Reference Books - Page 7

In the Hands of a Chef: The Professional Chef's Guide to Essential Kitchen Tools (Culinary Institute of America)

The Culinary Institute of America (CIA)

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Sharpen Your Knife Skills and Hone Your Knowledge of Kitchen Tools

A precise carrot julienne . . . A perfect basil chiffonade . . . A neatly quartered chicken . . . Proficiency with knives and other kitchen tools is essential if you want to perfect your culinary artistry. Written by the experts at The Culinary Institute of America, this indispensable guide delivers all the information you need to assemble a knife kit, build your knife skills, and use a wide range of additional tools, from peelers and pitters to Parisienne scoops and pastry bags. Featuring instructional photographs throughout plus insights and tips from top professional chefs, In the Hands of a Chef provides:
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A complete guide to culinary knives
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Comprehensive instructions for knife sharpening
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Guidance on using specialty knives and cutting tools
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Detailed cutting techniques for a variety of ingredients
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Advice on tools for measuring, baking, and mixing
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Equipment sources as well as checklists for knives and tools

"This comprehensive overview of techniques associated with knives and other key kitchen tools truly benefits those concerned with preparing food safely and efficiently. . . . In the Hands of a Chef is an impressive guide, as important as the tools themselves."
-Richard Von Husen, co-owner of Warren Kitchen & Cutlery

Founded in 1946, THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA is an independent, not-for-profit college offering bachelor's and associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts. A network of more than 37,000 alumni in foodservice and hospitality has helped the CIA earn its reputation as the world's premier culinary college. Courses for foodservice professionals and food enthusiasts are offered at the college's main campus in Hyde Park, New York, and at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in St. Helena, California. Greystone also offers baking and pastry, accelerated culinary arts, and wine certifications.

Tapas (Revised): The Little Dishes of Spain

Penelope Casas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Tapas are more than savory appetizers. "They represent a style of eating and way of life," says Penelope Casas, whose Tapas: the Little Dishes of Spain presents more than 300 recipes for the mouth-watering morsels. "So very Spanish, yet adaptable to America," she says, "they cross the line into what we think of as first course or main course dishes."

In chapters such as Tapas in Sauce; Marinades, Patés, Salads, and Other Cold Tapas; and Tapas with Bread or Pastry, Casas provides a definitive selection of the traditional Spanish bar food--dishes to pass out at a gathering, to serve on a buffet, or to make a party of. Readers wishing an introduction to this versatile food, and the culinary culture in which it thrives, will want this bestselling book.

The recipe array is vast. Sauce or ragout-like tapas include Shrimp and Mushrooms in Almond Sauce, Scallops with Cured Ham and Saffron, and Veal Meatballs in Spicy Chorizo Sauce. Endives Filled with Salmon and Shrimp Melon and Apple Salad are two examples of the many tantalizing cold tapas. Prawns Grilled with Garlic Mayonnaise, Lamb Brochettes, and the Three-Layer Omelet, a mixed-egg and vegetable tortilla, are hot-from-the-stove, show-stopping tapas. Including eight pages of color photos, a glossary of ingredients, menus, and a list of recommended Spanish tapas bars, the book is a complete tapas tour. Cooks at all skill levels will find dozens of these tasty little morsels to make and enjoy. --Arthur Boehm

The University Wine Course: A Wine Appreciation Text & Self Tutorial

Marian W. Baldy Ph.D.

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Wine Self Taught. 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

If you want to really know wine, this is the book. This book is used in the California State University as an elective class. If you complete the book and take the reviews and quizzes you are bound to learn much about wine and other aspects in the wine making. For the thirst in learning about wine, this is the book.

Editorial Review:

Now the most widely used wine textbook on for colleges and universities. Also popular with serious wine enthusiasts for home study. Provides a 12 week program for learning about wine in-depth, from sensory evaluation to the science of viticulture and winemaking. Written and organized in a user friendly style. Includes chapter exams and answers, study guides, lab exercises, final exams and extensive references and bibliography. Illustrated with aendixes on Wine & Food, Label Reading, Do-It-Yourself Labs, Student tasting notes and more. Dr. Baldy is a USDA award-winning professor of sciences who has operated her own vineyard and winery and has taught wine areciation for academic credits to university students for over 20 years. 8 1/2 x 11 inches, illustrated, glossary, maps, aendixes.

Simply Scones: Quick and Easy Recipes for More than 70 Delicious Scones and Spreads

Leslie Weiner, Barbara Albright

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

There is no love sincerer than the love of food. - George Bernard Shaw 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 19 people found this review helpful.

Somewhere in the past year or two I have developed a real yen for scones. We used to have a tea house and various coffee houses in my city that served them, and I would occasionally buy one when the mood hit. Then all of a sudden my city was sconeless. I couldn't get a scone to save my life. I drove to every coffee place and bakery I could find... nothing. So I decided I'd make my own. I added this book to my Amazon wish list and my husband bought it for me for Christmas. Since Christmas I have been a scone making machine. As I type the air is filled with the heavenly aroma of fresh out of the oven Apple Oatmeal Scones.

I have made several of the recipes and everyone has been easy to follow and wonderfully delicious.

Table of Contents:
Metric and Imperial Conversions
Introduction: Ensconced in Scones
Sweet Scones (examples: chocolate chip orange, gingerbread, raspberry filled almond)
Savory Scones (examples: hearty grain, potato bacon, rye caraway)
Spreads (examples: curd, clotted cream, maple butter)
The Perfect Tea (the authors guide you through some tea time etiquette and ideas)
Index

A few of my favorite recipes:

Blueberry Coffee Cake Scones - it has a streusel topping
Cheese Scones - Cheddar and Parmesan cheese with a dash of red pepper. I served it with chili one night.
Apple Oatmeal Scones - with apples, dates, oatmeal and molasses it's a hearty scone and a great on the go breakfast.
Citrus Curd - I love lemon curd and this recipe takes it to another level with a bit of orange juice and peel.

The recipes call for you to place the scone batter on a buttered 8-9 circle on a cookie sheet, then cut the scones yourself,then bake, and if necessary re-cut. I also received a scone pan for Christmas and I would highly recommend it. The baking temperature and time does not change and the amount of batter is perfect for the pan.

My only gripe about this book is its size, about 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, and the binding; it's next to impossible to keep the page open face up. I like my cook books to be able to remain open for easy access. Other than that this is a fantastic little book and I plan to keep on making a scone a day.
NordicWare Scottish Scone/Cornbread Pan

Editorial Review:

Scones make delectable treats for afternoon tea, breakfast, lunch, even midnight snacks. This tempting book features more than seventy luscious recipes for scones and spreads certain to delight both traditional and adverturesome palates:

Sweet Scones: Oat Current, Triple Chocolate Chunk, Jam-Filled Walnut, Pistachio Fig Scones
Savory Scones: Cheese, Hearty Grain, Pesto, Tex-Mex Scones
Spreads: Apple Butter, Clotted Cream, Yogurt Cheese, Chocolate Nut Butter, Raspberry Cream Cheese Spread

Plus dozens more. Special sections tell how to make perfect scones, and how to serve a scrumptious afternoon tea. If you've never indulged in a batch of fresh-baked scones, there's no reason to miss out now!

New York Times Cookbook

Craig Claiborne

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Since it was first published in 1961, The New York Times Cook Book, a standard work for gourmet home cooks, has sold nearly three million copies in all editions and continues to sell strongly each year. All the nearly fifteen hundred recipes in the book have been reviewed, revised, and updated, and approximately 40 percent have been replaced.

Emphasizing the timeless nature of this collection, Craig Claiborne has included new recipes using fresh herbs and food processor techniques. He has also added more Chinese, Indian, and foreign recipes and more recipes for pasta, rice, and grains. Additional fish recipes, new salads and bread recipes, and an exceptional chili dish enhance this edition, which contains traditional American recipes and selected recipes from twenty countries. All the recipes are clearly presented and suitable for many different occasions, ranging from a wide variety of family meals to the most formal dinner party. The author also covers sauces and salad dressings, relishes, and preserves. And there are countless old favorites and those wonderful desserts.

Complete with essential cross-referencing, a table of equivalents and conversions, and an index, the revised edition of The New York Times Cook Book is a superb new cookbook to give, to own, and to use for years to come.

Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco

Paula Wolfert

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

North Africa is the home to one of the world's great cuisines. Redolent of saffron, cumin and cilantro, Moroccan cooking can be as elegant or as down-home hearty as you want it to be. In Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, author Paula Wolfert has collected delectable recipes that embody the essence of the cuisine. From Morocco's national dish, couscous (for which Wolfert includes more than 20 different recipes), to delicacies such as Bisteeya (a pigeon pie made with filo, eggs, and raisins among other ingredients), Wolfert describes both the background of each recipe and the best way to prepare it. As if the mouthwatering recipes weren't enough, each chapter includes some aspect of Moroccan culture or history, be it an account of Moroccan moussems, or festivals, or a description of souks, or markets. Just reading the recipes will be enough to induce ravenous hunger even on a full stomach. Once you've tried the Chicken Tagine with Prunes and Almonds, or the Seared Lamb Kebabs Cooked in Butter, Paula Wolfert's Couscous and Other Good Foods from Morocco will become a well-worn title on your cookbook shelf.

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School

Kathleen Flinn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A delightful true story of food, Paris, and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream

In 2003, Kathleen Flinn, a thirty-six-year-old American living and working in London, returned from vacation to find that her corporate job had been eliminated. Ignoring her mother’s advice that she get another job immediately or “never get hired anywhere ever again,” Flinn instead cleared out her savings and moved to Paris to pursue a dream—a diploma from the famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is the touching and remarkably funny account of Flinn’s transformation as she moves through the school’s intense program and falls deeply in love along the way. Flinn interweaves more than two dozen recipes with a unique look inside Le Cordon Bleu amid battles with demanding chefs, competitive classmates, and her “wretchedly inadequate” French. Flinn offers a vibrant portrait of Paris, one in which the sights and sounds of the city’s street markets and purveyors come alive in rich detail. The ultimate wish fulfillment book, her story is a true testament to pursuing a dream. Fans of Julie & Julia, Almost French, and Eat, Pray, Love will be amused, inspired, and richly rewarded by this seductive tale of romance, Paris, and French food.

Making & Using Dried Foods

Phyllis Hobson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Similarities to previous out of print Garden Way Book 5 out of 5 stars.
45 of 48 people found this review helpful.

This book will be a happy surprise for those of you who are looking for the out of print and hard to find "Garden Way's Guide to Food Drying" by Phyllis Hobson. This is basically the same book, with all the tips and hints for drying vegetables, fruits and herbs, but with even more recipes than the out of print book. Both the author and the publisher are the same.

Compare to How to Dry Foods 5 out of 5 stars.
27 of 29 people found this review helpful.

This has more methods of drying (including sun-drying), it has information on pretreating foods.

How to Dry Foods on the other hand has metric to american conversion, and it tells how long specific foods last while dry.

If you want methods buy this book, if you want specific facts, buy How to Dry Foods. Personally, I'm buying this one.

Making and using dried Foods 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I'm a first time drier and got several other book on this subject but this is my favorit. Highly recommend.

Awesome 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is great. Very informative. Bought a dehydrator, Nesco American Harvest FD-75PR. Already dehydrating foods to take on flying trips.

Editorial Review:

Step-by-step instructions for drying almost everything with or without a commercial dehydrator. Includes more than 200 delicious recipes using

dried foods.

Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker's Atlas

Jeffrey Alford, Naomi Duguid

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Superb Treatment of a Broad Culinary Topic. Buy It! 5 out of 5 stars.
28 of 31 people found this review helpful.

`Flatbreads & flavors, A Baker's Atlas' is Canadian culinary photographer / writers' pair Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's second book, which is easily more useful to the average foodie and reader than their last two expensive culinary travelogues, `Mangoes & Curry Leaves' and `Hot Sour Salty Sweet'. While this book covers a broad geographical range, like the `big' books, it maintains its high level of quality and focus by concentrating exclusively on the subject of flatbreads and dishes that are most commonly served with these flatbreads in their `natural habitat'.

While Alford and Duguid seem to have inherited the style of the great culinary travelogue, `Honey from a Weed' by Patience Gray, they have their own twists on this style which makes it all their own. One difference is that while Gray does a fair amount of reflection on the whys of local techniques, her observations are not systematic. They are more in the line of archeological observations. Since Alford and Duguid in this book, are dealing with the single technique of baking flatbreads, this focus give them the opportunity to give us an excellent tutorial on bread baking technique, including the use of modern appliances in the making of traditional flatbread recipes.

The authors take their `Atlas' approach seriously, as each chapter addresses a particular geographical region and opens with a map locating the center of traditional production for each type of bread. The eight regions are:

Central Asia, primarily Iran, the `...stans', and Tibet with lots of yoghurt and kebabs.
China, Vietnam, and Malaysia with dipping sauces, pancakes, and roll-ups.
India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka with chutneys, curries, and lentils galore.
Eastern Mediterranean, or `flatbread central' with pitas, matzos, Bulgar wheat, and dips and wraps.
Morocco, Tunisia, and Ethiopia, with mostly accompanying dishes.
Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, the home of Lavosh
Europe, from Italian pizza to Scottish oatcakes
North America with tortillas, crackers, and salsas.

While this would seem to be a rich subject, the authors don't spend much time reflecting on why flatbreads are so important in some parts of the world and less important in others. In Asia, it seems that it is the only kind of bread they make, while in Europe, it's definitely a sidelight. I hypothesize that flatbreads are important where there fuel for ovens is scarce and the native peoples are or were at one time primarily nomadic.

It is just a bit surprising to see how many different bread recipes use yeast. One would think yeast requires a nearby brewing industry, but natural sourdough type yeast is free for the asking and a lot easier to manage on the road than chemical leaveners, when the nearest 7 - 11 is 7000 miles away. But, all the recipes have been modernized and none actually use natural sourdough yeasts. All yeast doughs are made with `active dry yeast', the kind you have to bloom in warm water, but which will keep for years in their little foil packets. The other side of the coin is that there are a fair number or yeastless recipes, especially India's skillet breads, where the leavening is the action of heat and water in the dough, very much like unleavened matzos, except that matzos is made in an oven. So, if you can't tolerate yeast and you are tired of buttermilk biscuits and Irish soda bread, this book may be a great ticket to enriching your range of tolerated breads.

One thing this book does not do is be a complete source on those flatbreads which are so dear to our French / Spanish / Italian backgrounds. If your primary interest is with Pizza, go to Peter Reinhart's `American Pie' or some other treatise on pizza by your favorite Italian cookbook author. If your primary interest is in tortillas, get Diana Kennedy's `From My Mexican Kitchen'. But, if you like these things and want to find the their flatbread cousins, this is your book.

This book is simply all around excellent, and certainly deserves its James Beard Cookbook award. It makes me wish Alford and Duguid would stick to their single subject surveys instead of boosting their photographs business with the richly pictured , `Mangoes & Curry Leaves' and `Hot Sour Salty Sweet'. Their other books on rice and home baking are similarly delightful and should be in every foodie's library.

Editorial Review:

An amazing cookbook that travels to the furthest reaches of the world to celebrate flatbreads with over the recipes for a myriad of breads, including Afghani naan, Mexican tortilla, French fougasse, Middle Eastern pita, and Armenian lavash. Hungry for something to go with all that bread? The authors include another 150 recipes for traditional accompaniments. How about a Scandinavian smorgasbord, tomatillo salsa with arbol chiles, Nepali green chile chutney, Ethiopian beef tartar, or Yemeni stew?

The Everything Vegetarian Cookbook: 300 Healthy Recipes Everyone Will Enjoy (Everything Series)

Jay Weinstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

not the most colorful cookbook i've cooked from 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

i just started my vegetarian venture so this is a cookbook i picked up. the book gives really good side tips about food that are not common knowledge. i have tried a few of the recipes and they turned out fabulous. so no damage there. the only down side is there are absolutely no pictures of any of the recipes. so if your ok with cooking blindly then this is one for you.

The Everything Vegetarian Cookbook 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

As recent arrivals in the vegetarian world, we are very pleased with this informative and well-written book.
We look forward to many healthy meals, without the gnawing feeling that some animal was killed to feed our carnivore tastes.
Well done, and thanks.

basic and uninteresting vegetarian recipies 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Though included in this book were recipies for many, many differeny vegetables, none were very creative or inspiring. Just basic stuff.

Fast Service, Great Book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I received the book in plenty of time for Christmas and it was in top notch condition. I have no complaints.

New vegetarian cook 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Thank you for your prompt delivery of my order. I'm eager to start cooking vegetarian meals for my family, and this book is just what I need.