Book picks similar to
Restaurant Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones
non-fiction
food
london
library-books
On Baking: A Textbook of Baking and Pastry Fundamentals
Sarah R. Labensky - 2004
Comprehensive and well-written, it emphasizes an understanding of baking fundamentals, explores the preparation of fresh ingredients, and provides information on other relevant topics, such as food history and food science. This introduction to baking outlines professionalism, tools and equipment, ingredients, mise en place, bakeshop principles, healthful and special needs baking, desserts. It contains over 615 recipes/formulas and 700 photographs and line drawings. For Chefs, Bakers, Restaurant Managers and others in the food service industry.
The Comfort Food Diaries: My Quest for the Perfect Dish to Mend a Broken Heart
Emily Nunn - 2017
After a few glasses of wine, heartbroken and lost, Emily, an avid cook and professional food writer, poured her heart out on Facebook. The next morning she woke up with a terrible hangover and a feeling she'd made a terrible mistake, only to discover she had more friends than she knew, many of whom invited her to come visit and cook with them while she put her life back together. Thus began the Comfort Food Tour.Searching for a way forward, Emily travels the country, cooking and staying with relatives and friends, among them renowned chefs Mark Bittman and Ina Garten. She also travels back to revisit scenes from her dysfunctional Southern upbringing, dominated by her dramatic, unpredictable mother and her silent, disengaged father. Her wonderfully idiosyncratic aunts and uncles and cousins come to life in these pages, all part of the rich Southern story in which past and present are indistinguishable, food is a source of connection and identity, and a good story is often preferred to a not-so-pleasant truth. But truth, pleasant or not, is what Emily Nunn craves, and with it comes an acceptance of the losses she has endured, and a sense of hope for the future.In the salty snap of a single Virginia ham biscuit, in the sour tang of Grandmother's Lemon Cake, Nunn experiences the healing power of comfort food, and offers up dozens of recipes for the wonderful meals that saved her life. With the biting humor of David Sedaris and the emotional honesty of Cheryl Strayed, Nunn delivers a moving account of her descent into darkness and her gradual, hard-won return to the living.
Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts
Alice Medrich - 2012
In Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts, you'll find the quickest lemon tart, a lattice-free linzer (mixed entirely in the food processor), one-bowl French chocolate torte (yes, the real thing, but easier to make), imaginative ways with ice cream, chic puddings and mousses to swoon over, and gooey pies with no-fault press-in crusts. Even soufflés for beginners. And you won't need a rolling pin, a pastry brush, or the skills of a professional baker. As always, Alice's recipes are foolproof and well tested, and her tips for success will make all cooks—even those nervous about baking—confident in the kitchen. Plus there are more than 100 ideas for spur-of-the-moment desserts that don't even involve baking, including fantastic ideas for ways to dress up a bar of chocolate, a pint of strawberries, a handful of dried fruit, fresh cheese, gingerbread, amaretti, and more. And of course all those spot-on combinations for which Alice Medrich is so well known, such as Grilled Pineapple with Coffee Ice Cream, Lemon-Scented Peach Crisp, Salted-Caramel Banana Bread Pudding, and Coconut Pecan Torte.
Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not
Amy Sedaris - 2004
In his desperate search for a small town dying in America, intrepid journalist Russell Hokes stumbles upon a quarter-mile stretch of concrete and gravel dotted with strip clubs and used auto parts shops. Welcome to Wigfield. Population: vague. Upon his arrival, Russell Hokes wanders the streets searching for the salt of the earth. Instead he finds a town in crisis. Why State Representative Bill Farber wants to tear down the Bulkwaller Dam, thereby flooding the town. Will Russell Hokes save the town? Is Wigfield merely posing as a town to collect federal disaster relief? Won't you please buy this book?
The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket
Trevor Corson - 2006
With the same eye for drama and humor that Corson brings to the exploits of the chefs, he delves into the biology and natural history of the creatures of the sea. He illuminates sushi's beginnings as an Indo-Chinese meal akin to cheese, describes its reinvention in bustling nineteenth-century Tokyo as a cheap fast food, and tells the story of the pioneers who brought it to America. He shows how this unlikely meal is now exploding into the American heartland just as the long-term future of sushi may be unraveling.The Zen of Fish is a compelling tale of human determination as well as a delectable smorgasbord of surprising food science, intrepid reporting, and provocative cultural history.
Eat More Better: How to Make Every Bite More Delicious
Dan Pashman - 2014
Eat More Better weaves science and humor into a definitive, illustrated guidebook for anyone who loves food. But this book isn’t for foodies. It’s for eaters. In the bestselling tradition of Alton Brown’s Good Eats and M.F.K. Fisher’s The Art of Eating, Pashman analyzes everyday foods in extraordinary detail to answer some of the most pressing questions of our time, including: Is a cheeseburger better when the cheese is on the bottom, closer to your tongue, to accentuate cheesy goodness? What are the ethics of cherry-picking specific ingredients from a snack mix? And what role does surface-area-to-volume ratio play in fried food enjoyment and ice cube selection? Written with an infectious blend of humor and smarts, Eat More Better is a tongue-in-cheek textbook that teaches readers to eat for maximum pleasure. Chapters are divided into subjects like engineering, philosophy, economics, and physical science, and feature hundreds of drawings, charts, and infographics to illustrate key concepts like The Porklift—a bacon lattice structure placed beneath a pancake stack to elevate it off the plate, thus preventing the bottom pancake from becoming soggy with syrup and imbuing the bacon with maple-based deliciousness. Eat More Better combines Pashman’s award-winning writing with his unparalleled field research, collected over thirty-seven years of eating at least three times a day. It delivers entertaining, fascinating, and practical insights that will satisfy your mind and stomach, and change the way you look at food forever. Read this book and every bite you take will be better.
Flatbreads Flavors
Jeffrey Alford - 1995
As they have pursued their passions for travel photography and culinary research, they have found around the world a shared and nourishing element of culture and cuisine: flatbreads, the simplest, oldest, and most marvelously varied form of bread known to humankind. Immersing themselves in local cultures-from the Malaysian island of Penang and the high Himalayan passes of Tibet to the market stalls of Provence and the pueblos of New Mexico -- Adford and Duguid have studied bread baking and cooking with local bakers, in family kitchens, with street vendors, and at neighborhood restaurants and cafes.In Flatbreads and Flavors they share more than sixty recipes for flatbreads of every origin and description: tortillas from Mexico, pita from the Middle East, naan from Afghanistan, chapatti from India, pizza from Italy, and French fougasse. As well within the eight regional chapters of the book, they provide 150 exuberant recipes for traditional accompaniments to the breads. These include chutneys and curries, salsas and stews, rich samplings of the Mediterranean mezze table and the Scandinavian smorgasbord, and such delectable pairings as Chinese Spicy Cumin Kebabs wrapped in Uighur nan or Lentils with Garlic, Onion, and Tomato spooned onto chapatti.Oven-baked, grilled, fried, skillet-baked, steamed, or even baked beneath the desert sand, flatbreads are a fascinating, satisfying, and simple form that brings wholesome grains into our diet. They can be made from every grain imaginable: wheat, rye, corn, oats, millet, sorghum, teff, rice, buckwheat. They can be unleavened or leavened. They can be made so thin that they become transparent, or they can be two inches thick and sliceable.But Flatbreads and Flavors is not only a book about the original life-sustaining food served around the world since time began, it is also a book about people and places, with vivid images and shared experiences captured in brief prose essays and in Alford and Duguid's own acclaimed photographs. Redolent with the tastes and aromas of the world's hearths, it maps a course through cultures old and intriguing. With clear and patient recipes and special sections defining techniques, ingredients, and equipment, Flatbreads and Flavors makes accessible to the novice and experienced baker alike the simple and satisfying bread baker's art.Flatbreads and Flavors has 8 maps and 16 pages of full-color photographs of breads and their accompaniments. It is a Main Selection of HomeStyle Books a division of Book-of-the-Month Club.
Short And Sweet
Dan Lepard - 2011
For those who have a love of professional baking, or simply loathe supermarket stodge, Lepard's much anticipated third book brings his trademark quality and creativity to the domestic kitchen.
Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace
Ricardo Semler - 1988
Learn Ricardo's secrets and let some of the Semco magic rub off on you and your company.
Miss Ella of Commander's Palace
Ella Brennan - 2016
From childhood in the Great Depression to opening esteemed eateries, it’s quite a story to tell. When she and her family launched Commander’s Palace, it became the city’s most popular restaurant, where famous chefs such as Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse, and James Beard Award winner Troy McPhail got their start.Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace describes the drama, the disasters, and the abundance of love, sweat, and grit it takes to become the matriarch of New Orleans’ finest restaurant empire.
The Courtiers: Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court at Kensington Palace
Lucy Worsley - 2010
In the eighteenth century, this palace was a world of skulduggery, intrigue, politicking, etiquette, wigs, and beauty spots, where fans whistled open like switchblades and unusual people were kept as curiosities. Lucy Worsley's The Courtiers charts the trajectory of the fantastically quarrelsome Hanovers and the last great gasp of British court life. Structured around the paintings of courtiers and servants that line the walls of the King's Staircase of Kensington Palace-paintings you can see at the palace today-The Courtiers goes behind closed doors to meet a pushy young painter, a maid of honor with a secret marriage, a vice chamberlain with many vices, a bedchamber woman with a violent husband, two aging royal mistresses, and many more. The result is an indelible portrait of court life leading up to the famous reign of George III , and a feast for both Anglophiles and lovers of history and royalty.
Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook
Alice Waters - 2017
Fueled in equal parts by naiveté and a relentless pursuit of beauty and pure flavor, she turned her passion project into an iconic institution that redefined American cuisine for generations of chefs and food lovers. In Coming to My Senses Alice retraces the events that led her to 1517 Shattuck Avenue and the tumultuous times that emboldened her to find her own voice as a cook when the prevailing food culture was embracing convenience and uniformity. Moving from a repressive suburban upbringing to Berkeley in 1964 at the height of the Free Speech Movement and campus unrest, she was drawn into a bohemian circle of charismatic figures whose views on design, politics, film, and food would ultimately inform the unique culture on which Chez Panisse was founded. Dotted with stories, recipes, photographs, and letters, Coming to My Senses is at once deeply personal and modestly understated, a quietly revealing look at one woman's evolution from a rebellious yet impressionable follower to a respected activist who effects social and political change on a global level through the common bond of food.
Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans
Michelle Tam - 2013
Nom Nom Paleo
is a visual feast, crackling with humor and packed with stunningly photographed step-by-step recipes free of gluten, soy, and added sugar. Designed to inspire the whole family to chow down on healthy, home-cooked meals, this cookbook compiles over 100 foolproof recipes that demonstrate how fun and flavorful cooking with wholesome ingredients can be. And did we mention the cartoons?Nom Nom Paleo kicks off with a fresh introduction to Paleo eating, taking readers on a guided tour of author Michelle Tam's real-food strategies for stocking the kitchen, saving time, and maximizing flavors. Also, sprinkled throughout the book are enlightening features on feeding kids, packing nutritious lunches, boosting umami, and much more.But the heart of this book is Michelle's award-winning recipes, 50 percent of which are brand-new—even to diehard fans who own her bestselling iPad cookbook app. Readers can start by marrying their favorite ingredients with building blocks like Sriracha Mayonnaise, Louisiana Remoulade, and the infamous Magic Mushroom Powder. These basic recipes lay the foundation for many of the fabulous delights in the rest of the book including Eggplant & "Ricotta" Stacks, Crab Louie, and Devils on Horseback.There's something for everyone in this cookbook, from small bites like Apple Chips and Kabalagala (Ugandan plantain fritters) to family-sized platters of Coconut Pineapple Rice and Siu Yoke (crispy roast pork belly). Crave exotic spices? You won't be able to resist the fragrant aromas of Fast Pho or Mulligatawny Soup. In the mood for down-home comforts? Make some Yankee Pot Roast or Chicken Nuggets drizzled with Lemon Honey Sauce. When a quick weeknight meal is in order, Nom Nom Paleo can show you how to make Crispy Smashed Chicken or Whole-Roasted Branzini in less than 30 minutes. And for a cold treat on a hot day, nothing beats Mocha Popsicles or a two-minute Strawberry Banana Ice Cream.Healthy cooking doesn't mean sacrificing flavor. This book gives you "Paleo with personality," and will make you excited to play in the kitchen again.
Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream: Sweet Seasonal Recipes for Ice Creams, Sorbets, and Toppings Made with Local Ingredients
Molly Moon Neitzel - 2012
So much so that they've been happily lining up for a cone or signature sundae ever since, and now you can make her delicious ice creams, sorbets, and toppings at home! Arranged in the book by season--with the focus on using local, fresh fruit and herbs in combinations that are both familiar and surprising--you will find recipes for most flavors imaginable and even those a little unimaginable. From childhood favorites to avant-garde, adult-only fare, including the classic Vanilla Bean to the exotic Cardamom to the adventurous Balsamic Strawberry and the comforting Maple Bacon (try a scoop on oatmeal for a special winter breakfast treat!), these ice creams and sorbets are both simple and fun to make. Of course, they're even more fun to eat!
Gin Glorious Gin: How Mother's Ruin Became the Spirit of London
Olivia Williams - 2014
Leading the reader through the underbelly of the Georgian city via the Gin Craze, detouring through the Empire (with a G&T in hand), to the emergence of cocktail bars in the West End, the story is brought right up to date with the resurgence of class in a glass - the Ginnaissance. As gin has crossed paths with Londoners of all classes and professions over the past three hundred years it has become shorthand for metropolitan glamour and alcoholic squalor in equal measure. In and out of both legality and popularity, gin is a drink that has seen it all. Gin Glorious Gin is quirky, informative, full of famous faces - from Dickens to Churchill, Hogarth to Dr Johnson - and introduces many previously unknown Londoners, hidden from history, who have shaped the city and its signature drink.