili Shrimp; Roasted Carrots with Carrot-Top Pesto; or Salty Lemon Squares, all are visual stunners and can be carried off with panache, even by beginners.

The Vegetable Butcher: How to Select, Prep, Slice, Dice, and Masterfully Cook Vegetables from Artichokes to Zucchini


Cara Mangini - 2016
    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.

The Taste of Country Cooking


Edna Lewis - 1976
    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.

Foundations of Flavor: The Noma Guide to Fermentation


René Redzepi - 2018
    Fermentation is one of the foundations behind Noma’s extraordinary flavor profiles. Now René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of Noma, and David Zilber, the chef who runs the restaurant’s acclaimed fermentation lab, share never-before-revealed techniques to creating Noma’s extensive pantry of ferments. And they do so with a book conceived specifically to share their knowledge and techniques with home cooks. With more than 750 full-color photographs, most of them step-by-step how-tos, and with every recipe approachably written and meticulously tested, Foundations of Flavor: The Noma Guide to Fermentation takes readers far beyond the typical kimchi and sauerkraut to include koji, kombuchas, shoyus, misos, lacto-ferments, vinegars, garums, and black fruits and vegetables. And—perhaps even more important—shows how to use these game-changing pantry ingredients in 100 original talk recipes. Fermentation is already building as the most significant new direction in food (and health). With Foundations of Flavor: The Noma Guide to Fermentation, it’s about to be taken to a whole new level.

The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: Harness the Power of the World's Healthiest Diet to Live Better, Longer


Amy Riolo - 2015
    It integrates the latest research and clinical findings with 100 delicious, authentic, easy recipes and Mediterranean lifestyle tips while dispelling any myths and misinformation.Using the Mediterranean Pyramid as a guide, cuisine expert Amy Riolo gets to the core of the Mediterranean lifestyle, and explains what is eaten, when to eat it, and why. Each recipe in The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook contains a cultural tip from the Mediterranean region. Fun historical facts, legend, and lore, as well as nutritional information accompany each recipe.The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook features recipes from all countries in the region to include perennial favorites, little known treasures, and recent discoveries.Get ready to enjoy a healthy lifestyle that includes enticing, satisfying, recipes- great for family dinners and entertaining, for any and all occasions, to be appreciated by any palate."Amy Riolo is a true guardian of the techniques and inherent goodness of the Mediterranean life style! Her food, her philosophy is an absolute pleasure to read and consume." - Chef Jason Roberts www.chefjasonroberts.com

How I Learned to Cook: Culinary Educations from the World's Greatest Chefs


Kimberly Witherspoon - 2006
    Hilarious, touching, and always surprising, they cover everything from early adversity to career-making triumphs. How I Learned to Cook is an irresistible treat for cooks (and foodies) of all abilities, and includes stories by such culinary giants as Ferran Adria, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, Gabrielle Hamilton, Suzanne Goin, Eric Ripert, and more...

Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe


Joanne Chang - 2010
    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.

Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America


Maricel E. Presilla - 2012
    In one volume it gives home cooks, armchair travelers, and curious chefs the first comprehensive collection of recipes from this region. An inquisitive historian and a successful restaurateur, Maricel E. Presilla has spent more than thirty years visiting each country personally. She’s gathered more than 500 recipes for the full range of dishes, from the foundational adobos and sofritos to empanadas and tamales to ceviches and moles to sancocho and desserts such as flan and tres leches cake. Detailed equipment notes, drink and serving suggestions, and color photographs of finished dishes are also included. This is a one-of-a-kind cookbook to be savored and read as much for the writing and information as for its introduction to heretofore unrevealed recipes.

The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites


Libby H. O'Connell - 2014
    But American food, like its history, is a world of its own. This enticingly fresh book introduces modern listeners to lost American food traditions and leads them on a tantalizing culinary journey through the evolution of our vibrant cuisine and culture. Covering a hundred different foods from the Native American-era through today and featuring over a dozen recipes and photos, this fascinating history of American food will delight history buffs and food lovers alike.

The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens


Lynne Rossetto Kasper - 1999
    Written by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, author of The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food (winner of both the James Beard and Julia Child/IACP Cookbook-of-the-Year Awards), it is every bit the equal of its celebrated predecessor.Read its exuberant pages, eat its lusty dishes, and you enter a landscape vibrant with rural life. You are one with the terrain. In some sense, you are home. That, of course, is the miracle of Italy—no matter where we come from, we want to be a part of it. And the miracle of The Italian Country Table is its ability to take us there.And what a journey! You will never be as impatient to get into your kitchen as when you are planning a meal from this book. Two hundred recipes, personally collected from home cooks throughout the length and breadth of Italy, will keep calling you back.Who could resist the “Gatto” di Patate, a mashed-potato “lasagna” from the Neapolitan countryside? Or a Tuscan Mountain Supper of warm beans tossed with an herbed tomato sauce and eaten with tart greens? Or Pasta of the Grape Harvest, a Sicilian dish of grapes, red wine, orange zest, spices, pistachios and linguine? Or Chocolate Polenta Pudding Cake?Kasper, host of Public Radio's The Splendid Table, is a master teacher who thinks about cooking in a way that is radically distinctive. Her chapter on tomatoes and tomato sauces, a treasure by itself, will change the way you think about them—and cook them—forever. Her guide to buying and saucing pasta contains more useful facts than many books that devote themselves to pasta exclusively.Kasper, the grandchild of Italian immigrants, describes herself as someone with a love of lingering “in places where life changes slowly.” This personal book abounds with stories of artisans, farmers and family. It is a portrait of Italian country life.Where you read The Italian Country Table, cook from it or use it to plan a trip (there is an appendix that lists guest farms, country hotels, restaurants and museums), you have only to turn its pages to be transported to a rustic Italy that few of us know, but all of us long for.-16 pages of finished dishes in full color-50 black-and-white photographs of country life

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food


Judith Jones - 2007
    Living in Paris after World War II, Judith Jones broke free of the bland American food she had been raised on and reveled in everyday French culinary delights. On returning to the States--hoping to bring some "joie de cuisine" to America--she published Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking. "The rest is publishing and gastronomic history. A new world now opened up to Jones: discovering, with her husband, Evan, the delights of "American" food; working with the tireless Julia; absorbing the wisdom of James Beard; understanding food as memory through the writings of Claudia Roden and Madhur Jaffrey; demystifying the techniques of Chinese cookery with Irene Kuo; absorbing the Italian way through the warmth of Lidia Bastianich; and working with Edna Lewis, Marion Cunningham, Joan Nathan, and other groundbreaking cooks. Jones considers matters of taste (can it be acquired?). She discusses the vagaries of vegetable gardening in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and the joys of foraging in the woods and meadows. And she writes about M.F.K. Fisher: as mentor, friend, and the source of luminous insight into the arts of eating, living, and aging. Embellished with fifty recipes--each with its own story and special tips--this is an absolutely charming memoir by a woman who was present at the creation of the American food revolution and played a seminal role in shaping it.

Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food


Nik Sharma - 2018
    Season features 100 of the most delicious and intriguing recipes you've ever tasted, plus 270 of the most beautiful photographs ever seen in a cookbook. Here Nik, beloved curator of the award-winning food blog A Brown Table, shares a treasury of ingredients, techniques, and flavors that combine in a way that's both familiar and completely unexpected. These are recipes that take a journey all the way from India by way of the American South to California. It's a personal journey that opens new vistas in the kitchen, including new methods and integrated by a marvelous use of spices. Even though these are dishes that will take home cooks and their guests by surprise, rest assured there's nothing intimidating here. Season, like Nik, welcomes everyone to the table!

Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen


Yasmin Khan - 2018
    It has evolved over several millennia through the influences of Arabic, Jewish, Armenian, Persian, Turkish, and Bedouin cultures and civilizations that have ruled over, or lived in, the area known as ancient Palestine.In each place she visits, Khan enters the kitchens of Palestinians of all ages and backgrounds, discovering the secrets of their cuisine and sharing heartlifting stories.

Honey Co.: The Cookbook


Itamar Srulovich - 2014
    Since opening the doors, they have created exquisite dishes, delectable menus, and an atmosphere that's as warm, inviting, and exotic as the food they serve. Recipes include spreads and dips, exquisitely balanced salads, one-pan dishes, simple fragrant soups, rich Persian entrees, the tagines of North Africa, the Sofritos of Jerusalem, and the herb-infused stews of Iran. HONEY & CO. brings the flavors of the Middle East to life in a wholly accessible way, certain to entice and satisfy in equal measure.

Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia


James Oseland - 2006
    Oseland has spent two decades exploring the foods of the Spice Islands. Few can introduce us to the birthplace of spice as he does. He brings us the Nyonya dishes of Singapore and Malaysia, the fiery specialties of West Sumatra, and the spicy-aromatic stews of Java. Oseland culled his recipes from twenty years of intimate contact with home cooks and diverse markets. He presents them here in easily made, accessible recipes, perfect for today’s home cook. Included is a helpful glossary (illustrated in color in one of the picture sections) of all the ingredients you need to make the dishes and where and how to buy them. With Cradle of Flavor, fans of Javanese Satay, Singaporean Stir-Fried Noodles, and Indonesian curries can finally make them in their own kitchen.