Food Books
The latest food books and food buzz!
Sichuan Firepot? No Poblano!
By Herb Gardener Global warming may be disputed, but there is a consensus on American eating habits – our palates are heating up. Entire stores are devoted to chile peppers and the legion of salsas, sauces, rubs, pastes and edible paint strippers they spawned. Megamarts and farmers markets feature a growing selection of colorful, incendiary […]
Relationship Stew
By Marsha Fottler Despite the lush and beguiling detail of an old-master still-life painting of peaches and blackberries on the cover of this novel, The Cookbook Collector is not really at the heart of things about cooking; you’ll find no usable recipes therein. Cuisine is significant but only tangentially. The character who represents the title […]
Food Buzz: Ancient Sauce is New Again
By Chef Judi Gallagher – A good Romesco sauce is nothing new to professional chefs; we all learned to make it and it’s a staple in our repertoire. The reason is that this sauce is easy to make, looks pretty on a plate and is highly versatile. Toss it with a little pasta for lunch […]
A Love Poem To A Place
By Lynn Harding. Adam Nicholson, son of Nigel Nicholson (author of Portrait of a Marriage, the 1973 biography of the complex marriage of his parents, Harold Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West), spent his rather sylvan childhood at the family estate at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, UK. His memoir, Sissinghurst, An Unfinished History, begins with his family’s […]
Take Stock of Your Bistro Chops
By Herb Gardener. “This book is a field manual to strategy and tactics,” Anthony Bourdain, executive chef of the “best (expletive) brasserie/bistro in the country” proclaims in the introduction to the Les Halles Cookbook. Nevermind that he peppers instruction with language heard at a longshoreman’s bachelor party. Whether you simply dodge, or appreciate, Bourdain’s signature […]
Brothers In Botany
By Kelley Lavin. Every so often I read a book that so mesmerizes me that I stockpile copies to give to anyone who happens to ask “have you read a good book lately?” This year I undoubtedly messed up Amazon’s customer tracking strategy when I – a person who has never ordered a book about […]
Summer Family Fun
By Marsha Fottler. Barbara Glanz is a motivational/inspirational speaker, consultant and author of 11 books, which, I guess, are classified as self-help for want of a better and more complex descriptive category. Glanz is so popular worldwide that she’ll be included in the next edition of the Guinness Book of World Records because she has […]
As The Cookie Crumbles
By Anna Dantoni. Joanne Fluke’s mystery/recipe novel, Cream Puff Murder is one in a series set in the fictitious little town of Lake Eden, Minnesota. It’s freezing-cold winter which is good for business at The Cookie Jar, a bakery and coffee shop owned by Hannah Swensen. People in Minnesota drink a lot of coffee during […]
Heating It Up … In The Kitchen
By Deborah Bowers. A few years ago Bill Buford, a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine, invited super chef Mario Batali to a birthday supper for a friend. “What in the world were you thinking of, inviting a famous chef to our apartment for dinner?” cried his wife. But Mario Batali came, bearing homemade […]