The America's Test Kitchen: DIY Cookbook: Can It, Cure It, Churn It, Brew It


America's Test Kitchen - 2012
    This beautifully packaged cookbook marries DIY cooking with America's Test Kitchen's methodology, resulting in over 100 kitchen-tested projects--from jams and pickles to cheese and charcuterie, snacks and sweets to sodas ans spices. Collected here are recipes you will want to make, backed by our testing. Finally, a DIY book from America's most trusted test kitchen--full of interesting, foolproof recipes for the curious cook.

The New Wine Rules: A Genuinely Helpful Guide to Everything You Need to Know


Jon Bonne - 2017
    So why does finding and choosing one you like seem so stressful?Now, becoming a happier, more confident wine drinker is easy. The first step is to forget all the useless, needlessly complicated stuff the "experts" have been telling you. In The New Wine Rules, acclaimed wine writer Jon Bonne explains everything you need to know in simple, beautifully illustrated, easy-to-digest tidbits. And the news is good! For example: A wine's price rarely reflects its quality. You can drink rose any time of year. Don't save a great bottle for anything more than a rainy day.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking


Samin Nosrat - 2017
    Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements—Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food—and anything you cook will be delicious. By explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time. Echoing Samin’s own journey from culinary novice to award-winning chef, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat immediately bridges the gap between home and professional kitchens. With charming narrative, illustrated walkthroughs, and a lighthearted approach to kitchen science, Samin demystifies the four elements of good cooking for everyone. Refer to the canon of 100 essential recipes—and dozens of variations—to put the lessons into practice and make bright, balanced vinaigrettes, perfectly caramelized roast vegetables, tender braised meats, and light, flaky pastry doughs. Featuring 150 illustrations and infographics that reveal an atlas to the world of flavor by renowned illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will be your compass in the kitchen. Destined to be a classic, it just might be the last cookbook you’ll ever need. With a foreword by Michael Pollan.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing


Anya von Bremzen - 2013
    Anya von Bremzen has vobla-rock-hard, salt-cured dried Caspian roach fish. Lovers of vobla risk breaking a tooth or puncturing a gum on the once-popular snack, but for Anya it's transporting. Like kotleti (Soviet burgers) or the festive Salat Olivier, it summons up the complex, bittersweet flavors of life in that vanished Atlantis called the USSR. There, born in 1963 in a Kafkaesque communal apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen, Anya grew up singing odes to Lenin, black-marketeering Juicy Fruit gum at her school, and, like most Soviet citizens, longing for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy-and, finally, intolerable to her anti-Soviet mother. When she was ten, the two of them fled the political repression of Brezhnev-era Russia, arriving in Philadelphia with no winter coats and no right of return.These days Anya lives in two parallel food universes: one in which she writes about four-star restaurants, the other in which a simple banana-a once a year treat back in the USSR-still holds an almost talismanic sway over her psyche. To make sense of that past, she and her mother decided to eat and cook their way through seven decades of the Soviet experience. Through the meals she and her mother re-create, Anya tells the story of three generations-her grandparents', her mother's, and her own. Her family's stories are embedded in a larger historical epic: of Lenin's bloody grain requisitioning, World War II hunger and survival, Stalin's table manners, Khrushchev's kitchen debates, Gorbachev's anti-alcohol policies, and the ultimate collapse of the USSR. And all of it is bound together by Anya's sardonic wit, passionate nostalgia, and piercing observations.This is that rare book that stirs our souls and our senses.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China


Fuchsia Dunlop - 2008
    How can something she has eaten readily in China seem grotesque in England? The question lingers over this "autobiographical food-and-travel classic" (Publishers Weekly).

The Old-Fashioned: The Story of the World's First Classic Cocktail, with Recipes and Lore


Robert Simonson - 2014
    Its formula is simple: just whiskey, bitters, sugar, and ice. But how you combine those ingredients—in what proportion, using which brands, and with what kind of garnish—is the subject of much impassioned debate.The Old-Fashioned is the spirited, delightfully unexpected story of this renowned and essential drink: its birth as the ur-cocktail in the nineteenth century, darker days in the throes of Prohibition, re-ascension in the 1950s and 1960s (as portrayed and re-popularized by Don Draper on Mad Men), and renaissance as the star of the contemporary craft cocktail movement. Also featured are more than forty cocktail recipes, including classic variations, regional twists, and contemporary updates from top bartenders around the country. All are accessible, delicious, and elegant in their simplicity, demonstrating the versatility and timelessness of the Old-Fashioned formula.  With its rich history, stunning photography, and impeccable recipes, The Old-Fashioned is a celebration of one of America’s greatest bibulous achievements. It is a necessary addition to any true whiskey- or cocktail-lover’s bookshelf, and destined to become a classic on par with its namesake beverage.

Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food


Jeffrey M. Pilcher - 2012
    But the contemporary struggle between globalization and national sovereignty to determine the meaning of Mexican food is far from new. In fact, Mexican food was the product of globalization from the very beginning -- the Spanish conquest -- when European and Native American influences blended to forge the mestizo or mixed culture of Mexico. The historic struggle between globalization and the nation continued in the nineteenth century, as Mexicans searching for a national cuisine were torn between nostalgic "Creole" Hispanic dishes of the past and French haute cuisine, the global food of the day. Indigenous foods, by contrast, were considered strictly d class . Yet another version of Mexican food was created in the U.S. Southwest by Mexican American cooks, including the "Chili Queens" of San Antonio and tamale vendors of Los Angeles. When Mexican American dishes were appropriated by the fast food industry and carried around the world, Mexican elites rediscovered the indigenous roots of their national cuisine among the ancient Aztecs and the Maya. Even this Nueva Cocina Mexicana was a transnational phenomenon, called "New Southwestern" by chefs in the United States. Rivalries within this present-day gourmet movement recalled the nineteenth-century struggles between Creole, Native, and French foods. Planet Taco also seeks to recover the history of people who have been ignored in the struggles to define authentic Mexican, especially those who are marginal to both nations: Indians and Mexican Americans.

I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking


Alton Brown - 2004
    Recipes cover all the basics, from pie crust to funnel cake to cheese souffle. The book also contains appendices and equipment lists.

Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo's Most Unlikely Noodle Joint


Ivan Orkin - 2013
    In the food-zealous, insular megalopolis of Tokyo, Ivan opened a ramen shop. He was a gaijin (foreigner), trying to make his name in a place that is fiercely opinionated about ramen. At first, customers came because they were curious, but word spread quickly about Ivan’s handmade noodles, clean and complex broth, and thoughtfully prepared toppings. Soon enough, Ivan became a celebrity—a fixture of Japanese TV programs and the face of his own best-selling brand of instant ramen. Ivan opened a second location in Tokyo, and has now returned to New York City to open his first US branch. Ivan Ramen is essentially two books in one: a memoir and a cookbook. In these pages, Ivan tells the story of his ascent from wayward youth to a star of the Tokyo restaurant scene. He also shares more than forty recipes, including the complete, detailed recipe for his signature Shio Ramen; creative ways to use extra ramen components; and some of his most popular ramen variations. Written with equal parts candor, humor, gratitude, and irreverence, Ivan Ramen is the only English-language book that offers a look inside the cultish world of ramen making in Japan. It will inspire you to forge your own path, give you insight into Japanese culture, and leave you with a deep appreciation for what goes into a seemingly simple bowl of noodles.

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course


Kevin Zraly - 1985
    And this new edition contains an additional 16 wonderful pages, including a featured supplement about the olfactory system and how it deepens our enjoyment of wine. Written in a question-and-answer format, the section is coauthored with Wendy Dubit, an expert on the subject. Plus, this unequaled volume retains all the invaluable information, fabulous illustrations, and gorgeous styling of the 20th anniversary edition. Wine lovers will still thrill to Zraly’s inimitable, irreverent style. As always, he answers every question about wine; offers the most up-to-date recommendations; provides advice on buying wine in stores and on the Internet; takes you on a country-by-country, region-by-region ratings tour of the latest vintages; and starts you on your way to becoming a wine connoisseur. Abundant full-color labels and maps complete the enticing picture. More current, more informative, more concise and precise than ever, this remains the wine guide against which all others are judged.

First Bite: How We Learn to Eat


Bee Wilson - 2015
    From childhood onward, we learn how big a "portion" is and how sweet is too sweet. We learn to enjoy green vegetables -- or not. But how does this education happen? What are the origins of taste? In First Bite, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists, and nutritionists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by a whole host of factors: family and culture, memory and gender, hunger and love. Taking the reader on a journey across the globe, Wilson introduces us to people who can only eat foods of a certain color; prisoners of war whose deepest yearning is for Mom's apple pie; a nine year old anosmia sufferer who has no memory of the flavor of her mother's cooking; toddlers who will eat nothing but hotdogs and grilled cheese sandwiches; and researchers and doctors who have pioneered new and effective ways to persuade children to try new vegetables. Wilson examines why the Japanese eat so healthily, whereas the vast majority of teenage boys in Kuwait have a weight problem -- and what these facts can tell Americans about how to eat better. The way we learn to eat holds the key to why food has gone so disastrously wrong for so many people. But Wilson also shows that both adults and children have immense potential for learning new, healthy eating habits. An exploration of the extraordinary and surprising origins of our tastes and eating habits, First Bite also shows us how we can change our palates to lead healthier, happier lives.

A Day at elBulli


Ferran Adrià - 2007
    Now, for the first time, A Day at elBulli opens the doors to everyone and reveals the inner workings of the kitchen and the gastronomic innovations that have helped create the spectacular food. Illustrated with over 1,000 colour photographs, the book includes recipes and inserted sections explaining the creative methods and food philosophy, the history of elBulli and the life of Ferran Adrià.

Wine. All the Time.: The Casual Guide to Confident Drinking


Marissa A. Ross - 2017
    Ross Does the thought of having to buy wine for a dinner party stress you out? Is your go-to strategy to pick the bottle with the coolest label? Are you tired of choosing pairings based on your wallet, rather than your palate? Fear not! Bon Appetit contributor and Wine. All The Time. blogger Marissa A. Ross is here to help. In this utterly unpretentious yet comprehensive guide to wine, Ross will help readers to understand the ins and outs of wine culture, from how to describe what they're drinking, to finding the best bottle for their budget, to picking the perfect red for a boyfriend's discerning parents. Told in her signature comedic voice, with personal anecdotes woven in among its lessons, Wine. All the Time. will teach readers to sip confidently, and make them laugh as they're doing it."

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food


Judith Jones - 2007
    Living in Paris after World War II, Judith Jones broke free of the bland American food she had been raised on and reveled in everyday French culinary delights. On returning to the States--hoping to bring some "joie de cuisine" to America--she published Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking. "The rest is publishing and gastronomic history. A new world now opened up to Jones: discovering, with her husband, Evan, the delights of "American" food; working with the tireless Julia; absorbing the wisdom of James Beard; understanding food as memory through the writings of Claudia Roden and Madhur Jaffrey; demystifying the techniques of Chinese cookery with Irene Kuo; absorbing the Italian way through the warmth of Lidia Bastianich; and working with Edna Lewis, Marion Cunningham, Joan Nathan, and other groundbreaking cooks. Jones considers matters of taste (can it be acquired?). She discusses the vagaries of vegetable gardening in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and the joys of foraging in the woods and meadows. And she writes about M.F.K. Fisher: as mentor, friend, and the source of luminous insight into the arts of eating, living, and aging. Embellished with fifty recipes--each with its own story and special tips--this is an absolutely charming memoir by a woman who was present at the creation of the American food revolution and played a seminal role in shaping it.

The Southern Foodie: 100 Places to Eat in the South Before You Die (and the Recipes That Made Them Famous)


Chris Chamberlain - 2012
    Check out the culinary creativity in the Carolinas where you’ll find traditional smoked pork barbecue alongside Southern favorites made with fresh, local produce. Explore the restaurant kitchens of Atlanta and Nashville where the chefs aren’t shy about fusing comfort food standards with international flair and unexpected techniques. Join food and drink writer Chris Chamberlain for access to the South’s best recipes and the kitchens where they were developed. In The Southern Foodie, Chamberlain explores the South’s culinary culture with favorites such as: Jalapeño-and-Cheese-Stuffed Grit Cakes from Mason’s Grill, Baton Rouge, LARoasted Heirloom Pumpkin with Mulled Sorghum Glaze from Capitol Grille, Nashville, TNCountry Ham Fritters from Proof on Main, Louisville, KYBlue Crab Cheesecake from Old Firehouse Restaurant, Hollywood, SCApricot Fried Pies from Penguin Ed’s Bar-B-Q, Fayetteville, AR  The Southern Foodie you where the South eats and how to create those distinct flavors at home. You’re sure to rediscover old favorites and get a closer look at the delicious new traditions in Southern cuisine.