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.

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods


Jennifer Reese - 2011
    She had never before considered making her own peanut butter and pita bread, let alone curing her own prosciutto or raising turkeys. And though it sounded logical that "doing it yourself" would cost less, she had her doubts. So Reese began a series of kitchen-related experiments, taking into account the competing demands of everyday contemporary American family life as she answers some timely questions: When is homemade better? Cheaper? Are backyard eggs a more ethical choice than store-bought? Will grinding and stuffing your own sausage ruin your week? Is it possible to make an edible maraschino cherry? Some of Reese's discoveries will surprise you: Although you should make your hot dog buns, guacamole, and yogurt, you should probably buy your hamburger buns, potato chips, and rice pudding. Tired? Buy your mayonnaise. Inspired? Make it. With its fresh voice and delightful humor, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter gives 120 recipes with eminently practical yet deliciously fun "Make or buy" recommendations. Reese is relentlessly entertaining as she relates her food and animal husbandry adventures, which amuse and perplex as well as nourish and sustain her family. Her tales include living with a backyard full of cheerful chickens, muttering ducks, and adorable baby goats; countertops laden with lacto-fermenting pickles; and closets full of mellowing cheeses. Here's the full picture of what is involved in a truly homemade life -- with the good news that you shouldn't try to make everything yourself -- and how to get the most out of your time in the kitchen.

A Girl and Her Greens


April Bloomfield - 2015
    In recipes such as Pot-Roasted Romanesco Broccoli, Onions with Sage Pesto, and Carrots with Spices, Yogurt, and Orange Blossom Water, April Bloomfield demonstrates the basic principle of her method: that unforgettable food comes out of simple, honest ingredients, an attention to detail, and a love for the sensual pleasures of cooking and eating.Written in her appealing, down-to-earth style, A Girl and Her Greens features beautiful color photography, lively illustrations, and insightful sidebars and tips on her techniques, as well as charming narratives that reveal her sources of inspiration.

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.

The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York


Claudia Roden - 1996
    The 800 magnificent recipes, many never before documented, represent treasures garnered bu Roden through nearly 15 years of traveling around the world. 50 photos & illustrations

The Curry Guy


Dan Toombs - 2017
    In other words, Dan makes homemade curries that taste just like a takeaway from your favourite local but in less time and for less money. Dan has learnt through the comments left on his blog and social media feeds that people are terribly let down when they make a chicken korma or a prawn bhuna from other cookbooks and it taste nothing like the dish they experience when they visit a curry house…but they thank him for getting it right.

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home


Jeni Britton Bauer - 2011
    Unique flavors, prepared from top-quality ingredients combined with minimally processed milk from grass-fed cows, transformed Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, a small artisanal scoopery in Columbus, Ohio, into a nationally acclaimed (and beloved) brand.Now with her debut cookbook, Jeni Britton Bauer is on a mission to help foodies create perfect ice creams, yogurts, and sorbets—ones that are every bit as perfect as hers—in their own kitchens. Frustrated by icy and crumbly homemade ice cream, Bauer invested in a $59 ice cream maker and proceeded to test and retest recipes until she devised a formula to make creamy, sturdy, lickable ice cream at home. Her recipe for a milk-based American-style ice cream contains no eggs, which allows her amazing flavor combinations to shine. Filled with irresistible color photographs, this cone-tastic book contains 100 of Jeni’s signature recipes—from her Goat Cheese with Roasted Cherries to her Salty Caramel to her Bourbon with Toasted Buttered Pecans. Fans of easy-to-prepare desserts with star quality will scoop this book up. How cool is that?

Wahaca - Mexican Food at Home


Thomasina Miers - 2012
    Inspired by the flavours of Mexico but using ingredients easily found in Britain, Wahaca - Mexican Food at Home is all about cooking authentic Mexican food in your own kitchen. Mexican cooking is fresh, colourful and full of flavour, with breakfasts to get you through the day, hearty dinners, sensational puddings, and zingy cocktails. Follow Tommi on her trip through the markets, cantinas and fiestas of Mexico to discover recipes bursting with flavour you'll want to eat and share.

Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat


Chrissy Teigen - 2016
    Maybe she’s making people laugh on TV. But all Chrissy Teigen really wants to do is talk about dinner. Or breakfast. Lunch gets some love, too.For years, she’s been collecting, cooking, and Instagramming her favorite recipes, and here they are: from breakfast all day to John’s famous fried chicken with spicy honey butter to her mom’s Thai classics. Salty, spicy, saucy, and fun as sin (that’s the food, but that’s Chrissy, too), these dishes are for family, for date night at home, for party time, and for a few life-sucks moments (salads). You’ll learn the importance of chili peppers, the secret to cheesy-cheeseless eggs, and life tips like how to use bacon as a home fragrance, the single best way to wake up in the morning, and how not to overthink men or Brussels sprouts. Because for Chrissy Teigen, cooking, eating, life, and love are one and the same.

Marcella's Italian Kitchen: A Cookbook


Marcella Hazan - 1986
    Including almost 250 recipes, Marcella's Italian Kitchen brings home cooks the authentic tastes of Italy. Here are Fettuccine with Clams and Zucchini and Veal Scaloppini with Hazelnuts and Balsamic Vinegar, Cauliflower Salad with Red Pepper, Olives, and Anchovies and Amaretti and Custard Cream Semifreddo. Drawing on her experiences growing up in Italy, Hazan has crafted the ultimate guide to Italian food.

The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Over 100 Vegan Recipes to Glow from the Inside Out


Angela Liddon - 2013
    Done with feeling sick and tired, she threw out her fat-free butter spray and low-calorie frozen dinners. Instead, Angela embraced whole foods that made her glow from the inside out. But first, she had to learn to cook-and eat-right. Five years ago, Angela started a blog, ohsheglows.com, to spread the word about her journey to health and the powerful transformation that food can make in our lives. Almost overnight, her energy and authenticity attracted readers eager to create their own positive life changes. Today, Oh She Glows attracts millions of visitors every month, making it one of the most popular vegan recipe blogs on the Internet.

Culinaria Greece: Greek Specialties


Marianthi Milona - 2004
    Since 1990, she has been a journalist for regional, national, and international radio and print media. Because of her in-depth knowledge of Greece and the Balkans, she regularly makes extended research trips to all the important areas of southeast Europe. Werner Stapelfeldt began his career as a photographer for travel guides and magazines. After studying photo design he went to work as a freelance photographer, predominantly in the commercial field, working for agencies and institutions. His assignment with the Culinaria series took him to Greece for eight months, where he uncovered unusual wines, fruits, and various Greek dishes. He spent time with people at work and at play and, of course, at the table, all the while endeavoring to capture the country, its specialties, and its atmosphere in the photographs that illustrate this book.

Simply Salads: More than 100 Delicious Creative Recipes Made from Prepackaged Greens and a Few Easy-to-Find Ingredients


Jennifer Chandler - 2007
    With the abundance of supermarket selections of prepackaged greens, you can create a restaurant-style salad―along with a fabulous dressing―in your own kitchen.Before bagged blends, a salad with four different types of lettuces was unheard of. Now there are more than fifty different combinations of lettuces, packaged in just the right size, from which to choose. Think beyond iceberg and romaine. The more than one hundred salads and dressings in Simply Salads are colorful, gourmet, and surprisingly simple to prepare. Whether you're looking for the perfect complement to a main dish or you want a salad that can stand as an entrée, you'll find the perfect salad, including such winners as: Asian Salad with Ginger Dressing and Wasabi Peas (page 4) Jalapeño Chicken Salad with Avocado Dressing (page 40) Crawfish Salad with Spicy Cajun Remoulade (page 106) Cheese Tortellini Salad with Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette (page 172) Memphis Mustard Cole Slaw (page 223)

Modern Comfort Food: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook


Ina Garten - 2020
    Many of these dishes are inspired by childhood favorites--but with the volume turned way up, such as Cheddar and Chutney Grilled Cheese sandwiches (the perfect match for Ina's Creamy Tomato Bisque), Smashed Hamburgers with Caramelized Onions, and the crispiest hash browns that are actually made in a waffle iron!There are few things more comforting than gathering for a meal with the ones you love, especially when dishes like Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas are at the center of the table. Old-fashioned crowd pleasers like Roasted Sausages, Peppers, and Onions are even more delicious and streamlined for quick cleanup. For dessert? You'll find the best Boston Cream Pie, Banana Rum Trifle, and Black and White Cookies you'll ever make. Home cooks can always count on Ina's dependable, easy-to-follow instructions, with lots of side notes for cooking and entertaining--it's like having Ina right there beside you, helping you all the way.From cocktails to dessert, from special weekend breakfasts to quick weeknight dinners, you'll find yourself making these cozy and delicious recipes over and over again.

Ruhlman's Twenty: The Ideas and Techniques that Will Make You a Better Cook


Michael Ruhlman - 2011
    And rare is the author who can do so with the ease and expertise of acclaimed writer and culinary authority Michael Ruhlman. Twenty distills Ruhlman s decades of cooking, writing, and working with the world s greatest chefs into twenty essential ideas from ingredients to processes to attitude that are guaranteed to make every cook more accomplished. Whether cooking a multi-course meal, the juiciest roast chicken, or just some really good scrambled eggs, Ruhlman reveals how a cook s success boils down to the same twenty concepts. With the illuminating expertise that has made him one of the most esteemed food journalists, Ruhlman explains the hows and whys of each concept and reinforces those discoveries through 100 recipes for everything from soups to desserts, all detailed in over 300 photographs. Cooks of all levels will revel in Ruhlman s game-changing Twenty.