And a bite of brown sugar pie was all it took."I shamelessly wangled supper invitations from my playmates," Anderson admits. "But I was on a voyage of discovery, and back then iron-skillet corn bread seemed more exotic than my mom's Boston brown bread and yellow squash pudding more appealing than mashed parsnips."After college up north, Anderson worked in rural North Carolina as an assistant home demonstration agent, scarfing good country cooking seven days a week: crispy "battered" chicken, salt-rising bread, wild persimmon pudding, Jerusalem artichoke pickles, Japanese fruitcake. Later, as a New York City magazine editor, then a freelancer, Anderson covered the South, interviewing cooks and chefs, sampling local specialties, and scribbling notebooks full of recipes.Now, at long last, Anderson shares her lifelong exploration of the South's culinary heritage and not only introduces the characters she met en route but also those men and women who helped shape America's most distinctive regional cuisine—people like Thomas Jefferson, Mary Randolph, George Washington Carver, Eugenia Duke, and Colonel Harlan Sanders.Anderson gives us the backstories on such beloved Southern brands as Pepsi-Cola, Jack Daniel's, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, MoonPies, Maxwell House coffee, White Lily flour, and Tabasco sauce. She builds a time line of important southern food firsts—from Ponce de León's reconnaissance in the "Island of Florida" (1513) to the reactivation of George Washington's still at Mount Vernon (2007). For those who don't know a Chincoteague from a chinquapin, she adds a glossary of southern food terms and in a handy address book lists the best sources for stone-ground grits, country ham, sweet sorghum, boiled peanuts, and other hard-to-find southern foods.Recipes? There are two hundred classic and contemporary, plain and fancy, familiar and unfamiliar, many appearing here for the first time. Each recipe carries a headnote—to introduce the cook whence it came, occasionally to share snippets of lore or back-stairs gossip, and often to explain such colorful recipe names as Pine Bark Stew, Chicken Bog, and Surry County Sonker.Add them all up and what have you got? One lip-smackin' southern feast!A Love Affair with Southern Cooking is the winner of the 2008 James Beard Foundation Book Award, in the Americana category.

    It’s a life of pancakes that remind you of blueberry pie, eating onion dip with your glam squad, banana bread that breaks the internet, and a little something called Pad Thai Carbonara. After two years of parenthood, falling in love with different flavors, and relearning the healing power of comfort food, this book is like Chrissy’s new edible diary: recipes for quick-as-a-snap meals; recipes for lighter, brighter, healthier-ish living; and recipes that, well, are gonna put you to bed, holding your belly. And it will have you hungry for more.

    Boiled Peanut Catalogue comes the ground-breaking cookbook for new Southern cooking, featuring nearly 100 recipes. South Carolina-bred brothers, Matt and Ted Lee were raised on long-simmered greens, slow-smoked meats, and deep-fried everything. But after years of traveling as journalists and with farm fresh foods more available than ever, Matt and Ted have combined the old with the new, infusing family recipes with bright flavors. Using crisp produce, lighter cooking methods, and surprising combinations, these are recipes to make any night of the week.

    Cool. Fashion-forward. These aren’t adjectives you’d ordinarily think of applying to baked goods.  Think again. Not every baker wants to re-create Grandma’s pound cake or cherry pie. Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito certainly didn’t, when they left their advertising careers behind, pooled their life savings, and opened their dream bakery, Baked, in Brooklyn, New York, a few years back. The visions that danced in their heads were of other, brand-new kinds of confections . . .  Things like a Malt Ball Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting, which captures the flavor of their favorite Whoppers candies (and ups the ante with a malted milk ball garnish). Things like spicy Chipotle Cheddar Biscuits that really wake up your taste buds at breakfast time. Things like a Sweet and Salty Cake created expressly for adults who are as salt-craving ?as they are sweet-toothed. Which is not to say that Lewis and Poliafito sidestep tradition absolutely. Their Chocolate Pie (whose filling uses Ovaltine) pays loving homage to the classic roadside-diner dessert. Their Baked Brownies will wow even the most discriminating brownie connoisseur. And their Chocolate Chip Cookies? Words cannot describe. Whether trendsetting or tried-and-true, every idea in this book is freshly Baked.

    All of these recipes and more are within your reach in Simple Cake, a love letter from Brooklyn apron and bakeware designer Odette Williams to her favorite treat. With easy recipes and inventive decorating ideas, Williams gives you recipes for 10 base cakes, 15 toppings, and endless decorating ideas to yield a treat--such as Milk & Honey Cake, Coconut Cake, Summer Berry Pavlova, and Chocolatey Chocolate Cake--for any occasion. Williams also addresses the fundamentals for getting cakes just right, with foolproof recipes that can be cranked out whenever the urge strikes. Gorgeous photography, along with Williams's warm and heartfelt writing, elevate this book into something truly special.

    This is accessible and fun, and includes the signature recipes, flavor combinations, and cooking techniques that have made him such a popular chef. A new way to make a dish is always on Richard Blais’s mind. He has a wildly creative approach—whether it’s adding coffee to his butter, which he serves with pancakes; incorporating the flavors of pastrami into mustard; making cannelloni out of squid; microwaving apple sauce for his pork chops; or cooking lamb shanks in root beer. In his debut cookbook, with equal degrees of enthusiasm and humor, he shares 125 delicious recipes that are full of surprise and flavor. Plus there are 25 variations to add more adventure to your cooking—such as making cheese foam for your burger or mashed sous vide peas to serve alongside your entrée. Dive into an exploration of your kitchen for both creativity and enjoyment. Now try this at home!

    Every Monday she brings a cake to the office for her colleagues at NPR to enjoy. Hundreds of Mondays (and cakes) later, Melissa has lots of cake-making tips to share. With more than 50 recipes for the cakes that have been dreamed of and drooled over for a lifetimeincluding Brown Sugar Pound Cake, Peppermint and Chocolate Rum Marble Cake, Lord and Lady Baltimore Cakes, Dark-Chocolate Red Velvet Cake, and Honey Buttercream and Apricot Jam CakeAll Cakes Considered is an essential addition to every baker's library.

    With a culinary sensibility refined in some of New York's most high-profile restaurants, and a down-home practicality gained as the cooking guru of Food 911, Tyler cooks food that's fresh, flavorful, and totally doable. In Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen, he'll show you how to cook simple meals that taste amazing, from comfort-food to classics to vibrantly new dishes.Tyler's first cookbook stays true to his cooking philosophy--use great, simple ingredients and let the natural flavors speak for themselves. He offers can't-miss recipes for all the crowd-pleasing dishes that you crave--cold fried chicken, a perfect meatloaf, or drop-dead lasagna. Tyler's bold, uncomplicated style even makes sophisticated food easy, with recipes like Pan-Roasted Sirloin with Arugula, Sweet Peppers, and Olive Salad or Steamed Mussels with Saffron and Tomato. He'll show you how to get a great meal from the grocery bag to the table with the least fuss and the most flavor, or how to throw a barbecue with the best burgers (spiced up with horseradish and Havarti cheese) that your friends have ever had. From weekend brunch (including Soft Scrambled Eggs with Salmon and Avocado and an assortment of dim sum) to quick weeknight dinners for two (like Hong Kong Crab Cakes with Baby Bok Choy), and a selection of great party food and cocktails, this is a cookbook you'll use again and again for every occasion.With helpful notes on essential pantry staples and a list of the kitchen equipment you really need, Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen is a fresh, creative exploration of just how fun (and delicious) your cooking can be.

    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.

    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.

    Who needs store-bought when baking things at home is so gratifying? In this follow-up to their smash-hit first book, the Days share ways to lovingly craft not only desserts, but also breakfast pastries, breads, pizza, and condiments. The book features more than 100 new recipes, including some of the bakery's most requested treats, such as Star Brownies and the Cakette Party Cake, as well as savories like Chive Parmigiano-Reggiano Popovers and Rosemary Focaccia. Cheryl and Griff share their baking techniques and also show readers how to put together whimsical decorations, like a marshmallow chandelier and a best-in-show banner. With pure delight woven throughout the pages, Back in the Day Bakery Made with Love is sure to please Cheryl and Griff's fans nationwide.

    Here are 125 foolproof , basic recipes for soups, homemade pasta, roast chicken, burgers, vegan specialities, chocolate chip cookies—and more—that anyone can enjoy making, no matter how inexperienced they are in the kitchen.

    The heart of this area—the Acadiana region of Louisiana—is a tough land that funnels its spirit into the local cuisine. You can’t find more delicious, rustic, and satisfying country cooking than the dirty rice, spicy sausage, and fresh crawfish that this area is known for. It takes a homegrown guide to show us around the back roads of this particularly unique region, and in Real Cajun, James Beard Award–winning chef Donald Link shares his own rough-and-tumble stories of living, cooking, and eating in Cajun Country. Link takes us on an expedition to the swamps and smokehouses and the music festivals, funerals, and holiday celebrations, but, more important, reveals the fish fries, étouffées, and pots of Granny’s seafood gumbo that always accompany them. The food now famous at Link’s New Orleans–based restaurants, Cochon and Herbsaint, has roots in the family dishes and traditions that he shares in this book. You’ll find recipes for Seafood Gumbo, Smothered Pork Roast over Rice, Baked Oysters with Herbsaint Hollandaise, Louisiana Crawfish Boudin, quick and easy Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits with Fig-Ginger Preserves, Bourbon-Soaked Bread Pudding with White and Dark Chocolate, and Blueberry Ice Cream made with fresh summer berries. Link throws in a few lagniappes to give you an idea of life in the bayou, such as strategies for a great trip to Jazz Fest, a what-not-to-do instructional on catching turtles, and all you ever (or never) wanted to know about boudin sausage. Colorful personal essays enrich every recipe and introduce his grandfather and friends as they fish, shrimp, hunt, and dance. From the backyards where crawfish boils reign as the greatest of outdoor events to the white tablecloths of Link’s famed restaurants, Real Cajun takes you on a rollicking and inspiring tour of this wild part of America and shares the soulful recipes that capture its irrepressible spirit.

    And while those days are often the busiest, your slow cooker is ready to do nearly all the work for you! Tammy Algood’s The Southern Slow Cooker Bible serves up 365 recipes, covering a year’s worth of dishes that let you effortlessly pair the flavors of the South with the convenience of slow cooking. Algood covers all the favorites—from whole chapters devoted to Southern mainstays such as grits, macaroni and cheese, stuffed peppers, and pulled pork, you’ll find yourself returning to this collection over and over again. Learn what every good Southern cook knows—that the proper cooking technique can yield positively succulent results for just about any cut of meat. Algood’s Barbecued Roast Beef Sandwiches are evidence enough of that. Discover desserts that will have you sharing the recipe with anyone lucky enough to try the mouthwatering Is It Done Yet Peach Cobbler. Have a crowd to feed for breakfast? Be sure to include Late Brunch Hash Brown Casserole on the Menu… the Maple Sausage and Cheese Strata too! Keep going, and your oven will be jealous! This collection shows you how easy it can be to savor the flavors of those classic Southern recipes your whole family has long adored. Discover new ways to do Chicken and Dumplings or Squash Casserole, and enjoy the extra time you gain by making Andouille Sausage Gumbo the easy way. If you’re looking for a moist and delicious dessert with a kick of Southern charm, the Sorghum Spiced Spoon Cake is the perfect pick. Need a knockout side dish to round out your next cookout? What could possibly be more Southern than Macaroni and Pimiento Cheese? No matter where you start, The Southern Slow Cooker Bible will keep you eager to work your way through the entire mouthwatering collection.

     Forget exotic condiments and specialty foods. With a working base of 50 readily available ingredients, from oats and honey to almonds and canned chickpeas, you will always have the makings of a delicious home-cooked meal. Whether cooking in his world-class restaurants, on Iron Chef, or judging the offerings on Chopped, Geoffrey knows every great meal starts with a trip to the pantry first for inspiration. In The Perfect Pantry, Geoffrey shows you how to use your pantry to jumpstart any meal. When you bring home your fresh produce and proteins, you’ll have 150 recipes at the ready, and many of these can be made with pantry ingredients alone.   You’ll see a simple can of beans as a Smoky Black Bean Bisque or coconut milk as Spicy Coconut Tempura Shrimp. Standard back-of-the-cupboard fare like almonds become crispy crust on a broiled pork chop; peanut butter lends itself beautifully to a spicy slaw, cider vinegar gives great flavor to a chicken main as well as to donuts, and mustard transforms a a pot roast. Throughout, you’ll find quick but ingenious tips for each of the 50 ingredients, like how to use Earl Grey teabags to infuse ice cubes or a syrup for French toast. The Perfect Pantry makes it so easy for your everyday staples to lead, rather than support, the creation of extraordinary meals. Geoffrey gives you the shopping list you need, as well as the road map for making the most of what you have on hand.