A Meal Observed


Andrew Todhunter - 2004
    As Todhunter describes it, Taillevent’s highly orchestrated kitchen is “less an atelier than a gun deck on a ship of war, a place of shouts and fire.”On the other side of the kitchen’s double doors, in the warm light of the nineteenth-century dining room, the American couple surrenders to the sensual pleasure of a beautifully wrought and meticulously served dinner—from the amuse-bouche (a warm cheese puff to “amuse the mouth”) and the crème de cresson soup, with its sunken treasure of lobster tomalley, to the crowning glory of the fantaisie. In the spirit of A.J. Liebling’s Between Meals, Todhunter layers mouthwatering descriptions of French dishes and their preparation with reflections on his American childhood (when food, like sex and money, was not to be discussed at the table), dips into culinary history and philosophy, and entertains with asides on everything from olive oil and chestnuts to the science of viniculture and the chemistry of chocolate. Between courses, Todhunter brings us back to the sanctum of the kitchen itself, where he has probing conversations with chef de cuisine Philippe Legendre and pastry chef Gilles Bajolle, both major figures in the French culinary pantheon, and their assistants. Through these great chefs and their impeccably trained brigade we gain a unique glimpse into the heart of French cuisine and the love of fine food. Is cooking more an art, a craft, or a science? Are great chefs born or made? Why are there so few women chefs in France? What is the greatest danger for a chef at the top of his game? How is a new dish developed? What is the future of haute cuisine in France and in the world at large? When we cook for others, for love or for money, what do we give of ourselves?As richly satisfying as the five-hour meal it describes, A Meal Observed is a delightful paean to the French and French cuisine, and to the universal love of the table. Bon appétit!

Emeril's New New Orleans


Emeril Lagasse - 1993
    The heavy sauces, the long-cooked roux, and the smothered foods that were the heart of old-style New Orleans cooking have been replaced by simple fresh ingredients and easy cooking techniques with a light touch. Emeril serves up a masterpiece in his first cookbook, Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking.Emeril offers not only hundred of easy-to-prepare recipes, but plenty of professional tips, shortcuts, and useful information about stocking your own New Orleans pantry and making your own seasonings.

Square Meals: America's Favorite Comfort Cookbook


Jane Stern - 1984
    150 photos.

Extra Virgin: Recipes & Love from Our Tuscan Kitchen


Gabriele Corcos - 2014
    In Extra Virgin, food, family, and style come together in a celebration of the pleasures of the rustic Italian table with 120 recipes for simple yet exquisite meals that are accessible, full of fresh flavor, and easy to prepare. Gabriele is a traditional Italian with a big heart, and Debi is an outgoing, brash New York City girl. Their sassy and playful exchanges illuminate what’s important in everyday life: good food and a lot of love.Ranging from traditional antipasti and soups to their spin on entrees, pizzas, and desserts, recipes include Pecorino and Honey Dip, a sweet and salty way to start a meal; tangy, luscious Grilled Apricots with Goat Cheese Ricotta, inspired by wild Tuscan apricot trees; and Sausage and Beans, which offers hints of fennel in a Tuscan red sauce. Here, too, are Braised Artichokes softened in guanciale-infused oil, Breakfast Pizza, and Coffee Granita just as Italians make it.So flag these recipes, get sauce on them, let splashes of olive oil mark the pages—and invite Debi and Gabriele’s charisma and passion for cooking to spill into your kitchen.

American Sfoglino: A Master Class in Handmade Pasta (Pasta Cookbook, Italian Cooking Books, Pasta and Noodle Cooking)


Evan Funke - 2019
    It's bold in its simplicity and focus." — Missy Robbins, chef/owner of Lilia and MISI2020 IACP Awards Finalist - Chefs & Restaurants2020 IACP Awards Finalist - Food Photography & StylingA comprehensive guide to making the best pasta in the world: In this debut cookbook from Evan Funke, he shares classic techniques from his Emilia-Romagna training and provides accessible instructions for making his award-winning sfoglia (sheet pasta) at home. With little more than flour, eggs, and a rolling pin, you too can be a sfoglino (a pasta maker) and create traditional Italian noodles that are perfectly paired with the right sauces.Features recipes for home cooks to recreate 15 classic pasta shapes, spanning simple pappardelle to perfect tortelloni.Beginning with four foundational doughs, American Sfoglino takes readers step by step through recipes for a variety of generous dishes, from essential sauces and broths, like Passata di Pomodoro (Tomato Sauce) and Brodo di Carne (Meat Broth) to luscious Tagliatelle in Bianco con Prosciutto (Tagliatelle with Bacon and Butter) and Lasagna Verde alla Bolognese (Green Bolognese Lasagna).Includes stories from Italy and the kitchen at Felix Trattoria that add the finishing touches to this master class in pasta, while sumptuous photographs and a bold package offer a feast for the eyes.Forget your pasta machine and indulge in the magic of being a sfoglino with the help of the rich imagery and detailed instructions provided by Evan Funke and American Sfoglino.Evan Funke is a master pasta maker and the chef-owner of Felix Trattoria in Venice, California.Katie Parla is a food writer and IACP award-winning author whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including the New York Times, Food & Wine, and Saveur. Eric Wolfinger is a James Beard Award-winning food photographer.Makes an excellent gift idea for any pasta aficionado or avid Italian cook.

Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book


Better Homes and Gardens - 1953
    Features: Over 900 new recipes -- 1,200 in all-reflect current eating habits and lifestyles; 500 new photographs -- over 700 in all-including 60 percent more of finished food than the last edition; Dozens of new recipes offer ethnic flavours, fresh ingredients, or vegetarian appeal; Many recipes feature make-ahead directions or quick-to-the-table meals; New chapter provides recipes for crockery cookers; Efficient, easy-to-read format, with recipes categorised into 21 chapters, each thoroughly indexed for easy reference; Expanded chapter on cooking basics includes advice on food safety, menu planning, table setting, and make-ahead cooking, plus a thorough glossary on ingredients and techniques; Appliance-friendly recipes help cooks save time and creatively use new kitchen tools; Nutrition information with each recipe, plus diabetic exchanges; Contemporary food photography attracts browsers and helps cooks discover new recipes to make; Icons identify low-fat, no-fat, fast, and best-loved recipes; Every recipe tested and perfected by the Better Homes and Gardens Test Kitchen; Revised and updated cooking charts, ingredient photos, emergency substitutions, and equivalents; Respected, reliable kitchen reference with hundreds of cooking terms, tips, and techniques.

Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes for Fermenting 64 Vegetables & Herbs in Krauts, Kimchis, Brined Pickles, Chutneys, Relishes & Pastes


Kirsten K. Shockey - 2014
    Learn the basics of making kimchi, sauerkraut, and pickles, and then refine your technique as you expand your repertoire to include curried golden beets, pickled green coriander, and carrot kraut. With a variety of creative and healthy recipes, many of which can be made in batches as small as one pint, you’ll enjoy this fun and delicious way to preserve and eat your vegetables.

On the Line


Eric Ripert - 2008
    How does a 4-star restaurant stay on top for more than two decades? In On the Line, chef Eric Ripert takes readers behind the scenes at Le Bernardin, one of just three New York City restaurants to earn three Michelin stars. Any fan of gourmet dining who ever stole a peek behind a restaurant kitchen's swinging doors will love this unique insider's account, with its interviews, inventory checklists, and fly-on-the-wall dialogue that bring the business of haute cuisine to life. From the sudden death of Le Bernardin's founding chef, Gilbert Le Coze, to Ripert's stressful but triumphant takeover of the kitchen at age 29, the story has plenty of drama. But as Chef Ripert and writer Christine Muhlke reveal, every day is an adventure in a perfectionistic restaurant kitchen. Foodies will love reading about the inner workings of a top restaurant, from how a kitchen is organized to the real cost of the food and the fierce discipline and organization it takes to achieve culinary perfection on the plate almost 150,000 times a year. Meanwhile, Le Bernardin's modern French cuisine, with its emphasis on seafood, comes to life in sophisticated recipes, including Striped Bass with Sweet Corn Puree, Grilled Shishito Peppers, Shaved Smoked Bonito, and Mole Sauce, and Pan-Roasted Cod with Chorizo, Snow Peas, Piquillo Peppers, and Soy-Lime Butter Sauce.

Cravings: Hungry for More


Chrissy Teigen - 2018
    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.

Red Truck Bakery Cookbook: Gold-Standard Recipes from America's Favorite Rural Bakery


Brian Noyes - 2018
    Red Truck Bakery Cookbook is your one-way ticket to making these crowd-pleasing confections at home. Full of fresh flavors, a sprinkle of homespun comfort, and a generous pinch of Americana, the recipes range from Southern classics like Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits and Mom's Walnut Chews, to local favorites like the Shenandoah Apple Cake and Appalachian Pie with Ramps and Morels. Between the keepsake recipes are charming stories of the bakery's provenance and 75 gorgeous photographs of evocative landscapes and drool-worthy delectables. These blue-ribbon desserts and anytime snacks are sure to please!"I like pie. That's not a state secret... I can confirm that the Red Truck Bakery makes some darn good pie."--President Barack Obama

The Modern Baker: Time-Saving Techniques for Breads, Tarts, Pies, Cakes, & Cookies


Nick Malgieri - 2008
    Offering 150 recipes in a beautifully illustrated volume, bestselling author and acclaimed baking teacher Malgieri teaches home cooks the simple art of creating delicious sweet and savory baked goods.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse


John Stage - 2001
    In DINOSAUR BAR-B-QUE: AN AMERICAN ROADHOUSE you'll find the secrets to their succulent pit-smoked specialties in recipes you can fire up in your own backyard. Join Spiceman John Stage on a journey into the world of low and slow barbecue and fast and furious grillin'. Along the way, you'll soak up the Dino vibe as John shows you how to rev up traditional barbecue sauce to create such dishes as World Famous Dinosaur Ribs, Black & Blue Pan-Seared Beef Tenderloins, or Drunken Spicy Shameless Shrimp with Brazen Cocktail Sauce.• Full-color photography struts the eclectic decor of this honky-tonk rib joint (world's best bathroom graffiti and tattoo art included), and brings you up close and personal with some of its most colorful denizens.Awards2002 National Barbecue Association Award WinnerReviews“There's good eatin' here. . .we're making the Sweet Potato-Crusted Mahi-Mahi tonight.” —Tulsa World“Top 25 Editor's Choice Picks for 2001” —Amazon.com“One last look at summer grilling cookbooks . . . John Stage's DINOSAUR BAR-B-QUE: AN AMERICAN ROADHOUSE captures the slow-cooked-barbecue smell that hits you two blocks away from his 'genuine honky–tonk rib joint' in Syracuse, New York. . . . No matter the season, this cookbook (with more than 100 recipes) will quickly become a dog-eared, sauce-stained favorite.” —Amazon.com“I come from a place where barbecue is not food; it is a way of life. It is a philosophy of human nature. I have rarely had any as good as this.” —President Clinton on Dinosaur Bar-B-Que (September 1, 2000)“Though I learned to cook under the watchful eyes of several grandmothers in the apartment building where I lived in Rome, Italy, I now can smoke a mean pork butt thanks to John Stage.” —Nancy Radke“Without a doubt, DINOSAUR BAR-B-QUE will quickly become a dog-eared favorite on your kitchen bookshelf.” —Amazon.com“So, what made this book take off faster than a Hog flying down Interstate 5? Get your copy and find out why everyone is snapping up this unique instruction manual.” —Santa Cruz Sentinel“Real barbecue recipes for serious eaters.” —Food Network“Handsome yet funky . . . it's also a fun read.” —Buffalo News“Awesome!”—Arlington Advocate“It looks like some folks are having a darn good time there.” —Charleston Post & Courier“[A] kicky book with attitude . . . the jived up flavors and combinations in this book are barbecue heaven!” —Scott Fine's Great Grilling Recipes (formerly On The Grill)

52 Loaves: One Man's Relentless Pursuit of Truth, Meaning, and a Perfect Crust


William Alexander - 2010
    He tasted it long ago, in a restaurant, and has been trying to reproduce it ever since. Without success. Now, on the theory that practice makes perfect, he sets out to bake peasant bread every week until he gets it right. He bakes his loaf from scratch. And because Alexander is nothing if not thorough, he really means from scratch: growing, harvesting, winnowing, threshing, and milling his own wheat.   An original take on the six-thousand-year-old staple of life, 52 Loaves explores the nature of obsession, the meditative quality of ritual, the futility of trying to re-create something perfect, our deep connection to the earth, and the mysterious instinct that makes all of us respond to the aroma of baking bread.

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.

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!