Special Occasions Books - Page 14

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.

The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet

Pierre Franey

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Clarkson Potter Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $5.53

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Master Chef's Signature Book
Available in paperback for the first time in a decade, The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet is the bestselling cookbook that catapulted Pierre Franey into the front ranks of American chefs. After a successful career as a restaurant chef, Franey became a food writer for The New York Times in 1975, accepting the challenge to write a regular column featuring recipes that would take less than an hour to prepare. Through his column and the cookbooks that soon followed, Franey created a national sensation with his revolutionary style of cooking, and American kitchens haven't been the same since. The presentation of quick, healthy, and enjoyable meals was a revelation, introducing the home cook to choices beyond spending hours in the kitchen or settling for "fast food." This cookbook -- the first that collected his New York Times recipes -- captures all that was great about Pierre Franey's cooking: fresh, flavorful, low-fat ingredients, ease of preparation, and the injunction "Don't spend all evening in the kitchen!"  As a step-by-step guide to better cooking and delicious eating, this great cookbook allows all cooks to employ Pierre Franey's signature methods and create memorable meals in their own homes.

More from the Gluten-free Gourmet: Delicious Dining Without Wheat

Bette Hagman

Amazon Price: $12.92 List Price: $19.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Holt Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $5.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Non-gluten delectabilities! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

After going gluten free a year ago, I thought I'd never bake anything good again. But this book and its predecessor, The Gluten-free Gourmet, changed my mind! Because I'm also sugar free, baking is an extra large challenge. But these recipes along with xylitol sweetener have gotten me back in business. What a great find! Thanks, Bette!

Kudos to Bette Hagman! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Thanks to Bette Hagman's clearly written, informative cookbooks, it is very easy to enjoy a gluten/wheat free lifestyle. This book is not only power packed with excellent recipes, but with tips on maintaining a gluten free lifestyle.

It makes me think of the spiritual, "Free At Last." A modified version for the Hagman books could be "Wheat free at last, wheat free at last..."

Thank you, Bette Hagman!

Editorial Review:

Bette Hagman's first book, The Gluten-free Gourmet, brought good-tasting food back into the lives of the millions who are intolerant to the gluten in wheat, oats, barley, or rye, or who are allergic to wheat. Responding to a flood of requests for "more, more, more," she offers more than 265 additional gluten-free recipes for tasty meals. Now with a gourmet look, this book is as irresistible as ever for gluten-intolerant chefs and their families.

Naked Chef, The

Jamie Oliver

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Hyperion Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $7.79

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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

The Santa Monica Farmers' Market Cookbook: Seasonal Foods, Simple Recipes and Stories from the Market and Farm

Amelia Saltsman

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Blenheim Press Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $13.61

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For more than a quarter century, the Santa Monica Farmers' Market has inspired both renowned chefs and home cooks, making it a regional market with national presence. One of the largest markets in the state, it stands at the forefront of a national trend toward cooking with local and seasonal ingredients. For more than twenty years, Amelia Saltsman has shopped its stands, talked with its farmers, and cooked its magnificent produce for family and friends. The result is The Santa Monica Farmers' Market Cookbook, a celebration of the market s excellence and its hardworking farmers. What s the difference between white and green zucchini? What are amaranth, sapote, and ramps? With Amelia as your guide, you ll learn the answers to these questions and more. You'll also find advice on how to select and store produce, stories about farmers and their crops, chef and farmer cooking tips, and more than 100 of Amelia's simple, tempting recipes including: -- Fava Bean and Pea Shoot Salad -- Classic Tomato Soup with a Goat Cheese Swirl -- Black Cod with Green Tomatoes -- Roast Leg of Lamb with Oil-Cured Black Olives and Herbs -- Seared White Nectarines with Burnt Honey -- Meyer Lemon Sundaes with Cara Cara Oranges and Tangelos With a foreword by acclaimed cookbook author Deborah Madison, a design by Ph.D and photos by Anne Fishbein.

Test Kitchen Favorites: The 2007 Companion Cookbook to the Hit TV Show (America's Test Kitchen)

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: America's Test Kitchen Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $16.48

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

another great, but slightly flawed, cookbook from ATK 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

America's Test Kitchen is similar to Consumer Reports, but for food. They will try a recipe 100 times, with every variation possible, experimenting with ingredients and techniques, until they can give you an informative article and a winning recipe.

I have tried about 14 recipes from this book and every one has been terrific. The carbonnade has a more complex flavor than carbonnade I ate in Belgium! We've also enjoyed the chicken parmesan, fish and chips, , chicken kiev, the pepper-crusted filet mignon (with a fantastic cherry-Port reduction), , stir fried chicken, hot and sour soup, potstickers and buttermilk coleslaw. And the strawberry cream cake is gorgeous and delicious. I am so confident in ATK's recipes that I've made a recipe for the first time when company was coming over, and it was wonderful.

Articles are supplemented with terrific sidebars that typically rate ingredient brands, compare kitchen tools or show a technique.

My only complaint about the whole series of ATK books is that they are organized idiosyncratically (sorry, but that is anathema to a librarian!) and have extremely poor indexes. For example, I knew the recipe for carbonnade was in the 2007 book. I looked in the index -- nothing under "carbonnade", nothing under "beef"! So I went to the table of contents. Nothing about carbonnade, but a chapter called "Best Beef Stew" -- could that be it? Luckily, yes, but that is no way to run a cookbook!

You cannot go wrong with these great books -- consistently reliable and delicious recipes.

Tea Party: 20 Themed Tea Parties with Recipes for Every Occasion, from Fabulous Showers to Intimate Gatherings

Tracy Stern, Christie Matheson

Amazon Price: $18.15 List Price: $27.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Clarkson Potter Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $7.71

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Enjoy life. Drink tea. Celebrate often.
Tracy Stern is passionate about tea. She has created wildly popular lines of teas and tea-based beauty products and has hosted hundreds of stylish tea parties to celebrate all sorts of occasions. She has introduced a new generation to the pleasures of tea without any of its traditional stuffiness. In Tea Party, she encourages everyone to make their next gathering that much more special by incorporating tea into the menu.

Starting with tips on choosing and brewing teas–from white and green teas to herbal rooibos and different black teas–Tea Party then shares more than seventy-five recipes, both savory and sweet, as part of twenty themed tea parties. Stern features classic tea accompaniments such as Scones with Clotted Cream and Cucumber-Mint Tea Sandwiches as well as novel recipes that use flavorful and healthful tea as an ingredient, including Homemade Potato Fries with Ceylon Tea Salt and Tea-Scented Chocolate Truffles. Above all, the focus is on fun, not fuss.

The party suggestions are perfect for afternoons with friends, bridal and baby showers, cocktail and dinner parties, picnics, and brunches. A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party–for a birthday or an unbirthday–will delight kids and adults alike with tea sandwiches made with edible flowers followed by Eat Me! Cupcakes. Chai Breakfast Tea reveals a fantastic recipe for the sweetly spiced irresistible drink along with recipes for chai-scented pancakes and candied almonds. Ideas and inspirations abound for fabulous, easy, and affordable invitations, decorations, table settings, and charming party favors that tie into each party’s theme.

Featuring beautiful color photography throughout, Tea Party is a hip, up-to-date slant on a beloved tradition, inspiring everyone to drink a little more tea, celebrate a little more often, and enjoy life a whole lot more.

Trader Vic's Tiki Party!: Cocktails & Food to Share with Friends

Stephen Siegelman, Trader Vic

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Campy, Kitschy Delight 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

By Bill Marsano. Trader Vic's Tiki Party!: Cocktails & Food to Share with Friends," by Stephen Siegelman, is perfect for retro theme parties. Trader Vic, with his famous rival Don the Beachcomber, ushered in the Tiki Bar Era of American partying, which centered mainly on the 1950s and 1960s (which of these two men actually invented the Mai Tai, signature drink of the epoch, remains in dispute--both claim it.) Those were days of restaurants blanketed with faux-Polynesian decor, when pupu platters were the rage and drinks came in bowls serving four or more and were decorated with paper umbrellas, which folks later learned to call parasols. Relive that glorious and joyously ridiculous time with this collection of tropical cocktails and food recipes for everything from finger food to entrees. The recipes are interesting, mostly pretty easy to make, and generally fun to eat or drink. The photos are very nice but the main appeal is that the recipes are clearly presented and easy to follow.--Bill Marsano is an award-winning writer on wines and spirits.

Editorial Review:

The tiki volcano is erupting all over again, and now Trader Vic's, the legendary purveyor of Polynesian food, drinks, and fantasy, wants to help us bring it all home. Step behind the bar and into the kitchen at Trader Vic's and learn how to create the kind of tiki magic that made the Trader famous. It's all here: recipes for 95 of the restaurant's best-loved tropical cocktails and after-dinner drinks along with more than 35 party-friendly recipes for pupus, tidbits, finger food, entrees, and desserts all adapted from the past and present menus of Trader Vic's. Dozens of tips and ideas for inexpensive, easy tiki decorating and entertaining at home are included, as is a guide to the basics of bartending equipment and techniques. Whether it's a blowout tiki party for friends or a spontaneous occasion to dust off the shaker, this book brings favorite concoctions from Trader Vic's into your home.

Fandango: Recipes, parties, and license to make magic

Sandy Hill

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Sandy Hill is rich in imagination, style, taste, and experience. She has climbed the highest peak on every continent. She has kayaked the Arctic and ridden across the Masai Mara in Kenya on horseback. She owns a vineyard in California, and she throws parties that are the talk of whatever town she's in.

Memorable entertaining, for her, is not about the easy this and store-bought that—if it's simple, why bother? It's about inspiration and preparation, about making every occasion as grand as you would if it were the last thing you'd ever do. To that end, she engages her full imagination, rolls up her sleeves, asks her guests to be co-conspirators, and creates gutsy, one-of-a-kind events of all sizes and shapes at her ranch in wine country.

The results range from the intimate to the ultimate: rowboat suppers for two and July Fourth blowouts for hundreds; Mexican luncheons to celebrate the harvest and feasts honoring Hindu gods; treasure hunts; poetry readings, grape picking and wine tastings; bachelor parties and wedding picnics; and bona fide holidays such as Father's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas as you've probably never imagined they could be. These are parties at which the energy flows both ways, from prepared and inspired hostess to willing and active guest, where people sing or cook or ride for their supper, then talk about it for years to come.

But for all these parties' grand gestures, they're not about precious perfection. The decorations and menus are real and re-creatable. The recipes, 125 in all, run the gamut from new twists on traditional American and Mexican food to rustic Italian, Spanish, Indian, and Scottish, and each is paired with a specific wine, beer, or cocktail. And while you may never have an elephant on hand to give your guests rides at a party, there's nothing to stop you from equally singular flights of imagination, from guests in costume to colorful table linens or the sheer beauty of a natural backdrop. So go on, dream a grand party, with Fandango as your guide.

Laura Werlin's Cheese Essentials: An Insiders Guide to Buying and Serving Cheese (With 50 recipes)

Laura Werlin

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Stewart, Tabori and Chang Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $14.93

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Easily accessible information in guidebook format
Includes 50 recipes, for appetizers to desserts, highlighting each of the 8 styles of cheese
Features a chapter on entertaining with cheese

Whether shopping at gourmet markets or at Costco, American consumers are seeing a growing, even dizzying, array of new cheeses. But as the number of cheeses has grown, so has the intimidation factor. Recognizing this disconnect between our voracious appetite for cheese and our often-sketchy knowledge of it, acclaimed cheese expert Laura Werlin decided it was high time to demystify the cheese-buying experience. Laura Werlin’s Cheese Essentials—a comprehensive introduction in a convenient guidebook format—is the extremely useful result.

Werlin’s book begins at the same place the flummoxed shopper does—the cheese counter. After mapping out the basics for navigating this daunting environment, Werlin acquaints you with the cheese fundamentals: the different kinds of milk used, information on rinds and mold, and tips on cooking with cheese, as well as a few words on Werlin’s passion—the American artisanal cheese movement. The heart of the book consists of individual chapters on the eight styles of cheese: fresh, semi-soft, soft-ripened, surface-ripened, semi-hard, hard, blue, and washed-rind. Following Werlin’s guidance, you’ll soon be able to identify a cheese by how it looks—and have a good idea of what that cheese will taste like before you even take a bite.