Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories from a Life in Food


Andrew Carmellini - 2008
    After a brilliant career in professional kitchens (including a 6-year tour as chef de cuisine at Café Boulud), he was faced with the harsh reality of life as a civilian cook: no prep cooks, no saucier, no daily deliveries - just him and his wife in their tiny Manhattan-apartment kitchen.Urban Italian is made up of the recipes that result when a great chef has to use the same resources available to the rest of us. In these hundred recipes - covering five distinct courses, cocktails, and base recipes - Carmellini shows how to make stunning, soulful food with nothing more than the ingredients, techniques, and time available to the ordinary home cook. Recipes include crisped artichokes with yogurt, mint, and sauce picante; duck meatballs with cherry moustarda sauce; roast pork with Italian plums and grappa; spicy cod with rock shrimp; and marinated grapes with red-wine granita.Along with the recipes (beautifully photographed by Quentin Bacon), Carmellini and his wife, Gwen Hyman, have written a number of sections to help readers bring home more of a great chef's experience. These begin with a narrative that traces Andrew's culinary education, and continue with short pieces on places and ingredients, placed alongside recipes to shed light on the history and practice of simple, beautiful cooking.

Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen


Donia Bijan - 2011
    In 1978, when the Islamic revolution in Iran threatened their safety, they fled to California's Bay Area, where the familiar flavors of Bijan's mother's cooking formed a bridge to the life they left behind. Now, through the prism of food, award-winning chef Donia Bijan unwinds her own story, finding that at the heart of it all is her mother, whose love and support enabled Bijan to realize her dreams. From the Persian world of her youth to the American life she embraced as a teenager to her years at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris (studying under the infamous Madame Brassart) to apprenticeships in France's three-star kitchens and finally back to San Francisco, where she opened her own celebrated bistro, Bijan evokes a vibrant kaleidoscope of cultures and cuisines. And she shares thirty inspired recipes from her childhood (Saffron Yogurt Rice with Chicken and Eggplant and Orange Cardamom Cookies), her French training (Ratatouille with Black Olives and Fried Bread and Purple Plum Skillet Tart), and her cooking career (Roast Duck Legs with Dates and Warm Lentil Salad and Rose Petal Ice Cream). An exhilarating, heartfelt memoir, Maman's Homesick Pie is also a reminder of the women who encourage us to shine.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food


Jennifer 8. Lee - 2008
    New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese), Jennifer 8 Lee, traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.

Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck


Thug Kitchen - 2014
    Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow ("This might be my favorite thing ever") and named Saveur's Best New Food blog of 2013—with half a million Facebook fans and counting—Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take charge of their plates and cook up some real f*cking food.Yeah, plenty of blogs and cookbooks preach about how to eat more kale, why ginger fights inflammation, and how to cook with microgreens and nettles. But they are dull or pretentious as hell—and most people can't afford the hype.Thug Kitchen lives in the real world. In their first cookbook, they're throwing down more than 100 recipes for their best-loved meals, snacks, and sides for beginning cooks to home chefs. (Roasted Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos? Pumpkin Chili? Grilled Peach Salsa? Believe that sh*t.) Plus they're going to arm you with all the info and techniques you need to shop on a budget and go and kick a bunch of ass on your own.This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real.

My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals / Portraits, Interviews, and Recipes


Melanie Dunea - 2007
    Includes recipes. Chefs have been playing the "My Last Supper" game among themselves for decades, if not centuries, but it had always been kept within the profession-until now. Melanie Dunea came up with the ingenious idea to ask fifty of the world's famous chefs to let her in on this insider's game and tell her what their final meals would be. My Last Supper showcases their fascinating answers alongside stunning Vanity Fair-style portraits. Their responses are surprising, refreshing, and as distinct from each other as the chefs themselves. The portraits-gorgeous, intimate, and playful-are informed by their answers and reveal the passions and personalities of the most respected names in the business. Lastly, one recipe from each landmark meal is included in the back of the book. With My Last Supper, Dunea found a way into the typically harried, hidden minds of the people who have turned preparing food into an art. Who wouldn't want to know where Alain Ducasse would like his last supper to be? And who would prepare Daniel Boulud's final meal? What would Anthony Bourdain's guest list look like? As the clock ticked, what album would Gordon Ramsay be listening to? And just what would Mario Batali eat for the last time? Featuring: Ferran Adrià, José Andrés, Dan Barber, Lidia Bastianich, Mario Batali, Rick Bayless, Michelle Bernstein, Daniel Boulud, Anthony Bourdain, Scott Conant, Gary Danko, Hélène Darroze, Alain Ducasse, Wylie Dufresne, Suzanne Goin, Gabrielle Hamilton, Fergus Henderson, Thomas Keller, Giorgio Locatelli, Masa Kobayashi, Nobu, Jamie Oliver, Jacques Pépin, Gordon Ramsay, Michel Richard, Eric Ripert, Marcus Samuelsson, Charlie Trotter, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and more...

Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table


Sara Roahen - 2008
    For Wisconsin native Sara Roahen, a Sazerac is also a fine accompaniment to raw oysters, a looking glass into the cocktail culture of her own family and one more way to gain a foothold in her beloved adopted city. Roahen's stories of personal discovery introduce readers to New Orleans' well-known signatures: gumbo, po-boys, red beans and rice, and its lesser-known gems: the pho of its Vietnamese immigrants, the braciolone of its Sicilians, and the ya-ka-mein of its street culture. By eating and cooking her way through a place as unique and unexpected as its infamous turducken, Roahen finds a home. And then Katrina. With humor, poignancy, and hope, she conjures up a city that reveled in its food traditions before the storm – and in many ways has been saved by them since.

Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris


Ann Mah - 2013
    A lifelong foodie and Francophile, she immediately begins plotting gastronomic adventures à deux. Then her husband is called away to Iraq on a year-long post—alone. Suddenly, Ann’s vision of a romantic sojourn in the City of Lights is turned upside down.So, not unlike another diplomatic wife, Julia Child, Ann must find a life for herself in a new city. Journeying through Paris and the surrounding regions of France, Ann combats her loneliness by seeking out the perfect pain au chocolat and learning the way the andouillette sausage is really made. She explores the history and taste of everything from boeuf Bourguignon to soupe au pistou to the crispiest of buckwheat crepes. And somewhere between Paris and the south of France, she uncovers a few of life’s truths.Like Sarah Turnbull’s Almost French and Julie Powell’s New York Times bestseller Julie and Julia, Mastering the Art of French Eating is interwoven with the lively characters Ann meets and the traditional recipes she samples. Both funny and intelligent, this is a story about love—of food, family, and France.

Pizza: A Global History


Carol Helstosky - 2008
    There are countless ways to create the dish called pizza, as well as a never-ending debate on the best way of cooking it. Now Carol Helstosky documents the fascinating history and cultural life of this chameleon-like food in Pizza.Originally a food for the poor in eighteenth-century Naples, the pizza is a source of national and regional pride as well as cultural identity in Italy, Helstosky reveals. In the twentieth century, the pizza followed Italian immigrants to America, where it became the nation’s most popular dish and fueled the rise of successful fast-food corporations such as Pizza Hut and Domino’s. Along the way, Helstosky explains, pizza has been adapted to local cuisines and has become a metaphor for cultural exchange. Pizza also features several recipes and a wealth of illustrations, including a photo of the world’s largest and most expensive pizza—sprinkled with edible 24-karat gold shavings and costing over $4000.   Whether you love sausage and onions on your pizza or unadorned cheese, Pizza has enough offerings to satiate even the pickiest of readers.

Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health


Jo Robinson - 2013
    Unwittingly, we've been selecting plants that are high in starch and sugar and low in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants for more than 400 generations.EATING ON THE WILD SIDE reveals the solution--choosing modern varieties that approach the nutritional content of wild plants but that also please the modern palate. Jo Robinson explains that many of these newly identified varieties can be found in supermarkets and farmer's market, and introduces simple, scientifically proven methods of preparation that enhance their flavor and nutrition. Based on years of scientific research and filled with food history and practical advice, EATING ON THE WILD SIDE will forever change the way we think about food.Winner of the 2014 IACP Cookbook Award in the category of "Food Matters."

India: Cookbook


Pushpesh Pant - 2010
    Unlike many other Indian cookbooks, it is written by an Indian culinary academic and cookbook author who lives and works in Delhi, and the recipes are a true reflection of how traditional dishes are really cooked all over India. They have been carefully edited to ensure that they are simple to follow and achievable in western kitchens, with detailed information about authentic cooking utensils and ingredients.Indian food has been hugely popular in the UK for many years, and the appetite for Indian food shows no sign of diminishing. Now, for the first time, a definitive, wide-ranging and authoritative book on authentic Indian food is available, making it simple to prepare your favourite Indian dishes at home, alongside less well-known dishes such as bataer masalydaar (marinated quails cooked with almonds, chillies and green cardamom), or sambharachi kodi (Goan prawn curry with coconut and tamarind). The comprehensive chapters on breads, pickles, spice pastes and chutneys contain a wide variety of recipes rarely seen in Indian cookbooks, such as bagarkhani roti (a rich sweet bread with raisins, cardamom and poppy seeds) and tamatar ka achar (tomato and mustard-seed pickle).India: The Cookbook is the only book on Indian food you'll ever need.

Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes, Through Darkness and Light


Caroline Eden - 2018
    From the Jewish table of Odessa, to meeting the last fisherwoman of Bulgaria and charting the legacies of the White Russian émigrés in Istanbul, Caroline gives readers a unique insight into a part of the world that is both shaded by darkness and illuminated by light.Meticulously researched and documenting unprecedented meetings with remarkable individuals, Black Sea is like no other piece of travel writing. Packed with rich photography and sumptuous food, this biography of a region, its people and its recipes truly breaks new ground.

A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression


Jane Ziegelman - 2016
    Before 1929, America’s relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished—shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder. In 1933, as women struggled to feed their families, President Roosevelt reversed longstanding biases toward government sponsored “food charity.” For the first time in American history, the federal government assumed, for a while, responsibility for feeding its citizens. The effects were widespread. Championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, “home economists” who had long fought to bring science into the kitchen rose to national stature. Tapping into America’s longstanding ambivalence toward culinary enjoyment, they imposed their vision of a sturdy, utilitarian cuisine on the American dinner table. Through the Bureau of Home Economics, these women led a sweeping campaign to instill dietary recommendations, the forerunners of today’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. At the same time, rising food conglomerates introduced packaged and processed foods that gave rise to a new American cuisine based on speed and convenience. This movement toward a homogenized national cuisine sparked a revival of American regional cooking. In the ensuing decades, this tension between local traditions and culinary science have defined our national cuisine—a battle that continues today.A Square Meal examines the impact of economic contraction and environmental disaster on how Americans ate then—and the lessons and insights those experiences may hold for us today.

Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture


Dana Goodyear - 2013
    Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental question: Is that food?Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, Anything That Moves, is simultaneously a humorous adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at, and an attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. This is the fringe of the modern American meal, but to judge from history, it will not be long before it reaches the family table. Anything That Moves is a highly entertaining, revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.

Mrs. Wilkes' Boardinghouse Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from Her Savannah Table


Sema Wilkes - 2001
    Her goal was modest: to make a living by offering comfortable lodging and southern home cooking served family style in the downstairs dining room. Mrs. Wilkes' reputation was strong and business was brisk from the beginning, but it was the coverage in Esquire and the New York Times, and even a profile on David Brinkley's evening news that brought southern food lovers from all over the world to her doorstep. Sema is now 94 years old, and four generations of Wilkes help her keep the tables laden with platters of her legendary fried chicken, pork ribs, and biscuits, while friends and strangers pass bowls brimming with her sublime butterbeans, collard greens, mashed sweet potatoes, and banana pudding. The line snakes out the front door and down the street, where along with the locals and visitors, it's not uncommon to find Jimmy Carter or Roy Junior Blount, among other familiar faces, waiting for their turn at Mrs. Wilkes' table. With over 300 recipes and culinary historian John T. Edge's colorful telling of Mrs. Wilkes' contribution to Savannah and southern cuisine, the rich volume is a tribute to a way of cooking-and eating-that must not be forgotten.

Tyler's Ultimate: Dinner at My Place


Tyler Florence - 2008
    He shares the dishes he likes to prepare for his family and friends when he's off the clock. - The table of contents is organized by occasion, such as his son's first birthday party, a romantic meal for two, Christmas dinner for the whole Florence family, and a simple meal for a rainy Sunday afternoon.- Tyler's menus and recipes feature twists on comfort food classics and showcase his secret family recipes as well as his personal favorites.- Menus and personal photos from Tyler's home-cooked meals and dinner parties.- Beautiful food and lifestyle photos.