Cooking Books - Page 2

The Real Man's Cookbook: How, When, What and Why to Cook

William J. Rayment

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

Real Man cooks real good 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I got my copy today and it was every bit as good as the web site. I have actually ate meal prepared by RJ Rayment in his home and have never had a meal I did not like. He and his family are the real deal-I hope he does well with this project.

Be a Man! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

If you own only one cookbook, this is a good choice. Mr. Rayment is a very cool guy, and his book will leave you in stitches. Very light reading, with some excellent recipes. This book will change your viewpoint on the role of cooking in a guy's life! Enjoy!

Excellent gift to give 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book as a Christmas gift for my son-in-law. The book arrived quickly and in excellent condition.
I think that it will help him on those evenings when he has to fend for himself. The recipes seemed to be well thought out and had very good instructions.

Editorial Review:

Do real men cook? Of course they do. From the great chefs of France to the rough-and-tumble short-order cooks, real men have been preparing manly dishes for centuries. With dry wit and wisdom, W. J. Rayment dishes out recipes, reflects on the state of society and solves the world's most pressing problems.

Dishing Hollywood: The Real Scoop on Tinseltown's Most Notorious Scandals

Laurie Jacobson

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Cumberland House Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $10.19

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Whatta Dish! A Collection of Hollywood Scandals Du Jour 5 out of 5 stars.
29 of 34 people found this review helpful.

I fortuitously fell into this little gem the day after xmas.....a belated "BEST" present to myself.
While I already own Jacobson's two other books and hold her in high regard, this book proves that she is only getting better as a film historian and writer.
She assumes a slick, quasi-cinema noir persona in her narrative and mixes in a Sandra Lee-like easy 'recipe' that takes a not too subtle slam at each of the scandals/stories she relates. The vanity of the 'dish' (aka scandal/tragedy/hard luck story) only enhances the general readability of this book. This is a novel approach that makes an already interesting product even more appealing. I kept thinking that the author did a terrific job with the material she was presenting.
Aside from the kidding around, this book is really rather fair and factual. The author knows her stuff and relies on knowledgeable sources to substantiate or refute claims made in the book.
My only criticism of this book is that I wish it had been longer and had covered some other stories that I find interesting and want to know more about. Hopefully there will be a follow-up to this book which will do that.
Anyway, this is a very good read and worth the $ and time spent reading it.

Editorial Review:

"Dishing Hollywood is a delightful romp through sonic of the biggest scandals that have rocked Hollywood. The stories either appear here for the first time or the author has found a surprising new twist to them. The "dish" includes more than the scoop, for she also includes the corals or favorite dishes that are part of the story, such as: - "Inger Stevens: C'mon, who kills herself while in the middle of snaking her favorite sandwich, a BLT with avocado?- "Janis, Joplin: She should have stayed at Barney's Bcanery where she drank two screwdrivers. But no, she went back to her hotel and shot up. She died.- "Mama Cass: That damn sandwich! She didn't choke on it but suffered a heart attack while eating it.- "Natalie Wood: Her life was one scandal after another. Her last meal was a lot of wine and champagne with a little fish at El Galleon on Catalina Island.- "Lupe Velez: She may or may not have had a Mexican feast topped with barbiturates that landed her headfirst in the crapper.

Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

Steve Almond

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 96 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Read with Caution! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Caution: This book resulted in a several pound gain caused by a Twin Bings, a few Idaho Spuds, and a box of Old Faithfuls (wonderful!). All in all, a very expensive and hazardous book!

Editorial Review:

A self-professed candyfreak, Steve Almond set out in search of a much-loved candy from his childhood and found himself on a tour of the small candy companies that are persevering in a marketplace where big corporations dominate.

From the Twin Bing to the Idaho Spud, the Valomilk to the Abba-Zaba, and discontinued bars such as the Caravelle, Marathon, and Choco-Lite, Almond uncovers a trove of singular candy bars made by unsung heroes working in old-fashioned factories to produce something they love. And in true candyfreak fashion, Almond lusciously describes the rich tastes that he has loved since childhood and continues to crave today. Steve Almond has written a comic but ultimately bittersweet story of how he grew up on candy-and how, for better and worse, the candy industry has grown up, too.

Candyfreak is the delicious story of one man's lifelong obsession with candy and his quest to discover its origins in America.

The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s

Wendy McClure

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Juvenile humour, if that's what you like 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I didn't have high expectations of this book, but at $4.99, I figured it would make a fun addition to my library of vintage cookbooks and culinary history.

The pictures are fun, but any true student of cooking, eating and entertaining will be disappointed to find that only the fronts of the cards are reprinted, so there's no opportunity to review the actual recipes. They're also all from Weight Watchers - with no apparent reference to paying that organization for use of their copyrighted material - rather than a true exploration of the era and the genre.

But the worst thing is the writing. If you like that kind of humour, I guess you also like what's written on bathroom walls of high schools, because that's about as intelligent as it gets. I guess some people think that using the f-word and the s-word makes you funny, but like spices, if you don't know how to use them effectively, it just tastes bad. There are also numerous references to taking drugs - reminds me of the kids in college who thought talking about drugs made them cool.

Editorial Review:

A collection of the notorious retro Weight Watchers recipe cards in all their foul, full-color glory.

In the words of Wendy McClure, author of I'm Not the New Me, blog trailblazer, internet favorite, and fearless discoverer:

I found them while helping my parents clean out their basement. Plenty of the dishes seemed normal enough, but as I flipped through them, some of the recipes began to alarm me. And then I found the card for Rosy Perfection Salad.

I fell over. I mean I Iaughed so hard I started coughing and I fell back on the floor and I waved the card at my mom, who just rolled her eyes."Can I please have these? Please?" I begged. "What do you want them for?" she asked. "To cook?" "No," I said...

And here they are: the disturbing dishes made famous on the Internet and many more. From Fish Balls to Celery Logs to Caucasian Shashlik to Frankfurter Spectacular in all their scary goodness. Mmmmm, Shashlik...

Nanny Ogg's Cookbook (Discworld Series)

Terry Pratchett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Compliation of Nanny Ogg Clips, Suggested Use 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

If you have read all of Terry Pratchett's Disc World series, particularly those books that deal with Granny Weatherwax and her sometimes sidekick Nanny Ogg, you will not find anything new here. This is due to publishers coming up with new ways to market old material. This is not wrong if they would 'fess up when they do this. However, if you like Nanny Ogg, then you might enjoy this collection of her sayings and recipes which are very humorous.

One suggested use for this book is to keep it in the kitchen next to the real cookbooks and the next time you have a guest bothering you while you are trying to cook you can pretend to be using this cookbook. Note down some arcane ingredient and then ask them to get it from the grocery store on the other side of town. By the time they have given up, you can have the real dinner ready.

read for the fantasy, not the food 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I suppose you could call this a cookbook, but it's much more about Nanny Ogg than it is about the recipes. And let's face it--I bought it for the fantasy, not for the food.

There are "recipes" for a lot of the foods you'll find in the Discworld books: dwarf bread, rat onna stick, dried frog pills... You could even quite possibly make some of the recipes in here for a lovely Discworld party and invite some of your savvier friends.

But it's mostly lovely little tidbits about various Discworld characters--primarily Nanny Ogg, but a few other characters get some space here, too.

If you're familiar with the Discworld, you won't find it at all surprising that it's been "heavily edited"--they tried to take out the innuendos, but I think they found that was a losing proposition, and settled for taking out just the blatant stuff.

And if you're not familiar with the Discworld, and happen to find a copy of this at your library, go ahead and pick it up, and see if it doesn't just convince you that the Discworld is a place you'd like to visit.

Editorial Review:

A useful and improving Almanack of Information, including Astonishing Recipes from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.

It Must've Been Something I Ate

Jeffrey Steingarten

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

About Jeffrey, Not About Food 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I made it through about 5 or 6 of the essays in the book. I was expecting a book about food, but I got a book about Jeffrey Steingarten. In one column he writes about injuring his foot and being bed-ridden for awhile. Occasionally food is mentioned when a company like Starbucks or Ben and Jerry's sends him something, but mainly it's about his bed rest, and I don't find that very interesting.

He's petty. He had a bad experience on a plane where he accidentally ate some garnish. This caused an nasty reaction that lasted a good twenty minutes or so. By using his leverage as the food writer for Vogue (he mentions how the stewardess turns pale when he shows her his business card), he makes Northwest go through what's basically a witchhunt to find the person responsible for including the poisonous garnish with the food. Finally Northwest tells him that identifying the catering company is as far as they can take it. He even gets a couple of calls from the catering company, but in the end he's disappointed because the person responsible wasn't punished. I understand that he had a bad experience (and his foolish wife even worse), but to take the whole thing to such an extreme when it was a matter of a twenty minute unpleasant experience just shows to me that he's not a very good person. That's not what I wanted to read about when I picked up the book.

On one page he complains about being "impecunious." A few pages later, he's talking about his vacation home in San Diego that he travels to from him apartment in Manhattan. Presumably his wife, whom he appears to be frequently apart from, as she's often out of the country on business, floated the cash necessary for the poverty-stricken Steingarten to afford even such meager trifles.

One might say that I'm simply jealous, and fair enough. Sure I'd like to have a vacation home in San Diego and the clout to push around Northwest Airlines, but the bottom line is I wanted a book about food, and I ended up with a book about a guy that I just don't like very much.

All that said, he is a good writer, so I gave it two stars instead of one.

Editorial Review:

In this outrageous and delectable new volume, the Man Who Ate Everything proves that he will do anything to eat everything. That includes going fishing for his own supply of bluefin tuna belly; nearly incinerating his oven in pursuit of the perfect pizza crust, and spending four days boning and stuffing three different fowl—into each other-- to produce the Cajun specialty called “turducken.”

It Must’ve Been Something I Ate finds Steingarten testing the virtues of chocolate and gourmet salts; debunking the mythology of lactose intolerance and Chinese Food Syndrome; roasting marrow bones for his dog , and offering recipes for everything from lobster rolls to gratin dauphinois. The result is one of those rare books that are simultaneously mouth-watering and side-splitting.

Food Play

Joost Elffers, Saxton Freymann

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

LOVED THIS DELIGHTFUL BOOK! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

FOOD PLAY is an unique and adorable book suitable for any age person. My grandchildren to whom I gave the book were amazed and tickled by the expressiveness of the food faces and I was astonished at the imagination that created them. The fact that collectively several of them also tell stories is also great fun. I recommend this book for everyone.

Very Clever 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Item was a gift and recipient was pleased. Very ingenious ways to "play with your food."

Editorial Review:

In 1996 Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann introduced Play With Your Food, a groundbreaking collection of photographs featuring playfully carved fruits and vegetables. With more than a million copies sold and an award-winning series under their belts, the pair have proven the old adage wrong you really should play with your food. Now, for the first time, Food Play compiles more than 300 of the very best images from a decade of astonishingly imaginative publishing. This compact collection will surprise and delight both fans of the series, and newcomers to the enchanting world of Food Play.

The Book of Spam: A Most Glorious and Definitive Compendium of the World's Favorite Canned Meat

Dan Armstrong, Dustin Black

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

Editorial Review:

What luncheon meat is found in over forty-five countries, available in ninety-nine percent of supemarkets and corner shops, and sells nearly eighty million pounds every year? It's SPAM. From the 20,000-member SPAM Fan Club to Monty Python's Broadway sensation SPAMalot, after seventy years of canned-meat greatness, SPAM has become a pop-culture sensation with a devout following, and The Book of Spam is its Bible. What's in it? People have been asking that question since 1937. Written and beautifully packaged by Dan Armstrong and Dustin Black, the creative team behind recent SPAM advertising, The Book of Spam is a lavishly illustrated love affair with America's favourite miracle meat. Just in time for SPAM's spectacular 70th anniversary, The Book of Spam celebrates everything SPAM, offering SPAM fans a behind-the-scenes tell-all with the inside scoop on the wide world of SPAM: its role in history, advertising, art, fashion, the food industry, global unification, and much more. SPAM's reach has truly spanned the globe - across time and across many cultures. Filled with full colour vintage advertisements, astonishing trivia, and retro recipes for everything from SPAM Upside-Down Pie to Baked Bean SPAMwiches, The Book of SPAM finally gives SPAM the full attention it deserves. SPAM fanatics, pop-culture aficionados, history buffs, and lovers of authentic Americana will flip for The Book of SPAM. It's nothing less than SPAM-tastic.

Father Knows Less Or: "Can I Cook My Sister?": One Dad's Quest to Answer His Son's Most Baffling Questions

Wendell Jamieson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

How a New York Times editor set out to answer the peculiarly marvelous questions of his precocious young son-and wound up on an unexpected journey of his own.

Wendell Jamieson's son, Dean, has always had a penchant for . . . odd questions. "Dad," he asked, apropos of nothing, "what would hurt more-getting run over by a car, or getting stung by a jellyfish?" "Dad, why do policemen like donuts?" "What's it feel like to get stabbed?" "Does Mona Lisa wear shoes?" "Can I cook my sister?"

Because "Dad" was a newspaperman, he decided to seek out answers-and got swept up in the hunt. He spoke to movie directors and ship captains and brain surgeons and stabbing victims and lottery winners and museum curators and politicians and judges and compulsive shoppers and mothers-in-law and magicians-even Yoko Ono and a dominatrix.

But what began as a lark quickly grew into something larger. Blending a charming father-son journey with the surprising, sometimes hilarious questions and answers it spawned, Father Knows Less offers a heartwarming exploration of that childlike curiosity that lives within us all.

The Devil's Food Dictionary: A Pioneering Culinary Reference Work Consisting Entirely of Lies

Barry Foy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Incredibly Funny! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

With the 2008 election in its final weeks and the economy in a shambles, this book is the best medicine. Nothing like a good (really, really good) laugh to take the edge off. Foy is brilliant. Every entry made me laugh out loud...and I'm not much of a laugh-out-louder.

The Funniest Thing I Have Ever Read 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Who is this guy and how did he get so funny? Nearly every page has had me doubled over in laughter. A brilliant satire of food reference works, food history, food writing in general.

Editorial Review:

The Devil's Food Dictionary is a full-blown culinary dictionary parody. Uniquely loony, edgy, and funny, it boasts nearly 1,100 entries, 250 footnotes, an extensive phony bibliography, and 26 illustrations. This is the most creative food writing being done anywhere, either in print or online.