Special Occasions Books - Page 10

Do It for Less! Parties: Tricks of the Trade from Professional Caterers' Kitchens

Denise Vivaldo

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Many people can handle throwing a party for 8 or 10 people, but how many can successfully negotiate the trials of entertaining 25 or 50? Do It for Less! Parties has all the tools you need to plan efficiently and entertain flawlessly when cooking for a crowd. Packed with quantity recipes for 12, 25, 50, or 75 friends and family, this combination party cookbook, decorating guide, and entertaining primer shows today’s savvy hostess how to do it for less time and do it for less money without sacrificing one’s sanity or style.

The first half of the book focuses on the logistics of quantity cooking. It’s brimming with estimating guides, catering resources, and conversion charts that are useful for the professional caterer and home entertainer alike. The second half provides nine complete menus with 65 twice-tested, quantity recipes. All the menus include complete shopping lists in each quantity, a menu countdown, decoration ideas, and specific tips for shaving costs, time, and stress from your preparation schedule.

NIGELLA CHRISTMAS: Food Family Friends Festivities

Nigella Lawson

Amazon Price: $19.80 List Price: $30.00 Not yet published By: Hyperion

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The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs

Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg

Amazon Price: $23.10 List Price: $35.00 Not yet published By: Little, Brown and Company

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Editorial Review:

Great cooking goes beyond following a recipe--it's knowing how to season ingredients to coax the greatest possible flavor from them. Drawing on dozens of leading chefs' combined experience in top restaurants across the country, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg present the definitive guide to creating "deliciousness" in any dish. Thousands of ingredient entries, organized alphabetically and cross-referenced, provide a treasure trove of spectacular flavor combinations. Readers will learn to work more intuitively and effectively with ingredients; experiment with temperature and texture; excite the nose and palate with herbs, spices, and other seasonings; and balance the sensual, emotional, and spiritual elements of an extraordinary meal.
Seasoned with tips, anecdotes, and signature dishes from America's most imaginative chefs, THE FLAVOR BIBLEis an essential reference for every kitchen.

A Ghostly Good Time: The Family Halloween Handbook

Editors of Woman's Day SIPS

Amazon Price: $8.79 List Price: $10.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Filipacchi

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Editorial Review:

Everyone can have as much fabulously spooky fun as the witches and goblins this Halloween with this handy guide from the editors at Womans Day Special Interest Publications. Jam-packed with recipes, games, decorations, and costumes, its everything youll ever need to make this Halloween the best one ever. With over 200 instructional and inspirational color photographs, this book has everything youll need to plan a Halloween party, have the most fun trick-or-treating, or enjoy a family Halloween at home.

Saving Dinner for the Holidays: Menus, Recipes, Shopping Lists, and Timelines for Spectacular, Stress-free Holidays and Family Celebrations

Leanne Ely

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

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Don’t Just Celebrate–Relax!

We all know that holidays are meant to be fun. But for the cook planning the feast, the holidays can inspire dread. Feeding the family on a daily basis is hard enough. Making the meal both special and delicious can raise the bar out of sight.

In Saving Dinner for the Holidays bona fide Dinner Diva Leanne Ely will show you that festive meals can be as easy and relaxing as they are tasty. She plans the menus, provides comprehensive, itemized shopping lists that are organized by supermarket section, includes heirloom recipes, and even includes the all-important timeline so that your party goes off without a hitch. She also gives you a big helping hand in the kitchen and offers tips on how to make your table sparkle with warmth and beauty.

There’s a Valentine’s Day Chocolate Feast not to be missed, a Mother’s Day dinner that can actually be prepared by Dad and the kids, a Fourth of July picnic that lights up the palate, and many other red-letter feasts. There are even recipes that help turn leftovers into delectable dishes.

Forever Summer (Style Network's) (Style Network's)

Nigella Lawson

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Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Nigella Rocks 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My how Nigella has changed the way I Cook, Eat, think and feel about food. I first saw Nigella cooking on her TV show Nigella Bites and just loved the way she spoke about food with her passion coming through the TV screen. I purchased her books and now I'm such the Male Domestic God that I think I have missed my calling and should have been a Chef, but I do know that it's all thanks to Nigella.

Forever Summer 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not only do I use this cookbook often, I have given it as a gift twice. I have made numerous recipes, all have been excellent and easy to make. Several of the recipes are now staples, both for family meals and for entertaining. The crab with linguini and chiles is superb.

i love nigella 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

i made several recepes from this book some time ago, i cant wait to but another book, i just love nigella and her books, they are facinating!! and so entertaining!

Editorial Review:

"Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (April 2, 2003) Language: English ISBN: 1401300162 Product Dimensions: 10.0 x 7.7 x 0.9 inches Setting the warm, relaxed tone befitting the season, U.K. food goddess Lawson (Nigella

Party Confidential: New Etiquette for Fabulous Entertaining

Lara Shriftman, Elizabeth Harrison

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Planning a party can be fun, but doing it right requires organization and creativity. Social graces have gone through a major transformation since the days of Emily Post, so it's time for a book that brings you up to date on modern decorum. Along with advice from celebrities and experts in the field, Party Confidential: New Etiquette for Fabulous Entertaining answers the questions people want--and need--to know about everything related to a party, from planning to attending. It addresses topics that are not covered in traditional etiquette books and takes a new approach to covering the basics. You'll learn all the essentials, like how to:

* Invite someone last-minute

* Handle unexpected guests

* Accomodate dietary requests like vegan or kosher

* Leave a party early

* Ask if you can bring a guest

* Respond to an RSVP--and when

* And much, much more.

This is the only book you need to be a consummate host, as well as a perfect guest, at every party.

Modern Classics (Book 1)

Donna Hay

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Donna Hay's mission? Even if you're short on time, even if you're new to the kitchen, the award-winning Australian food writer wants you to be a proficient cook. Her Modern Classics, Book 1 aims to be for a new generation of cooks what Fanny Farmer and Irma Rombauer were for their grandmothers--kitchen companion, inspiration, culinary bible.

The difference between today's new cooks and their forebears lies in the globalization of taste. Thus Modern Classics offers detailed instructions on how to build a Thai Beef Salad, whip up a Roasted Vegetable Frittata, deliver to the dinner table the perfect Lemon and Parmesan Risotto, as well as how to master contemporary versions of such Anglo staples as white sauce, brown gravy, roast pork, flaky pastry, and Shepherd's Pie.

In sections on the basics, Hay gives step-by-step directions for making the essentials (stock, mayonnaise, fluffy rice). How-tos guide the chef through preparation of specific dishes (spinach and cheddar soufflé, freeform ratatouille tart, laksa, French onion soup, pad thai). A sampler of recipes from around the world follows, offering variations on the kitchen skills and flavors just introduced. An array of short orders, easy-to-follow recipes for condiments and side dishes to complement the entrees, ends each section.

And here's the sweetest thing: pictures. Full color, artfully shot photos of beautifully prepared dishes show us what our labor will produce. For a generation of visual learners, these tantalizing visions are well worth the space that might have used to list 14 more things to do with turnips. Modern Classics would be the perfect gift; it deserves a spot in the bridal registry or the new graduate's apartment. --Schuyler Ingle and Joyce Thompson

Naked Chef, The

Jamie Oliver

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Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

There are a few British television chefs, such as Delia Smith and Nigel Slater, who know exactly what viewers want. They cook food that is simple to prepare but looks and tastes delicious. That's probably the reason why the BBC appointed Jamie Oliver as the presenter of its series The Naked Chef (which airs on the Television Food Network in the U.S.). A working chef at London's celebrated River Café, Oliver cooks simpler versions of the fare you would find on the restaurant's menu. It's basically modern Italian food using ingredients that can be found by almost anyone who is reasonably interested in food shopping. Like the television show, the book is titled The Naked Chef. In Oliver's words, this sums up the idea: "It's basically stripping back to the bare essentials." He applies this to all his recipes--from salads to roasts, desserts to pastas. He doesn't use culinary jargon or time-consuming processes. In the book you'll find suggestions for ingredients to keep in your larder (pantry) and herbs to grow on your windowsill. Recipes include Warm Salad of Radicchio; Gem and Pancetta; and Beetroot Tagliatelle with Pesto, Mussels, and White Wine. There are also tips on how to cook live lobsters, how to make gravy, preparing dry beans for cooking, and how to make the perfect roast chicken. Several photographs accompany some of the recipes, with step-by-step instructions. Oliver's recipes for bread are particularly good--a tribute to his training at Carluccio's, the Covent Garden deli. This is the perfect book for anyone who doesn't want to spend much more than a half-hour preparing meals and is not willing to compromise on innovation or taste. --Dale Kneen, Amazon.co.uk

Italian Classics (The Best Recipe Series)

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Best Recipe series from Cook's Illustrated magazine goes from strength to strength. With its formula of exhaustively tested recipes paired with heavily illustrated techniques, the series makes it easy for even beginning cooks to produce successful dishes almost every time. For the casual home cook, Italian Classics might be the single best Italian cookbook to own. The book is, in classic Best Recipe fashion, a great big beautiful doorstop of a thing. Even so, it's not crammed with arcana. For most Americans--who in survey after survey say that regional Italian is the cuisine they most enjoy cooking at home--the recipes here will be pretty familiar; the space is devoted not to obscure dishes but to exhaustive treatments of favorites. Pesto, for instance, gets about three pages. You end up with a delicious, perfectly prepared basil paste, and along the way you learn how to bruise herb leaves, you get a treatise on why a garlic press isn't such a bad thing (despite what the professionals say), and finally, you are led into the intriguing territory of nonbasil pestos such as Toasted Nut and Parsley, and Arugula and Ricotta. All the classics are here, from red-checkered-tablecloth dishes like Spaghetti and Meatballs to regional dishes like Ribollita. Throughout, there's a nice balance between authenticity and accessibility. The book doesn't call for wildly obscure ingredients that other cookbook authors so often claim can be readily found at "specialty stores," and there's no snobbishly overwrought preparation--another boon for the home cook. --Claire Dederer