Tablesetting Books - Page 15

El Manual de Entrenamiento para el Mesero, Mesera y Personal

Lora Arduser, Douglas R. Brown

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Training
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Professional Cooking -> Professional

Editorial Review:

NOW TRANSLATED IN SPANISH This training handbook was designed for use by all food service serving staff members. The guide covers every aspect of restaurant customer service for the positions of host, waiter or waitress, head waiter, captain, and bus person. The detailed performance of each position is described for different types of establishments, and all types of service including French, American, English, Russian, Family-Style and Banquet. It provides step-by-step instructions on: • hosting
• seating guests
• taking/filling orders
• loading/unloading trays
• table side service
• setting an elegant table
• folding napkins
• centerpieces
• promoting specials
• promoting side orders
• handling problems
• difficult customers
• managing tips and taxes
• getting customers to order quickly
• handling questions
• handling the check and money Plus, learn advanced serving techniques such as flambé and carving meats, fish, and fruits. It also features a chapter devoted exclusively to food safety and sanitation. Whether it's your first day on the job or you are a twenty year veteran you are bound to learn a lot. Food service managers will find this book to be an excellent foundation for your organizations training program.

James Beard's Menus for Entertaining

James Beard

List Price: $14.95 By: Marlowe & Company Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $2.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

So Very, Very Helpful 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

What can you say? The man knew food, and this book has the typical Beardian rightness that we have always come to expect. Clever and tremendously helpful for any type of party concievable. I can only wonder what James would have done in the healthier 1990's with his wonderful ideas; perhaps the only drawback are the meat-oriented menues. But any clever cook will know how to adapt. The floorplan is completely layed out for you -- a boon to any serious entertainer.

A Golden Oldie. Rich material for experienced entertainers. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

'Menus for Entertaining' by premier American cuisine writer, James Beard is a rich source of something rare in culinary books today, the no nonsense reference for people who already know how to cook, but need a wide variety of options for putting together interesting menus for entertaining. This may be the very best possible companion to Martha Stewart's classic 'Entertaining' book, which deals with just about everything else.

I say this book is for people who already know how to cook in that virtually all the recipes give the essentials, with none of the copious sidebars or headnotes so familiar in books today. This is the Joe Friday of cookbooks. We want 'just the facts, Mame'. While Beard avoids no subject, from classic French sauces to Pennsylvania Dutch specialities such as Shoo fly pie and pickled eggs, he gives everything straight up, with few frills. That is not to say he takes shortcuts. The brioche recipe is shorter than most, but it does not abbreviate the need to let brioche dough raise overnight. On the other hand, the recipe for 'beurre blanc' is much shorter than the recipe in James Patterson's classic 'Sauces', leaving out several of the niceities, such as straining the shallots out of the sauce to give us a velvety smooth result.

The very best thing about Beard's work is that it covers so many different practical situations, including over a dozen different kinds of breakfasts and 'mid-day' meals (he distains the term 'brunch'). There is also rich information on both wines and cordials.

One nice thing about the book is that it almost seems to be an MS from a bygone day, where people commonly entertained with breakfast, lunch, and dinner parties, at least in the fantasy world of Noel Coward plays.

Beard's advice on general planning is excellent. Like Stewart, Beard also started out as a caterer, although he moved on to writing after only a year or so, but he was also an inveterate entertainer himself, and he did it with practically no help in the kitchen.

This book may be worth any three 'Gourmet' annual 'Best of' books, at a sixth of the price.

Editorial Review:

Containing more than one hundred menus and six hundred individual recipes, an updated cookbook offers delectable ideas for all kinds of entertaining situations, with simple shopping lists and preparation tips to assist beginning cooks, as well as culinary complements for culinary experts. Original. IP.

Simple Menus for the Bento Box

Ellen Greaves, Wayne Nish

List Price: $25.00 By: William Morrow & Company Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $12.93

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Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Regional & International -> Asian -> Japanese

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

Not a Japanese cookbook 4 out of 5 stars.
34 of 34 people found this review helpful.

Although I agree with the other reviewers in that this is indeed a beautifully photographed and organized book, (for which I give it the four stars), I wasn't aware until I purchased it that this is not a Japanese recipe book-its Western cuisine presented in an aesthetically Asian manner. However, it does give a good history of bento boxes and the recipes are simple and delicious. If you are looking for authentic Japanese bento recipes, I recommend _Japanese Meals on the Go: Bento Boxes_ by Naomi Kijima.

Editorial Review:

Japanese food is traditionally served in a simple, sleek, and dramatic style unmatched by any other cuisine. How can you re-create the visual drama of the Japanese presentation? Simple Menus for the Bento Box has the answers with recipes and designs for meals served in a shokado bento box.

The black lacquered shokado bento box, covered with a lid and separated into four square compartments, a common sight in Japan, is appearing with increasing frequency in America as an artful way to present food. Acclaimed New York City chefs Ellen Greaves and Wayne Nish have created twelve seasonal menus especially for the shokado bento box. Each menu has four contrasting but harmonious recipes, one for each of the four shokado compartments.

Mom's Best Crowd-Pleasers: 101 No-fuss Recipes for Family Gatherings, Casual Get-togethers & Surprise Company

Andrea Chesman

Amazon Price: $9.31 List Price: $10.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Storey Publishing, LLC Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $2.69

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Forget the stressful dinner party for twelve. How many home cooks really drag out the china, silver, and linen more than a few times a year these days? Mom’s very best crowd-cuisine is fun, relaxed, and informal. From a hungry group of the kids’ friends looking for afternoon munchies to a potluck office farewell party to a 4th of July barbecue for the neighborhood, today’s typical gatherings are casual occasions to share hearty, homemade food.

Mom’s Best Crowd-Pleasers is full of recipes that reflect the way Mom really cooks today, simply tailored to feed eight or more people. Cucumber Sandwiches, Quesadillas, and Sweet and Sour Meatballs are all simple finger foods perfect for after-work get-togethers, book club meetings, and informal baby showers. Muffalettas, All-American Hamburgers, and deep bowls of Summer Fruit Salad and Broccoli-Rice Salad are delicious at backyard cookouts, tailgate parties, and summer pool parties. And Three-Cheese Noodle Bake, Cuban Black Beans, and Baked Barbecued Chicken will attract happy fans whenever the potluck gathering calls for a hearty hot dish.

Most recipes are designed to feed eight hungry people, but author (and home cook) Andrea Chesman provides advice throughout on expanding recipes, stretching dishes when the dinner seating unexpectedly grows from eight to eleven people, using clever shortcuts that make cooking for a crowd no more difficult than cooking for four, and generally maintaining a degree of sanity as more people come flooding through the front door.

As always, Chesman’s primary accomplishment is to provide homey, hearty tastes that satisfy modern palates, yet still bear the unmistakable stamp of Mom’s Best.

Classical cooking the modern way (Culinary Arts)

Eugen Pauli

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A classic text for advanced cooks and chefs. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have both the first edition (1979) and the second edition (1989)and enjoy both. Which is better? Hard to say after using both. Eugen Pauli's son finished the 2nd ed. after his father's death, and while he did a good job overall in condensing material, he also condensed a bit too much at times, in leaving out cross referencing to other pages, thus leaving the reader do do this on his/her own. Not a problem. For the perfectionist, having both editions (unfortunately!) is best to glean all pearls of advice from Eugen Pauli's vast knowledge.

The 1st ed basic cooking methods (Chap 8) has helpful illustrations in it's 14 pages, whereas the 2nd ed has no illustrations in it's condensed 5 pages, yet conveys much of the same information, with both editons cautioning one to not poach eggs above 175 F. I have a slight preference for the 1st edition's illustrations and overall treatment of the cooking basics in this chapter.

The lobster thermidor recipe will make home cooks cringe, with only ingredients of "lobster, oil, white sauce and prepared spicy mustard". Looking up white sauce, he has a recipe for 10 quarts...fine for a restaurant chef to reduce in quantity..reading further, this white sauce requires white stock to be previously made, add another few hours...so this is not an easy recipe for a home cook to jump into, yet may be old hat to a restaurant chef. A home cook can make up a bechamel from whatever source, add Coleman's mustard, add grated cheese on top, heat till just browning in spots, and have a nice variation on this recipe.

Both editions list recipe ingredients in US and Metric weights, a very accurate way of measuring.

Many of the "recipes" are in a shorthand that list ingredients without listing amounts or how to prepare...this is typical of chefs' books for other chefs, such as with Hering's Dictionary of Classical and Modern Cookery or Louis Saulnier's Le Repertoire de La Cuisine. When you get to the professional level, you "just know" certain basics, by seeing and doing it 1000 times.

Both editions have a few photos, there is some overlap, (I prefer those in the original edition) but these are dated photos and for historical info, as modern preparations are less elaborate in amount of items on a platter, and in other instances simpler in overall balance and presentation.

Either edition is a great resource for an experienced chef in listing countless recipe variations in chef's shorthand (without precise amounts of ingredients for many such listings), and still has much for a home cook to use as a source of classical ideas and variations, but just not as a home cook's primary cookbook.

There is a 3rd editon, however I'm told by chefs that it actually leaves out much of the info in the first 100 pages on actually runing a kitchen, nutrition, food purchasing etc., so this may not be an improvement at all, and for one to selection either the 1st or 2nd edition over the slightly gutted 3rd edtion.

The Organized Cook: How to Get it All Together

Judy Busch

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 1.0 of 5

Blank book 1 out of 5 stars.
42 of 43 people found this review helpful.

This book is not filled with ideas, it is filled with space. It's basically a blank book of lists for you to enter names of party guests and food served, flowers present, even a space to list food in your freezer. How helpful is it to enter a permanent list of the food in your freezer into a book? If such a list is useful to you, write it up in Word and tack a list on the freezer so you can redo it should the contents of your freezer ever change. I was expecting tips and ideas for organizing, this is not that book. This was a waste of money for me.

Make an excel spreadsheet instead 1 out of 5 stars.
39 of 40 people found this review helpful.

The book is nothing but blank spaces for you to write in what's in your freezer, what you're having for a dinner party, or who you're inviting. What??? I can write that on a blank piece of paper and save myself $16 bucks.
Even better you can make an excel spreadsheet and actually have it mean something. I can't believe a publisher wasted paper on this book, trees were killed for nothing. This is truly a book of blank pages. There are no organizational tips, no party invitation ideas, there is nothing here that would actually help organize a cook.

Editorial Review:

This beautifully illustrated book is filled with tips on how to sail through preparing meals for guests with ease and grace.

Teapots: Makers & Collectors

Dona Z. Meilach

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Dive into tantalizing, eye-catching objects dubbed teapots, but be warned, serving tea is not necessarily their purpose. Though many artists are making functional, traditional teapots; other artistic adventurers are brewing up whimsical sculpture. Explore unique designs and materials. With the usual image of a ceramic or silver teapot in ones minds eye, how do you confront a teapot made with holes around the body? Or one made of woven fabrics, of silk with lace and buttons, wood, and coins? You do so with tongue in cheek and an intellectual, fine art sensibility. Dona Z. Meilach tackles the burgeoning activity of teapot making and collecting with over 450 dazzling color images of teapots from 227 artists in fourteen countries. She begins with a short history of why teapots evolved as late as the 1500s, when tea had already been consumed for generations. She introduces artists and talks about collectors, what they buy, where to buy, and ideas for displaying collections. And she plumbs her vast knowledge of artists techniques and materials and produces an electrifying compilation that will keep you turning pages and coming back again and again. With teapot collecting escalating so rapidly, this book is a must for private and corporate collectors, decorators, and museum curators to learn who is doing what, where, how, and why.

By Invitation Only: Artful Entertaining, Southern Style

The Junior League of Pensacola Inc, Carol A. Edison

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Editorial Review:

This guide is for anyone who loves to entertain! Eight chapters contain ideas for three different parties that can easily be adapted to a variety of other occasions. Included are recipes, decorating tips, and even sample invitations. Finally, a book that puts everything you need to plan and host the perfect party in one place.

Profitable Menu Planning

John A. Drysdale

List Price: $65.00 By: Prentice Hall Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $0.82

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Update the software! 2 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

As an instructor I felt the book was very good, but the students could not use the software on excel 97 or above. It was really frustrating, and I will not use it next semester.

I think this is an excellent book for chefs to be. 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is an excellent book for chefs to be. It gives in detail how to design a decent menu. But the price I paid for it is way to much. I picked up the book in our school bookstore, Lambton College, in Sarnia, Ontario Canada. It cost me 102.95 plus GST Tax.

Editorial Review:

Exceptionally thorough, this volume offers single-volume coverage of ALL aspects of menu planning. Hands-on and real-world in approach, it features accompanying interactive software with specific examples of costing, mark-ups and menu engineering.

Holiday Entertaining (Williams Sonoma Kitchen Library)

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Editorial Review:

Appealing to experts and amatuers alike, this cookbook features six acclaimed chefs offering complete menus for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year's Eve and Day. Unique as well as updated traditional recipes, preparation strategies, and ideas for elegant party favors and centerpieces are included in this cookobook that is a perfect gift for any cook. Includes full-color photo of each mouth-watering dish.