The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen


Sean Sherman - 2017
    Locally sourced, seasonal, “clean” ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking are nothing new to Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef. In his breakout book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy. Sherman dispels outdated notions of Native American fare—no fry bread or Indian tacos here—and no European staples such as wheat flour, dairy products, sugar, and domestic pork and beef. The Sioux Chef’s healthful plates embrace venison and rabbit, river and lake trout, duck and quail, wild turkey, blueberries, sage, sumac, timpsula or wild turnip, plums, purslane, and abundant wildflowers. Contemporary and authentic, his dishes feature cedar braised bison, griddled wild rice cakes, amaranth crackers with smoked white bean paste, three sisters salad, deviled duck eggs, smoked turkey soup, dried meats, roasted corn sorbet, and hazelnut–maple bites.The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen is a rich education and a delectable introduction to modern indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories, with a vision and approach to food that travels well beyond those borders.

Chez Panisse Cooking


Paul Bertolli - 1988
    Since the first meal served there in 1971, Alice Waters's Berkeley, California, restaurant has revolutionized American cooking, earning its place among the truly great restaurants of the world. Renowned for the brilliant innovations of its ever-changing menu, Chez Panisse has also come to represent a culinary philosophy inspired by nature -- dedicated to the common interest of environment and consumer in the use of gloriously fresh organic ingredients.In Chez Panisse Cooking, chef Paul Bertolli -- one of the most talented chefs ever to work with Alice Waters -- presents the Chez Panisse kitchen's explorations and reexaminations of earlier triumphs. Expanding upon -- and sometimes simplifying -- the concepts that have made Chez Panisse legendary, Bertolli provides reflections, recipes, and menus that lead the cook to a critical and intuitive understanding of food itself, of its purest organic sources and most sublime uses. Perhaps best described by Richard Olney, "Paul Bertolli's cuisine is what 'health food' should be and never is: a celebration of purity. The food is imaginative but never complicated; it is art."Enhanced by Gail Skoff's breathtaking hand-colored photographs, Paul Bertolli's recipes remind us of the simple and passionate joys in cooking and of the inspiration to be drawn from each season's freshest foods: glistening local salmon creates a wildly colorful springtime carpaccio or is grilled later in the season with tomatoes and basil vinaigrette; autumn's fresh white truffles are sliced into an extraordinarily textured salad of pastel hues with fennel, mushrooms, and Parmesan cheese; figs left on the tree until they grow heavy and sweet appear in a fall fruit salad with warm goat cheese and herb toast. Season by season, Chez Panisse Cooking will captivate the senses and imagination of the cook with such entrancing recipes as Sugar Snap Peas with Brown Butter and Sage; Buckwheat Cakes with Smoked Salmon, Creme Fraiche, and Capers; Grilled Fish Wrapped in Fig Leaves with Red Wine Sauce; Lamb Salad with Garden Lettuces, Straw Potatoes, and Garlic Sauce; Marinated Veal Chops Grilled over an Oak Fire; or Seckel Pears Poached in Red Wine with Burnt Caramel. Here, some of the restaurant's most remarkable recent menus for special occasions are recreated, from a White Truffle Dinner to the Chez Panisse Tenth Annual Garlic Festival, to a supper for poet Vikram Seth that began. with "The Season's song, a summer ballad/Tomatoes, basil, flowers, beans/In unison dance, Lobster Salad..."Many of these recipes reflect Paul Bertolli's love of northern Italian food; for other dishes, the inspiration is French; in all, there is a keen awareness of the abundance of uncompromisingly pure, seasonal ingredients to be found in America.Above all, the Chez Panisse recipes are meant to inspire the cook to create his or her own version; to awaken the senses to the nuances of taste, texture, and color in cooking; to "discover the ecstatic moments when the intuition, skill, and accumulated experience of the cook merge with the taste and composition of the food." Since its original publication in 1988, this classic cookbook has proved to be indispensable to the shelf of every serious cook and every serious cookbook reader.

Super Natural Cooking: Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Foods into Your Cooking


Heidi Swanson - 2007
    Using a palette of natural ingredients now widely available in supermarkets, Super Natural Cooking offers globally inspired, nutritionally packed cuisine that is both gratifying and flavorful. With her weeknight-friendly dishes, real-foodie Heidi Swanson teaches home cooks how to become confident in a whole-foods kitchen by experimenting with alternative flours, fats, grains, sweeteners, and more. Including innovative twists on familiar dishes from polenta to chocolate chip cookies, Super Natural Cooking is the new wholesome way to eat, using real-world ingredients to get out-of-this-world results.An inspiringly stylish introduction to nutritional superfoods, with an emphasis on whole grains, natural sweeteners, healthy oils, and colorful phytonutrient-packed ingredients.Features 80 recipes, a comprehensive pantry chapter, and 100 stunning full-color photos.Shows how to build a whole-foods pantry with nutrition-rich ingredients like almond oil, pomegranate molasses, and mesquite flour--each explained in detail.Winner of the 2005 Webby Award for best personal website, Heidi Swanson's recipe blog (www.101cookbooks.com) attracts close to 500,000 page views a month, making it one of the most widely read recipe journals online.

The Whole Fish Cookbook: New Ways to Cook, Eat and Think


Josh Niland - 2019
    From sourcing and butchering to dry ageing and curing, it challenges everything we thought we knew about the subject and invites readers to see fish for what it really is – an amazing, complex source of protein that can, and should, be treated with exactly the same nose-to-tail reverence as meat. Featuring more than 60 recipes for dozens of fish species ranging from Cod Liver Pate on Toast, Fish Cassoulet and Roast Fish Bone Marrow to – essentially – the Perfect Fish and Chips, The Whole Fish Cookbook will soon have readers seeing that there is so much more to a fish than just the fillet and that there are more than just a handful of fish in the sea.

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit


Barry Estabrook - 2011
    But in Tomatoland, which is based on his James Beard Award-winning article, "The Price of Tomatoes," investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry. Fields are sprayed with more than one hundred different herbicides and pesticides. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and artificially gassed until their skins acquire a marketable hue. Modern plant breeding has tripled yields, but has also produced fruits with dramatically reduced amounts of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C, and tomatoes that have fourteen times more sodium than the tomatoes our parents enjoyed. The relentless drive for low costs has fostered a thriving modern-day slave trade in the United States. How have we come to this point?   Estabrook traces the supermarket tomato from its birthplace in the deserts of Peru to the impoverished town of Immokalee, Florida, a.k.a. the tomato capital of the United States. He visits the laboratories of seedsmen trying to develop varieties that can withstand the rigors of agribusiness and still taste like a garden tomato, and then moves on to commercial growers who operate on tens of thousands of acres, and eventually to a hillside field in Pennsylvania, where he meets an obsessed farmer who produces delectable tomatoes for the nation's top restaurants.Throughout Tomatoland, Estabrook presents a who's who cast of characters in the tomato industry: the avuncular octogenarian whose conglomerate grows one out of every eight tomatoes eaten in the United States; the ex-Marine who heads the group that dictates the size, color, and shape of every tomato shipped out of Florida; the U.S. attorney who has doggedly prosecuted human traffickers for the past decade; and the Guatemalan peasant who came north to earn money for his parents' medical bills and found himself enslaved for two years.Tomatoland reads like a suspenseful whodunit as well as an expose of today's agribusiness systems and the price we pay as a society when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases.

Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food


Megan Kimble - 2015
    But she cared about where food came from, how it was made, and what it did to her body: so she decided to go an entire year without eating processed foods. Unprocessed is the narrative of Megan's extraordinary year, in which she milled wheat, extracted salt from the sea, milked a goat, slaughtered a sheep, and more--all while earning an income that fell well below the federal poverty line.What makes a food processed? As Megan would soon realize, the answer to that question went far beyond cutting out snacks and sodas, and became a fascinating journey through America's food system, past and present. She learned how wheat became white; how fresh produce was globalized and animals industrialized. But she also discovered that in daily life, as she attempted to balance her project with a normal social life--which included dating--the question of what made a food processed was inextricably tied to gender and economy, politics and money, work and play.Backed by extensive research and wide-ranging interviews--and including tips on how to ditch processed food and transition to a real-food lifestyle--Unprocessed offers provocative insights not only on the process of food, but also the processes that shape our habits, communities, and day-to-day lives.

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human


Richard W. Wrangham - 2009
    But in Catching Fire, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. when our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began.Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be used instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor.Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors' diets, Catching Fire sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, Catching Fire will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins--or in our modern eating habits.--from the dustjacket

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table


Tracie McMillan - 2012
    Reporting from California fields, a Walmart produce aisle outside of Detroit, and the kitchen of a New York City Applebee's, McMillan examines the reality of our country's food industry in this "clear and essential" (The Boston Globe) work of reportage. Chronicling her own experience and that of the Mexican garlic crews, Midwestern produce managers, and Caribbean line cooks with whom she works, McMillan goes beyond the food on her plate to explore the national priorities that put it there. Fearlessly reported and beautifully written, The American Way of Eating goes beyond statistics and culture wars to deliver a book that is fiercely honest, strikingly intelligent, and compulsively readable. In making the simple case that - city or country, rich or poor - everyone wants good food, McMillan guarantees that talking about dinner will never be the same again.

The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea


Michael Harney - 2008
    Written by one of the country’s leading tea professionals, The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea is an illuminating resource for tea drinkers interested in developing and refining their palate as well as their understanding of the complex agricultural, historical, and cultural significance of tea. Drawing on his singular experience, Michael Harney masterly explores the full range of teas, revealing how each tea is distinctive, with a taste that derives from a precise combination of cultivation and production techniques, and influenced by the geography as well as its history. These lively profiles of diverse tea varieties—from delicate white tea to aged black puerh tea—include brewing instructions and vivid descriptions of the beverage scent, taste, and appearance; everything you need to become a connoisseur. Tea has long been popular in the United States, but only recently have Americans treated this nuanced beverage with a deeper curiosity, more refined approach, and wider appetite. The Wall Street Journal reports that total U.S. tea sales are nearly four times what they were in 1990, and this growing population of discriminate consumers will celebrate the new vocabulary provided in The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea. Unique in scope, candor, and accessibility, The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea will quickly become the classic reference and staple in the library of every serious tea drinker.

My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)


Luisa Weiss - 2012
    The Julie/Julia Project. In the early days of food blogs, these were the pioneers whose warmth and recipes turned their creators’ kitchens into beloved web destinations. Luisa Weiss was working in New York when she decided to cook her way through her massive recipe collection. The Wednesday Chef, the cooking blog she launched to document her adventures, charmed readers around the world. But Luisa never stopped longing to return to her childhood home in Berlin. A food memoir with recipes, My Berlin Kitchen deliciously chronicles how she finally took the plunge and went across the ocean in search of happiness—only to find love waiting where she least expected it.

Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness


Sasha Martin - 2015
    As cooking unlocked the memories of her rough-and-tumble childhood and the loss and heartbreak that came with it, Martin became more determined than ever to find peace and elevate her life through the prism of food and world cultures. From the tiny, makeshift kitchen of her eccentric, creative mother to a string of foster homes to the house from which she launches her own cooking adventure, Martin’s heartfelt, brutally honest memoir reveals the power of cooking to bond, to empower, and to heal—and celebrates the simple truth that happiness is created from within.

How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food


Nigella Lawson - 1998
    . . and how she cooks for family and friends. . . . A breakthrough . . . with hundreds of appealing and accessible recipes."–Amanda Hesser, The New York Times"Nigella Lawson serves up irony and sensuality with her comforting recipes . . . the Queen of Come-On Cooking."–Los Angeles Times"A chatty, sometimes cheeky, celebration of home-cooked meals."–USA Today"Nigella Lawson is, whisks down, Britain’s funniest and sexiest food writer, a raconteur who is delicious whether detailing every step on the way towards a heavenly roast chicken and root vegetable couscous or explaining why ‘cooking is not just about joining the dots’."–Richard Story, Vogue magazine

History Lover's Cookbook


Roxe Anne Peacock - 2012
    Lee stood under an apple tree to dispatch his surrender to General Grant. Do you know what he was eating when he surrendered?Prepare a picnic of lemonade, raspberry shrub, mint julep, fried chicken, ham sandwiches, potato salad with boiled dressing, cold slaw, soda biscuits and quince marmalade to observe one of the many Civil War re-enactments throughout the United States.Enjoy eating tea cakes while viewing more than 150 full-color photos of replica Civil War items, re-enactors portraying Abraham Lincoln, Generals Custer, Lee and Grant, foods and recipes inspired by the nineteenth century.Share in the Union’s Thanksgiving holiday by preparing recipes from the chapter, Siege at Petersburg.Find out what General Grant ate every morning with his breakfast.Roxe Anne Peacock brings the nineteenth century and Civil War era to life through the wonderful photography depicted throughout the book.

The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy


Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin - 1825
    Brillat-Savarin (1783-1833) made famous the aphorism, "Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you who you are." He believed that food defines a nation.

Hungry Planet


Peter Menzel - 2005
    In the USA, the Ronayne-Caven family enjoys corndogs-on-a-stick with a tossed green salad. This age-old practice of sitting down to a family meal is undergoing unprecedented change as rising world affluence and trade, along with the spread of global food conglomerates, transform diets worldwide. In HUNGRY PLANET, the creative team behind the best-selling Material World, Women in the Material World, and MAN EATING BUGS presents a photographic study of families from around the world, revealing what people eat during the course of one week. Each family's profile includes a detailed description.       Awards2006 James Beard Cookbook of the Year The Splendid Table Book of the Year2005 Harry Chapin Media Award finalist for the 2006 IACP Cookbook Award Reviews"Arresting, beautiful, enlightening and infinitely human, this is a collection of full-page photos of families around the world surrounded by what they eat in a single week -- from Bhutan to San Antonio. Read the illuminating statistics and the essays. This is a book for the family and for the classroom. You won't see the same old "aren't we better than them" attitude, nor will you be shamed. This book reminds us that what we eat is the simplest, yet most profound, thread that ties us together."—Lynne Rossetto Kasper, Host of American Public Media's Public Radio Program, The Splendid Table“the politics of food at its most poignant and provocative. A coffee table book that will certainly make coffee interesting.”—Washington Post“While the photos are extraordinary--fine enough for a stand-alone volume--it's the questions these photos ask that make this volume so gripping. This is a beautiful, quietly provocative volume.”—Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*“This book of portraits reveals a planet of joyful individuality, dispiriting sameness, and heart-breaking disparity. It's a perfect gift for the budding anti-globalists on your list”—Bon Appetit “[A] unique photographic study of global nutrition”        —USA Today “Grabs your attention for the startlingly varied stories it tells about how people feed themselves around the world. Its contents are based on detailed research, beautifully photographed, presented with often disturbing clarity.”                                                     —Associated Press "The world's kitchens open to Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, the intrepid couple who created the series of books called Material World.... As always with this couple's terse, lively travelogues, politics and the world economy are never far from view."                                 —New York Times Book Review  “illuminating, thought-provoking, and gloriously colorful”                                                  —Saveur Magazine “Richly colored and quietly composed photographs....Hungry Planet is not a book about obesity or corporate villains; it's something much grander. Its premise is simple to the point of obvious and powerful to the point of art.”                                                                     —Salon.com “A fascinating nutritional and gustatory tour.”                                                                —San Jose Mercury News“A grand culinary voyage through our modern world...a lushly illustrated anthropological study.”                                                                                                                 —San Francisco Bay Guardian“The talked-about book of the season...the stories are fascinating.”                                    —Detroit Free Press“Unique and engaging”                                                                                              —Delta Airlines Sky magazine