The Bad Cook


Esther Walker - 2013
    And definitely the sweariest.For over three years now, Esther Walker has been entertaining foodies with her hilarious Recipe Rifle blog. Charting her progress from bad cook to, well, not-so-bad cook, she is blistering honest about what works, and what doesn’t, in the kitchen. If a recipe works for her, it will probably work for you. If it doesn’t, she will swear quite a lot.Crammed full of recipes, tips for entertaining, stories of pregnancy and tales of her husband (restaurant critic Giles Coren) coming home drunk, The Bad Cook will make you laugh out loud. It will also make you want to start cooking.

Chez Panisse Desserts


Lindsey Remolif Shere - 1985
    The subtle, surprising results complement seasonal menus.

The Southern Pantry Cookbook: 105 Recipes Already Hiding in Your Kitchen


Jennifer Chandler - 2014
     Nothing can discourage a home cook quite like being unprepared—running to the store for that one item, getting halfway through a recipe and realizing something is missing, or simply not knowing quite where to begin. Kitchen pro and popular cookbook author Jennifer Chandler returns with The Southern Pantry Cookbook, a fail-safe game plan for ensuring mealtime success. Chandler helps readers stock their shelves with ingredients that will get them out of the kitchen quickly and around their table with family and friends. From rice and beans to sauces and seasonal produce, Chandler demonstrates how to turn basic recipe supplies into memorable Southern-style meals. With just a little bit of planning and a whole lot of down-home flavor, Chandler has some pretty delicious answers to the question, “What’s for supper?” Recipe highlights include:  Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Dried Cranberries and Pecans  White Bean and Country Ham Soup  Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and Grits  Pan-Seared Pork Chops with Drunken Peaches  Cheesy-Jalapeno Hushpuppies  Blackberry Skillet Cobbler

Slim for Life: The Ultimate Health and Detox Plan


Gillian McKeith - 2007
    Drawing on the same expertise that brings Olympic athletes and Hollywood stars to her nutrition clinic in London, Dr. Gillian McKeith lays out a 28-day plan for flushing away bad habits and establishing new eating patterns that will keep you thin and healthy for life. Packed with detailed eating plans, practical tips, relevant nutritional information, strategies for avoiding backtracking, and lush, full- color photographs, Slim for Life is the all-in-one road map to a whole new you.

In The Charcuterie: The Fatted Calf's Guide to Making Sausage, Salumi, Pates, Roasts, Confits, and Other Meaty Goods


Taylor Boetticher - 2013
    The tradition of preserving meats is one of the oldest of all the food arts. Nevertheless, the craft charcuterie movement has captured the modern imagination, with scores of charcuteries opening across the country in recent years, and none is so well-loved and highly regarded as the San Francisco Bay Area’s Fatted Calf.In this much-anticipated debut cookbook, Fatted Calf co-owners and founders Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller present an unprecedented array of meaty goods, with recipes for salumi, pâtés, roasts, sausages, confits, and everything in between. A must-have for the meat-loving home cook, DIY-types in search of a new pantry project, and professionals looking to broaden their repertoire, In the Charcuterie boasts more than 125 recipes and fully-illustrated instructions for making brined, smoked, cured, skewered, braised, rolled, tied, and stuffed meats at home, plus a primer on whole animal butchery.Take your meat cooking to the next level: Start with a whole hog middle, stuff it with a piquant array of herbs and spices, then roll it, tie it, and roast it for a ridiculously succulent, gloriously porky take on porchetta called The Cuban. Or, brandy your own prunes at home to stuff a decadent, caul fat–lined Duck Terrine. If it’s sausage you crave, follow Boetticher and Miller’s step-by-step instructions for grinding, casing, linking, looping, and smoking your own homemade Hot Links or Kolbász.With its impeccably tested recipes and lush, full-color photography, this instructive and inspiring tome is destined to become the go-to reference on charcuterie—and a treasure for anyone fascinated by the art of cooking with and preserving meat.

Wintersweet: Seasonal Desserts to Warm the Home


Tammy Donroe Inman - 2013
    Wintersweet encourages readers to make use of fresh, local ingredients for warming seasonal desserts. While summer farmers' markets are always overflowing with ripe produce, there's plenty to be had from November to March: squashes and pumpkins, parsnips and carrots, apples, pears, citrus of all types, and feel-good ingredients like nuts, cheese, and chocolate.The fresh and rustic recipes in Wintersweet push the envelope of traditional winter desserts like pumpkin or apple pies with such delicacies as Pear Cranberry Clafouti, Spicy Prune Cake with Penuche Frosting, Tangelo Sorbet, and Goat Cheese Cake with Dried Cherry Compote. Each chapter is devoted to different ingredients, ranging from Persimmons, Pomegranates, and Cranberries to Citrus, Cheese, and Dried Fruits, allowing readers to experiment with new and exciting ingredients for complex and delicious flavors. They taste even better when they can be found near your own backyard; Donroe provides resources for finding the best local farmers' markets and agricultural centers near you. Perfect for holiday gatherings or to warm the belly on a cold night, Wintersweet is the perfect dessert companion to make the year's coldest season a bit more festive.

Binging with Babish: 100 Recipes Recreated from Your Favorite Movies and TV Shows


Andrew Rea - 2019
    For each video, Andrew Rea, a self-proclaimed movie and TV buff, teaches a recipe based on a favorite TV show or film, such as the babka from the classic Seinfeld episode, the beef bourguignon from Julie & Julia, or the timpano from Big Night. This cookbook includes these and other fan-favorite recipes. Some are so delicious that you’ll want to make them for dinner right away, like Bubba's shrimp from Forrest Gump, while others can be saved for impressing a loved one—like the chocolate lava cake from Jon Favreau’s Chef, which the actor/director asked to make during a guest appearance on Rea’s show. Complete with behind-the-scenes stories and answers to frequently asked fan questions, Binging with Babish is a must-have companion to the wildly popular YouTube show.

No Need to Knead: Handmade Artisan Breads in 90 minutes


Suzanne Dunaway - 1999
    Now imagine if you could make this and other breads completely from scratch with your own hands in less than ninety minutes from start to hot out of the oven.In No Need to Knead, acclaimed professional baker Suzanne Dunaway reveals her truly revolutionary technique for baking unforgettable Italian breads that require no fussy steps, no special equipment, and no anxiety. Here are the Focaccia, Filoncino, Ciabatta, and Pane Rustico of your dreams. Dunaway also provides recipes for breads from around the world: traditional breads (like the best ever Sourdough Bisciuts and Skillet Corn Bread), sweet loaves (Classic Brioche and Sourdough Lemon Cake are just two), and special breads (from African Spice Bread to Russian Kulich). And there are dozens of recipes for Italian and other dishes you can make with bread including classic pizze, simple bruschette, bread soufflés, bread soups, bread salads, and bread desserts (try the knockout Chocolate Bread Pudding). There are even recipes for fun breads to make with children.Inspired by the honest simplicity of rustic Italian loaves, Dunaway spent years testing and experimenting to develop her radical technique for baking bread. While trying to reproduce the incredible Pane Casereccio (housewife's bread) she tasted in Rome, Dunaway discovered that stirring a very wet dough (as opposed to kneading a drier one) allows the dough to retain oxygen and moisture, yielding a loaf with incredible texture and taste. Maximizing surface area and baking the bread at a higher temperature than normal gives the bread its remarkable signature crust.With Dunaway's guidance, you will be making a Kalamata Olive Filoncino glistening with sea salt and infused with a tangy olive taste, and a classic chewy Focaccia. What's more, many of the basic bread doughs are fat-free, sugar-free, and dairy-free. So let Dunaway take the fear and work out of baking bread and show you how to make world-class loaves that are foolproof, fantastically delicious, and incredibly satisfying to the soul.

Gluten-Free Baking Classics


Annalise G. Roberts - 2006
    Now, this exciting cookbook allows allergy sufferers to indulge in a wide variety of baked goods, all delicious and all gluten-free. Featured are more than 100 recipes, including homey treats like biscuits and blueberry muffins; chocolate chip and other cookie jar classics; old-fashioned favorites such as eclairs, pie crust, and lemon squares; artisan style breads; and more than 20 cakes, from a simple vanilla layer cake to a decadent German chocolate cake. A thorough grounding in classic baking techniques, as well as detailed instructions in how to buy, mix, and measure gluten-free flours, ensure success for even novice gluten-free bakers. Rounding out the book is a pertinent discussion on how readers can incorporate baking into busy schedules, and why it is so important for emotional, as well as physical, well-being.

Appetites: A Cookbook


Anthony Bourdain - 2016
    And for many years, first as a chef, later as a world-traveling chronicler of food and culture on his CNN series Parts Unknown, he has made a profession of understanding the appetites of others. These days, however, if he’s cooking, it’s for family and friends.Appetites, his first cookbook in more than ten years, boils down forty-plus years of professional cooking and globe-trotting to a tight repertoire of personal favorites—dishes that everyone should (at least in Mr. Bourdain’s opinion) know how to cook. Once the supposed "bad boy" of cooking, Mr. Bourdain has, in recent years, become the father of a little girl—a role he has embraced with enthusiasm. After years of traveling more than 200 days a year, he now enjoys entertaining at home. Years of prep lists and the hyper-organization necessary for a restaurant kitchen, however, have caused him, in his words, to have "morphed into a psychotic, anally retentive, bad-tempered Ina Garten."The result is a home-cooking, home-entertaining cookbook like no other, with personal favorites from his own kitchen and from his travels, translated into an effective battle plan that will help you terrify your guests with your breathtaking efficiency.

The Happy Cook: 125 Recipes for Eating Every Day Like It's the Weekend


Daphne Oz - 2016
    In The Happy Cook, Daphne Oz makes cooking fun and relaxing, and shows anyone—newbie or seasoned expert—how to celebrate every day with delicious meals that are as easy to create as they are to enjoy.Like cooking with a good friend and a glass of wine, The Happy Cook is filled with friendly advice, expert tips, inspiring ideas, and best of all, 125 simple yet fabulous recipes, all using just a handful of ingredients, that will transform the most nervous or reluctant novice into a happy, confident home cook.Here are recipes for the whole day and the whole week, from Saturday dinner parties to quick-and-easy weeknight leftovers. With The Happy Cook, eating well is a breeze with delights such as:Breakfast—Crispy-Crunchy Honey-Thyme Granola, Chocolate Almond Breakfast Bars, and Coconut-Mango PancakesLunch—Kale and Plum Salad with Miso Vinaigrette, Warm Spring Pea Soup, Seared Garlic-Lime Shrimp Banh Mi and Philly Cheesesteak QuesadillasDinner—Truffle Salt Roast Chicken with Lentils and Squash, Cashew Soba Noodles with Fried Shallots, Sea Bass Roasted Over Citrus, and Apricot-Rosemary Glazed Lamb ChopsDessert—"Outlaw" Carrot Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream, Better Brownies, Sour Apple Juice Pops, and Nutty Banana "Ice Cream"The Happy Cook is all about real-life application—and real-life success. Celebrate every occasion and every meal with mouthwatering, vibrant, easy food. It's not about perfection, as Daphne makes clear. It’s about the confidence to get into the kitchen, have fun, and become a happy cook!

Gordon Ramsay's Secrets


Gordon Ramsay - 2003
    Here, he reveals how he transforms ingredients into the sublime dishes for which he is so justly famous. Much more than a collection of his superb recipes, this inspirational book passes on many of the secrets of his cooking techniques, knowledge and skills. Recipes are presented in a straightforward and comprehensive way with detailed descriptions of Gordon's special techniques, his innovative short-cuts, and other culinary hot tips with close-up photography. With recipes for fish and shellfish, poultry and game, meat, vegetables, salads, fruits, breads and pastries, as well as flavourings, stocks and dressings, this unique cookbook is destined to become a classic kitchen reference book.

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.

The Dean and DeLuca Cookbook


David Rosengarten - 1996
    Pad Thai. Tuscan Bread Soup. Quesadillas. Couscous with Lamb. Authentic Italian Risotto. Good old American Shrimp Gumbo. These are dishes that Americans have learned to love over the last twenty years, a time of extraordinary culinary expansion. And Dean & Deluca, the great innovative food store in New York's SoHo district, was there.Now, together with a team from Dean & Deluca, renowned food writer and TV chef David Rosengarten has compiled an encyclopedic collection of recipes for these new classics, presented for home cooks in the clearest, simplest, and liveliest possible way. Drawing upon his vast culinary wisdom, Rosengarten explains everything from how to make the best green salad or a perfect pizza to how to choose your Chinese noodles, know your Indian spices, and serve your bouillabaisse. Here are two Thai methods for fluffy rice and seven steps to great French fries (and fifteen other potato recipes, from baked and mashed to Gaufrettes and Gratin Dauphinoise). Rosengarten's epic compendium is spiced with delightful information--from the etymology of "squash" to the history of bisques, from cassoulet controversies and gazpacho wars to trends in miniature corn.You'll find here definitive recipes for such traditional European classics as Cassoulet, Paella, and Pesto Genovese, alongside "new" favorites such as Frisée aux Lardons and Panzanella. Here too are Middle Eastern classics--Tabouli, Persian Rice Pilaf, and Lahmajun (Turkish pizza); Asian classics--Tom Yung Kung, Chicken Tandoori, and Tempura; and classics from the New World--from crab cakes to Posole Verde. You will also find old comfort foods, from clam chowder to meat loaf, as well as the latest innovations from our country's most innovative chefs. Along the way you'll learn how to feel for fresh fish, how to recognize wild mushrooms, and how to approach a chicken.If you learned to love it in the last twenty years, it's here--and now you can cook it brilliantly at home. Thanks to Rosengarten's enthusiasm, knowledge, and wit, The Dean & Deluca Cookbook is a delectable, delightful, friendly, and comprehensive guide to the new joy of cooking.

Bake from Scratch


Brian Hart Hoffman - 2017
    From the essential brioche and rye bread to a classic 1-2-3-4 cake with seasonal flavor variations and easy French gateaux, this hard-cover, high-quality cookbook will be the go-to resource for those looking to bake artisan goods at home.