Monday, February 23, 2009

Carmens Kitchen or Kitchen Confidential

Carmen's Kitchen: Collection of my Family's Favorite Worldwide Healthy and Tasty Recipes

Author: Carmen Kolenda

It's hard not to hear or read about nutrition, health, or fitness, since scientific research provides strong evidence, "we are what we eat". I have selected my favorite recipes which I have modified in order to reduce the added calories from fat, sugar and carbs. I am confident you will give each recipe a high score in superb taste.



New interesting book: Winning the War against Asthma and Allergies or 100 Questions and Answers about Colorectal Cancer

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Author: Anthony Bourdain

New York Chef Tony Bourdain gives away secrets of the trade in his wickedly funny, inspiring memoir/expose. Kitchen Confidential reveals what Bourdain calls "twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine." Last summer, The New Yorker published Chef Bourdain's shocking, "Don't Eat Before Reading This." Bourdain spared no one's appetite when he told all about what happens behind the kitchen door. Bourdain uses the same "take-no-prisoners" attitude in his deliciously funny and shockingly delectable book, sure to delight gourmands and philistines alike. From Bourdain's first oyster in the Gironde, to his lowly position as dishwasher in a honky tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown (where he witnesses for the first time the real delights of being a chef); from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, to drug dealers in the east village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable. Kitchen Confidential will make your mouth water while your belly aches with laughter. You'll beg the chef for more, please.

Onion A.V. Club - Joseph Klein

Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential has already turned a few stomachs with its frank discussions of what goes on in the kitchens of America's favorite restaurants. He revels in anecdotes that would make an Ozzy Osbourne roadie question the catered stuff on his plate. Sex, drugs, sex near food while on drugs: Bourdain gleefully dishes the dirt on some of his former haunts, from the fish houses of New England to the elegant-on-the-outside eateries of New York. Yet the tone he takes with his joyously muckraking expose/memoir follows a distinctive rhythm, a blunt, boastful swagger that recalls some accounts of organized crime. Bourdain is just as likely to tantalize with his descriptions of food as disgust with his descriptions of the people and actions swirling around it, the activities disgusting yet somehow funny at the same time. It's an exhilarating combination often invoked in mobster tell-alls, but while there's more than a little goodfella in Bourdain -- he dices, dresses, and dishes with trash-talking braggadocio -- he clearly loves what he does. While he admits early on that the call of the kitchen often comes only after every other option has failed, he clearly enjoys working in such terrible conditions. It's like he has the key to the ultimate backroom club, a place of privilege where everyone operates with a different set of rules and gets off on a different set of thrills. Eat to live, don't live to eat, the saying goes, and for Bourdain, life is never better than when he's the one doing the cooking.

Restaurant Business

With equal parts wit and wickedness, Bourdain [does] the unthinkable by revealing trade secrest that chefs and restauranteers cringe to read.

USA Today

...the kind of book you read in one sitting, then rush about annoying your coworkers by declaiming whole passages.

Denver Post

You'll laugh, you'll cry...you're gonna love it.

New York Magazine

Utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo and precise ear for kitchen patois.

Publishers Weekly

Chef at New York's Les Halles and author of Bone in the Throat, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business. His fast-lane personality and glee in recounting sophomoric kitchen pranks might be unbearable were it not for two things: Bourdain is as unsparingly acerbic with himself as he is with others, and he exhibits a sincere and profound love of good food. The latter was born on a family trip to France when young Bourdain tasted his first oyster, and his love has only grown since. He has attended culinary school, fallen prey to a drug habit and even established a restaurant in Tokyo, discovering along the way that the crazy, dirty, sometimes frightening world of the restaurant kitchen sustains him. Bourdain is no presentable TV version of a chef; he talks tough and dirty. His advice to aspiring chefs: "Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: `Shut the fuck up.' " He disdains vegetarians, warns against ordering food well done and cautions that restaurant brunches are a crapshoot. Gossipy chapters discuss the many restaurants where Bourdain has worked, while a single chapter on how to cook like a professional at home exhorts readers to buy a few simple gadgets, such as a metal ring for tall food. Most of the book, however, deals with Bourdain's own maturation as a chef, and the culmination, a litany describing the many scars and oddities that he has developed on his hands, is surprisingly beautiful. He'd probably hate to hear it, but Bourdain has a tender side, and when it peeks through his rough exterior and the wall of four-letter words he constructs, it elevates this book to something more than blustery memoir.

Morse Partners

From that magical boyhood visit, when he became a "foodie" in France, to today, when he is executive chef of the chic New York bistro, Les Halles, Tony Bourdain has experienced it all. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, he learned his trade, as he puts it, "knocking around" Europe and toiling in some famous multi-starred restaurants in New York and cities north, west, east, and south. He has served as dishwasher, prep-drone, fry-cook, grillardin, saucier, and sous-chef along the way, and the strange and exotic and horrendous subculture of the professional kitchen is as familiar to him as the meals he and his fellow "lifers" turn out, noon and night, in the great -- and sometimes not so great -- restaurants of our world.

Now, in this astonishingly frank, often outrageous, more-often hilarious romp of a book, Bourdain opens up the swinging, clattering kitchen doors to show vividly, pungently, "what it feels like, looks like, and smells like in the clutter and hiss of a big-city restaurant kitchen."

Woven in are the stories of some of the great and less than great characters he has known--Howard, the "revered elder statesman of Cape Cod cookery," with wild, unruly white hair and a gin-blossomed face, who had a lifelong love affair with seafood and wrote two books about it; Tyrone, the broilerman, "big, black, hugely muscled, with a prominent silver-capped front tooth, a fist-sized gold-hooped earring, and a size 56 chef's coat stretched across his back like a drumhead;" "Bigfoot," the giant Jewish restaurateur of Greenwich Village who remains beloved and/or despised by generations of waiters, bartenders, cooks and chefs but who taught Bourdain how to wring the last penny from this hugely difficult business; Nando, the famous pastry chef of the Rainbow Room, who found time to hurl profiteroles at the skaters in the Rockefeller Center rink, sixty-four floors down; Pino Luongo, the "Prince of Restaurant Darkness," who ran a string of Tuscan restaurants in high-priced New York venues; and all the zany, beleaguered, unpredictable talents, many of them immigrants and the self-styled marginals, who have worked for and with Bourdain in his 25 years in the business.

Woven in too are the secrets of the trade and their consequences, sometimes nefarious, for diners: Why Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the only truly good nights to eat in a restaurant, why chefs rub their hands over customers who want their beef well-done; why seafood frittata is a definite no-no at a weekend brunch.

And with no nonsense clarity, Bourdain spells out in a few pages what it takes to bring your kitchen up to par with the pros. It is not as difficult as you might think. It may take as little as a new Global chef's knife and the right kind of bottle to spritz your serving plates like a pro…

Tony Bourdain may be a master chef by profession, but he is also a born raconteur. A portion of his book, in a somewhat different form, ran in The New Yorker and his portrayal of the "underbelly" of the contemporary big-city restaurant can only be compared to George Orwell's in DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON. The great difference between Orwell's hellish vision and Bourdain's is that Bourdain is enormously proud of his profession, and trumpets its "grandeurs" as well as he bemoans its "miseries." As he puts it, "For me, the cooking life has been a long love affair, with moments both sublime and ridiculous. But like a love affair, looking back you remember the happy times best, the things that drew you in in the first place, the things that kept you coming back for more."

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL is that kind of meal.

The Weekly Standard - Joseph Epstein

...the best book I have ever read about the nuts and bolts mechanics of running serious restaurant kitchens...brilliant on the tumult of running a kitchen that might turn out anywhere from two hundred to four hundred serious meals a night...Bourdain is a wild old boy and a bit of a lost soul, and, being strongly anti-malarkey, utterly believable.

USA Today

Bourdain clearly operates with all six burners on scorch, and the result keeps the reader excited.

The New York Times

[A] literary chef, as appreciated for quips as for steak frites.

Newsweek

Unique…mesmerizing.

New York Magazine

Utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo and a precise ear for kitchen patois.

The Denver Post

You'll laugh, you'll cry…you're gonna love it.

The New York Times Book Review

The guy is hysterical…in a style partaking of Hunter S. Thompson, Iggy Pop and a little Jonathan Swift, Bourdain gleefully rips through the scenery to reveal private backstage horrors.

New York Daily News

Funny, irreverent, scandalous.



Table of Contents:
Appetizer
A Note from the Chef3
First Course
Food Is Good9
Food Is Sex19
Food Is Pain25
Inside the CIA36
The Return of Mal Carne45
Second Course
Who Cooks?55
From Our Kitchen to Your Table64
How to Cook Like the Pros75
Owner's Syndrome and Other Medical Anomalies84
Bigfoot91
Third Course
I Make My Bones105
The Happy Time120
Chef of the Future!128
Apocalypse Now134
The Wilderness Years144
What I Know About Meat153
Pino Noir: Tuscan Interlude163
Dessert
A Day in the Life183
Sous-Chef206
The Level of Discourse221
Other Bodies229
Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown235
Department of Human Resources246
Coffee and a Cigarette
The Life of Bryan255
Mission to Tokyo272
So You Want to Be a Chef? A Commencement Address293
Kitchen's Closed300

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Foodwatch Alternative Cookbook or Art Culture and Cuisine Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy

Foodwatch Alternative Cookbook

Author: Honor J Campbell

With 300 delicious vegetarian recipes and a wealth of information about vitamins and minerals, balancing restricted diets, and substitutes for commonly excluded foods, this is invaluable for anyone who is allergic to cow's milk, wheat, eggs, or yeast, or is following a rotation diet.



Interesting book: Chinas Military Modernization or Freedoms Daughters

Art, Culture, and Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy

Author: Phyllis Pray Bober

In Art, Culture, and Cuisine, Phyllis Pray Bober examines cooking through an assortment of recipes as well as the dual lens of archaeology and art history. Believing that the unity of a culture extends across all forms of expression, Bober seeks to understand the minds and hearts of those who practiced cookery or consumed it as reflected in the visual art of the time.
Bober draws on archaeology and art history to examine prehistoric eating customs in ancient Turkey; traditions of the great civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome; and rituals of the Middle Ages. Both elegant and entertaining, Art, Culture, and Cuisine reveals cuisine and dining's place at the heart of cultural, religious, and social activities that have shaped Western sensibilities.
"Using gastronomy as its focus, lacy language as its style, and illustrations to enchant, Art, Culture, and Cuisine researches exactly those subjects from the time of the 'first hominids' to the 15th century. . . . The writing is extremely witty, and the dinner menus with recipes are esoteric, delightful, and mostly doable."—Library Journal
"An ambitious attempt to find culinary echoes of visual and sociological movements throughout history. In sturdy, robust prose . . . the author marches us through every major civilization from prehistory through the late Gothic."—New York Times Book Review

New York Times Book Review

...[A]n ambitious attempt to find culinary echoes of visual and sociological movements throughout history.

Library Journal

Using gastronomy (not "cookery"!) as its focus, lacy language as its style, and illustrations to enchant, Art, Culture, and Cuisine researches exactly those subjects from the time of the "first hominids" to the 15th century. The chapters in this academic work by a humanities professor follow a time line: prehistory, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, the "Hellenic Experience," ancient Rome, the early Middle Ages, and "Late Gothic International Style," which covers the Crusades to 1400. There is so much historical fact that only Bober's steady fidelity to her theme keeps this book from being too diffuse. Although we are dealing with solid scholarship (there are many pages of notes and bibliography), the writing is extremely witty, and the dinner menus with recipes are esoteric, delightful, and mostly doable--even if one must accept substitutes like sheep's stomach in the absence of an available "sow's womb." Highly recommended for large public, special, and academic libraries.--Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., KY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

New York Times Book Review

...[A]n ambitious attempt to find culinary echoes of visual and sociological movements throughout history.



Saturday, February 21, 2009

Great Cookies for Kids or 1 Noodle 50 Sauces

Great Cookies for Kids

Author: Joanna Farrow

Contains feverything you need to know about making, baking and decorating cookies and failsafe step-by-step photography for every recipe.



Look this: Mercadotecnia de Deporte

1 Noodle, 50 Sauces

Author: Reinhardt Hess

Fifty fabulous sauces for any kind of noodle from fettucine to rigatoni -- simple and fast to prepare and yet unbelievably Italian. Includes product know-how on noodles and Italian cheeses and instructions on how to cook noodles perfectly "al dente, " and lists eight basic sauces and oils to have in the pantry.



Friday, February 20, 2009

Your Right to Know or Short History of the American Stomach

Your Right to Know: Genetic Engineering and the Secret Changes in Your Food

Author: Andrew Kimbrell

ANDREW KIMBRELL serves as the executive director of both the Center for Food Safety and the International Center for Technology Assessment and has been involved in public interest legal activity for nearly 20 years. His articles on technology and law issues have appeared in Harpers, Utne Reader, the Ecologist, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Andrew lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two children.



New interesting textbook: Art of South American Cookery or Women in Gods Kitchen

Short History of the American Stomach

Author: Frederick Kaufman

The extremes of American eating—our separate-but-equal urges to stuff and to starve ourselves—are easy to blame on the excesses of modern living. But Frederick Kaufman followed the winding road of the American intestine back to that cold morning when the first famished Pilgrim clambered off the Mayflower, and he discovered the alarming truth: We’ve been this way all along. With outraged wit and an incredible range of sources that includes everything from Cotton Mather’s diary to interviews with Amish black-market raw-milk dealers, Kaufman offers a highly selective, take-no-prisoners tour of American history by way of the American stomach. Travel with him as he tracks down our earliest foodies; discovers the secret history of Puritan purges; introduces diet gurus of the nineteenth century, such as William Alcott, who believed that Ònothing ought to be mashed before it is eatenÓ; traces extreme feeders from Paul Bunyan to eating-contest champ Dale Boone (descended from Daniel, of course); and investigates our blithe efforts to re-create plants and animals that we’ve eaten to the point of extinction.

Publishers Weekly

Kaufman, an English professor at New York's City University, pursues a hip, journalistic approach to America's all-consuming relationship to the gut, from Puritan rituals of fasting to the creation of the Food Network. Kaufman maintains that the feast-fast syndrome that torments America-obesity, anorexia, overeating, dieting, fads and cures, "gastroporn," pollution and purity of food, and self-sufficiency-all originate from our understanding of virtue and vice, first established by the Puritans. Indeed, these first settlers held that the stomach's equilibrium reflected one's spiritual state, and the process of digestion maintained the body's intimate fine-tuning between good and evil. Days of fasting were declared as ways of seeking spiritual guidance, and purges and emetics used to expunge evil and corruption from the system, much as today's advocates of raw foods and unpasteurized milk press their enzyme cures. To demonstrate examples of the ethics of eating, Kaufman discusses dietary restrictions such as kosher foods and, conversely, the lifting of all restrictions by the primal culinary tastes nurtured in the Wild West. Kaufman traces dieting to Ben Franklin's obsession with the virtue of temperance and offers myriad examples of how certain diets (e.g., vegetarianism, single-substance eating) were intended to effect one's transformation from within. With a final paean to endangered favorites such as bananas and oysters, Kaufman digresses forgivingly in this occasionally incongruous though entertaining study. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Elizabeth Rogers <P>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. - School Library Journal

Vastly entertaining as it leads us through America's digestive history, this book serves up Kaufman's notion of a country whose development can be traced by the way its citizens eat, grow, digest, and think of food. Kaufman (English, CUNY) draws parallels between national policies and digestion: limiting meals to a single food, for example, became a symbol of political isolationism during America's antebellum period. We've spent much of our recent history involved in "imperialist eating," colorfully illustrated by the author's description of competitive eaters (aka gurgitators). Americans proudly celebrated National Days of Fasting well into the 19th century. Kaufman also addresses the benefits of ingesting raw milk, the extinction of bananas (which he writes will come within the next decade), days when lobsters were five to six inches long, the concept of our bodies as a business, and the romance of westward expansion as pioneers were led by their stomachs. Recommended for public library collections.

Kirkus Reviews

A series of trenchant arguments about the consistency of Americans' feelings for food, our great common denominator. Suspecting that the consumption-crazed, binge-and-purge culture is nothing new, Kaufman (English/CUNY) quotes young Washington Irving, who in 1803 marveled over the stunning culinary delectations available in New York City. The author then jumps forward two centuries to investigate the term "gastroporn": Watching a generous amount of Food Network programming, he gleefully compares the structure and style of X-rated films with the loving close-ups and sensuous phrases that are staples of cooking shows, Emeril Lagasse's "kick it up a notch" being one example. Kaufman notes that "the money shot"-the finished dish-is seldom the actual product of those ingredients you see the chefs squeezing and manipulating. Even the Puritans were obsessed with food, he declares, speculating as to the full menu of their first Thanksgiving. Kaufman's jolting chapter on vomiting (he prefers "puking") displays a masterful wit. He begins by elaborately, eloquently apologizing for raising the topic at all, then lays out a finely researched, deeply ironic chronology of how early Americans viewed vomit. Indeed, it's never sufficient for him to opine that the Puritans "adored laxatives and diuretics" when he can also dissect the inscrutable food writing of Cotton Mather. As Kaufman slowly returns to the present, he addresses a string of intriguing issues. An indictment of the milk-processing industry includes an account of his adventures within a secret raw-milk collective. Artificial genetic modifications have fundamentally altered many foods, he reveals, the sumptuous oyster in particular. Oneamusing passage skewers actress and diet/fitness guru Suzanne Somers, whose "misty never-never land of personal, economic and domestic bliss [is] meticulously documented on every overproduced page of her modern gastrosophical masterpiece, Get Skinny on Fabulous Food."Gourmets and gourmands alike will savor Kaufman's keen, caustic anatomy of the American palate.



Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Farmhouse Cookery or Fish

Farmhouse Cookery

Author: Laura Mason

Farmhouse Cookery is both a culinary tour of Great Britain and a celebration of regional, traditional, and contemporary cooking. Laura Mason demonstrates how landscape, climate, and culture have contributed to the wide diversity of British cooking, from the excellent Herdwick lamb in the Lake District to the justifiably famous goat's cheese of South Wales. Farming in Britain has been under increasing pressure for the last two decades. The foot and mouth crisis of 2001 threw the plight of British farmers onto an international stage. Launched in conjunction with the National Trust's "Farming Forward" campaign, Farmhouse Cookery aims to promote the excellent foodstuffs produced by British farmers.



Book about: Taiji Chin Na or Panic Attacks

Fish: Recipes from a Busy Island

Author: Sara Paston Williams

Our appetite for fish is growing, as is our awareness of the importance of eating fish that are low in fat but may be rich in oil. In this important new book, Sara Paston-Williams has not only provided delicious recipes drawn from different parts of the British Isles, but also takes into account the constraints and demands of current fishing and farming practices. She highlights local industries and sustainable practices, working in consultation with the Marine Conservation Society of the United Kingdom. The recipes combine time-honored dishes with modern flavors. Traditional fishcakes are accompanied by Lime Chilli, Fried Mackerel with Rhubarb Sauce, and Roast Turbot with Orange Hollandaise. Freshwater fish are not forgotten; from the Lake District, for instance, comes Ullswater Trout marinated in Lemon and Oil with Tomato and Coriander Sauce. With lists of suppliers and coastal places to visit, Fish is the perfect book for the fish and seafood enthusiast.



Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Best of Coffee or Pasta Verde

The Best of Coffee

Author: Sandra R Gluck

Robust, fragrant, and surprisingly versatile, coffee is more than simply the world's favorite beverage, it is hearty and distinctive ingredient in its own right, enhancing the flavors of everything from cakes and cookies to candies, ice creams, and sauces.

In The Best of Coffee, Sandra Gluck has selected the perfect blend of over 40 tantalizing recipes to celebrate coffee's delicious variety. Its rich, full-bodied flavor and complex nuances are showcased in traditional Mud Pie, Mocha Brownies, and Hazelnut- Espresso Biscotti, as well as in exciting new twists on classics such as Coconut Custard, Spiced Madeleines, and Mocha Fudge Sauce. Start your day with Mile-High Pecan Sticky Buns or Coffee and Cream Scones, and satisfy your sweet-tooth with favorites like Espresso Caramels, Coffee-Nut Brittle, and Chocolate-Caramel Truffles. And, of course, you'll find over a dozen of the world's hottest (and coolest) drinks, from Viennese Coffee, Cappuccino, and Turkish Coffee to Iced Mocha and Coffee Ice Cream Soda.

With sumptuous full-color photographs and a glossary containing practical information on brewing, roasts, and grinds, The Best of Coffee is a tribute to the world's most celebrated and sophisticated bean.



Read also Dirección de Personal de ventas

Pasta Verde

Author: Judith Barrett

Easy to prepare, healthful, and affordable, pasta is more popular than ever. Americans are eating twice as much pasta today as they were a few years ago. Pasta Verde offers 140 recipes for delicious meatless pasta dishes including recipes for soups, salads, and sauces as well as lasagnas, ravioli, and cannelloni. All of the recipes make use of the freshest ingredients like asparagus, broccoli, peppers, and wild mushrooms; savory herbs including basil, rosemary, and sage; deliciously tangy Italian-imported Parmesan cheese; and good-for-you olive oil. Lots of tasty garlic and hot red pepper enhance numerous dishes. From Italian classics to the author s own personal pasta creations, all of the recipes are aimed at keeping preparation simple and using readily available ingredients. Judith Barrett is coauthor of the extremely successful Risotto and the author of Cooking Vegetables the Italian Way, and Risotto/Risotti. Her articles have appeared in the Boston Globe and the New York Times. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.



Monday, February 16, 2009

La Porte des Indes Cookbook or Baking Secrets

La Porte des Indes Cookbook

Author: Mehernosh Mody

The acclaimed La Porte des Indes restaurants in London and Brussels offer a style of cooking inspired by the créole cuisine of French colonial India. Dishes like Scallops in Saffron Sauce, Roasted Duck Breasts in Banana Leaf, and Crushed Basmati Rice and Clotted Cream Pudding blend French and Indian ingredients and flavors to dazzling effect. In La Porte des Indes Cookbook, Executive Chef Mehernosh Mody presents the restaurants' very best recipes, as well as other regional specialties from across the subcontinent. Introductory chapters cover the ingredients and equipment used in Indian cooking, as well as native teas and compatible wines. These are followed by more than 80 recipes for hors d'oeuvres, soups, fish and seafood, meat and poultry, vegetables, rice and bread, chutneys and sauces, and desserts. Throughout, gorgeous photographs capture the sumptuousness of the finished dishes.



Book about: War and Press Freedom or Storage and Commodity Markets

Baking Secrets: For Grand Occasions and Ordinary Days

Author: Bonnie Bailey

Baking Secrets, written by a former bakery and restaurant owner/bed-and-breakfast chef, is for the baker and non-baker alike. Includes 40 easy, do-ahead breakfast/brunch casseroles for both every day and grand occasions. Baking made easy and quick, including scones, biscuits, and great-occasion cakes, with delightful anecdotes from an award-winning cookbook author.



Friday, February 13, 2009

Cooking the Indian Way or Ration Book Cookery

Cooking the Indian Way

Author: Vijay Madavan

Completely revised and updated, Cooking the Indian Way serves up tantalizing recipes for fresh coriander chutney, pumpkin curry, garam masala, and more. Seasoned liberally with vibrant, color photographs and easy, step-by-step directions, many of the recipes are low in fat and call for ingredients you may already have at home. Also included are new vegetarian recipes, complete menu suggestions, and an expanded cultural section highlighting the Indian people and their country, holidays, festivals -- and, of course, their food. This book will show you how to treat yourself, your family, and your friends to delicious, authentic Indian meals.



Table of Contents:
Introduction7
The People of India8
Indian Food's Varied Traditions9
Spices: India's Treasures10
Holidays and Festivals12
Before You Begin17
The Careful Cook18
Cooking Utensils19
Cooking Terms19
Special Ingredients20
Healthy and Low-Fat Cooking Tips22
Metric Conversions Chart23
An Indian Table25
An Indian Menu26
Snacks and Beverages29
Stuffed Pastries30
Potatoes and Peas32
Spiced Ground Meat33
Garam Masala35
Spiced Tea and Lassi36
Meat and Fish39
Ground Lamb Kebabs40
Yogurt Chicken41
Spicy Fried Fish42
Vegetarian Dishes45
Pumpkin Curry46
Curried Chickpeas48
Lentils with Garlic and Onion50
Carrots with Grated Coconut51
Accompaniments53
Unleavened Whole Wheat Bread54
Spiced Rice56
Banana Yogurt58
Cucumber Yogurts59
Fresh Coriander Chutney60
Apple Chutney61
Holiday and Festival Food63
Indian Toffee64
Sweetened Rice65
Stuffed Sweet Bread66
Nutty Milk Shake68
Vermicelli Pudding69
Index70

See also: Der Einschließungsdurchbruch: Das Loslassen der Wirkleistung der Vielfalt

Ration Book Cookery

Author: Gill Corbishley

One of a series of books which look at the art of cookery in Britain at different periods in history. The recipes, which have been adapted for the modern kitchen, provide a taste of the times and the book also includes information on food, cooking equipment, kitchen designs, serving of meals and the development of etiquette.



Tuesday, February 10, 2009

New Celtic Cooking or From Giacomos Kitchen

New Celtic Cooking

Author: Kathleen Sloan McIntosh

At a time when soul-stirring Celtic dance, song and ritual are firing spirits anew, the food and drink of the diverse yet similar family of Celtic nations--Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Galicia, Isle of Man and Canada's Cape Breton--has come into its own.



Look this: Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom or Adobe After Effects 7 Hands On Training

From Giacomo's Kitchen: Celebrate Life by Bringing Something Good to the Table

Author: James Cook

Mr. Cook has been cooking for most of his adult life. Inspired by the culinary efforts of his grandmother, father, friends and several trips to Italy, he began compiling recipes which originated with his family and dishes introduced to him by friends and additional family while visiting Italy.



Monday, February 9, 2009

Harmony on the Palate or Home made Muffins

Harmony on the Palate: Matching Simple Recipes to Everyday Wine Styles

Author: Shari Darling


An exciting, sometimes rebellious guide to wine pairing.

Nothing is as heavenly to the palate as the perfect combination of food and wine, but the art of pairing can be tricky for the inexperienced. Knowing where to begin when selecting an accompanying wine is challenging.

In Harmony on the Palate Shari Darling examines the guidelines for food and wine unions, and outlines the principles of a new, accessible generation of wine pairings. She pushes the boundaries of tradition, celebrating a culinary world of new cuisines, cooking techniques and ingredients.

The book breaks down old-fashioned conventions of food and wine pairings and provides an adventure for the palate. The book's first section establishes the building blocks for creating successful wine and food partnerships. The second section is a cookbook of Darling's own delicious, yet simple, recipes, each one matched with a complementing wine, such as:


  • White Bean and Escarole Soup with a Light, Fruity Red
  • Mozzarella and Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta with a Big Fat White
  • Fiddlehead and Goat Cheese Flan with a Sour White
  • Pure Unadulterated Chocolate Cake with a Sweet Wine


The book also contains useful harmony charts that list food affinities and enemies for each variety of grape. Harmony on the Palate is the perfect resource for both wine connoisseurs and wannabe's.



New interesting textbook: Pakistan or City of Quartz

Home-made Muffins

Author: Carol Tennant

Welcome to this collection of muffin recipes ranging from celebrated classics to some new and unusual twists on old themes. From the definitive blueberry original to a savory goat's cheese delight, there is a recipe here to suit all tastes. Accompanied by vintage photographs, and fact boxes full of muffin trivia, this is an essential book for anyone who has a weakness for that "fresh out of the oven" taste sensation we all remember from our childhood.



Sunday, February 8, 2009

Deliciosas Frutas Tropicales or Ice Crop

Deliciosas Frutas Tropicales

Author: Liliana Villegas

With its tropical climate, coasts on two oceans, high mountains, and dense jungles, Colombia produces or is capable of producing almost every variety of fruit. Given the trend toward healthier and leaner cuisine, fruit is a timely culinary subject. This volume rescues the best of culinary knowledge of the most exquisite, exotic tropical fruits, and opens the door to healthy, marvelous gastronomic experiences. With historical and cultural information on thirty-two different fruits that are produced in Colombia, their main varieties, uses, interesting trivia and medicinal and beauty tips, this book opens the door to a world of food that is increasingly available in this country and that is immediately familiar to anyone who has lived in or visited the tropics.



Look this: Yoga and the Sacred Fire or Awesome Foods for Active Kids

Ice Crop

Author: Theron Hiles

Frontispiece.....2 Title Page.....3 Preface.....5 Chapter I, An Historical Sketch.....7-11 Chapter II, Legal and Sanitary Methods.....11-14 Chapter III, Cutting and Storing Ice.....14-42 Chapter IV, Construction of Commercial Ice Houses.....43-55 Chapter V, The Care, Handling and Marketing of Ice.....56-62 Chapter VI, The Use of Ice in Refrigeration--- Refrigerator Ice House for Use in Farming, Cutting Ice in Small Quantities for Farm and Family Use, Co-op- eration with the Ice Crop..... 62-83 Chapter VII, Artificial Ice and Cold Air Machines.....84-91 Chapter VIII, Ice in Transportation.....91-96 Chapter IX, Retarding Houses Without Ice--- Miscellaneous Hints.....96-101 Chapter X, Recipes for Iced Food and Beverages.....101-114 List of Illustrations.....115-116 Index.....117-122



Saturday, February 7, 2009

Supermarket Confidential or Brooks Shaw and Sons Old Country Store Cookbook

Supermarket Confidential: The Secrets of One-Stop Shopping for Delicious Meals

Author: Joanna Pruess

With an economy and climate that have brought the idea of cooking and home entertaining back into fashion, and with kitchens that have morphed into all-purpose rooms, shoppers want to stay at home and share comforting, delicious meals with family and friends—without spending hours searching out fussy ingredients. Joanna Pruess offers the essential guide to doing just that, with indispensable information about how to buy, store, and cook outstanding meals using ingredients found in today’s supermarket aisles, and more than 300 tried-and-trusted recipes. She includes recipes using prepared ingredients and a minimal number of ingredients, techniques for preparing meals ahead of time, and strategies for successful grocery shopping in the twenty-first century.



New interesting textbook: Jeffersons Secrets or Upside Down

Brooks Shaw and Son's Old Country Store Cookbook

Author: Brooks Shaw Son

It's back in print with 55 new recipes! A treasury of good old fashioned country cooking featuring recipes served in the store restaurant.



Friday, February 6, 2009

The Whisky Companion or Professional Cooking

The Whisky Companion

Author: Tom Quinn

How many different malts are blended to make Dewar's White Label? Why would distillers of past centuries mix gunpowder with their whisky? How did George Washington bring an end to the Whiskey Rebellion? The answers to questions like these can be found—along with countless other entertaining facts—in this irresistible collection of whisky lore. There are anecdotes and quotations by great writers from Mark Twain to D.H. Lawrence, recipes for whisky-flavored dishes and whisky-based cocktails such as the Rob Roy and Scotch Fizz, plus tips on whisky tasting that will turn the average drinker into a whisky connoisseur.



Book about: Contabilidad:Textos y Casos

Professional Cooking

Author: Wayne Gisslen

On Professional Cooking:

"This book has a place in the library for all who want to understand and build their basic cooking skills."
-The American Institute of Wine and Food

On Professional Baking:

"An encyclopedic and clear handbook of things to do with your oven, from challah to specialty meringues and mocha roll; even some unbaked desserts for sweet tooths are tucked in at the end of this textbook."
-The Wall Street Journal

Wayne Gisslen's Professional Cooking has been used by hundreds of thousands of chefs to master the basics of their craft. Packed with more than 1,200 recipes and more information than ever before, this Sixth Edition of the cornerstone resource offers complete, step-by-step instruction in the cooking theory and techniques necessary to succeed at the professional level.

Special features include:



• Over 100 new recipes - including new recipes for meats, poultry, vegetables, and grains, as well as a new chapter on cooking for vegetarian diets

• Expanded and updated information-featuring a contemporary look at presenting and a detailed history of modern food service

• Superb photography - nearly 1,200 illustrations and photos highlighting ingredients, step-by-step techniques, and plated dishes

What People Are Saying

Andre Cointreau
A reference for a lifetime.




Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Taste of Greece or Jewish Cooking Jewish Cooks

Taste of Greece

Author: Rena Salaman

A fascinating guide to the food and cooking of Greece, with an introduction to the regional classics, the ingredients, preparation techniques and seasonal guidance, and over 75 delicious and inspiring recipes shown in 450 colour photographs.



New interesting textbook: Le Dix-neuvième siècle :l'Europe 1789-1914

Jewish Cooking Jewish Cooks

Author: Ramona Kovel

It's a lot more than just chicken soup and matzo balls! Jewish life and tradition revolve around food—so this collection of delicious, tried-and-true recipes from around the world comes accompanied by stories and superb photos that capture the warmth and atmosphere of Jewish kitchens. From the simplest to the most celebratory dishes, all are founded on ancient laws that stretch beyond countries and continents and belong to a thriving, contemporary food culture. Here are the potato pancakes that make up the Chanukah meal, good old-fashioned chopped liver, gefilte fish (always a part of the Passover seder), roast brisket with sauerkraut, Hungarian goulash, schnitzels of veal or chicken, cholent with potato kugel (the Sabbath stew), and lots of cakes and strudels to top it off. Feast yourself on the authentic food and the fascinating facts. 8 X 9 3/4. All in Color



Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Making of a Chef or Summertime Treats

Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America

Author: Michael Ruhlman

"Well reported and heartfelt, Ruhlman communicates the passion that draws the acolyte to this precise and frantic profession."—The New York Times Book Review

Just over a decade ago, journalist Michael Ruhlman donned a chef’s jacket and houndstooth-check pants to join the students at the Culinary Institute of America, the country’s oldest and most influential cooking school. But The Making of a Chef is not just about holding a knife or slicing an onion; it’s also about the nature and spirit of being a professional cook and the people who enter the profession. As Ruhlman—now an expert on the fundamentals of cooking—recounts his growing mastery of the skills of his adopted profession, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great food.

Incisively reported, with an insider’s passion and attention to detail, The Making of a Chef remains the most vivid and compelling memoir of a professional culinary education on record.

Library Journal

Beginning with Skills One, where Chef Pardus guides his charges through the complexities of creating a perfect stock, journalist Ruhlman provides an insider's view of the exacting program that many consider to be the best formal training a chef can partake of in this country. In his condensed tour of duty at the attractive, suberbly equipped upstate New York campus of the CIA, Ruhlman spends six months sampling the arduous 81-week regimen the institute employs to both educate and toughen students for the competitive, frantic environment of cooking in fine restaurants. Discerning character sketches introduce the diverse group as the author explores the passion for fine food that makes them pursue this difficult calling. An examination of the curriculum and its philosophical framework is provided along with profiles of the master chefs who deliver this demanding training. The program ends in the institute's restaurants, where recently acquired skills and knowledge are put to the test as students perform everything from menu planning to serving actual customers. Although Jeff Riggenbach's reading is too pedestrian for the occasional comic moments, this audio is recommended for larger cooking collections.--Linda Bredengerd, Hanley Lib., Univ. of Pittsburgh, Bradford, PA

School Library Journal

YA The Culinary Institute of America is known as "the Harvard of cooking schools" and many of this country's best-known chefs are graduates. Ruhlman enrolled as a student with the intention of writing this book, which begins as a chronicle of the intense, high-pressure grind of classes and cooking. However, it turns into an engrossing personal account as, his every effort critiqued, the author determines to become a student and not just impersonate one. YAs will enjoy Ruhlman's anecdotes about his instructors and his classmatessome of whom are still in their teens. The appendix offers a chart showing the course work for associate degrees. This will appeal to anyone aspiring to a career as a chef as well as to those interested in food preparation, presentation, and the restaurant industry in America.Patricia Noonan, Prince William Public Library, VA



Interesting book: Pro Excel 2007 VBA or Windows XP Pocket Reference

Summertime Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole Family

Author: Sara Perry

It's summer and the kids are home...for three whole months! What better time to relax together, whipping up delicious treats in the kitchen or dabbling in fun crafts indoors and out. Parents will find plenty of ideas and inspiration for magical summer days in Summertime Treats, the handbook to keeping families cool and creative during the best months of the year. From an afternoon with the kids making Shake-Rattle-and-Roll Ice Cream and Big Bug Bungalows to a fabulous Fourth of July Star-Spangled Celebration and a Memorial Day Tailgate Picnic, author Sara Perry suggests wonderful ways to please every member of the family including parents and other grown-ups. Fully illustrated with photographs throughout and chock-full of tempting snacks, summer drinks, fun projects, and clever ideas, this antidote to the allure of the television lets parents and kids of all ages have a great time cooking and making things together. Summertime Treats is second in a series that began with Halloween Treats (0-8118-2197-8), books that blend whimsy and elegance in ways both adults and children will appreciate.

R Rhodes

I remember so many things about my childhood summers. I would get into my uniform — a bathing suit — early in the morning and stay in it until the late hours of the evening. My days revolved around swimming pool activities: swimming, diving, Marco Polo games, and water volleyball. Even when I wasn't waterlogged, I often found myself playing by the pool deck — backgammon, four-square, and rummy.

Occasionally, however, my mother would throw my summer routine for a loop by saying, "Today we are not going to the pool," referring to the club we belonged to. "We are going to have activity day." Usually I balked at the idea, but once we started our activities, I was immediately at ease, having a good time partaking in making homemade lemonade and fun crafts.

Sara Perry must understand the need for summer projects to break up the sameness of July and August days. Her book, Summertime Treats , is filled with recipes and ideas that will cool you and your family down on the hottest afternoon and keep you occupied on the rainiest morning.

The crafts in this book are easy to do, and even the most unartistic and uncreative parent can help her child complete a project to perfection with the help of the detailed directions and inspirational photographs. One of my favorites in the book is the Ants-in-the-Grass Citronella Candle. You begin with a citronella candle (you know, the kind that keeps the bugs away when you burn it outdoors), about 30 blades of grass, and some plastic ants that can be purchased in any toy or craft store. Using a double boiler, you melt paraffin wax and then dip the grass into the wax, which you then secure on to the candle. After the grass is positioned vertically, looking as though it's growing, you secure the ants in various positions atop the grass with hot glue.

Other fun — and equally easy — projects in Summertime Treats are Sponge-Painted Patio Pots, Cookie-Cutter Soaps, and Vacation Place Mats. The beauty of these activities is that they can be divided over a few days: On a warm day, some of the materials that need to be obtained from the outdoors can be collected, while on an indoor day, the project can be undertaken.

But there is more to summer than sitting around making crafts. After all, if your kids wanted to do crafts all day long, you would probably send them to a summer day camp. The next section of the book is devoted to thirst quenchers that kids of all ages — including 73-year-old kids — will love. Consider the lime fizz recipe that combines lime juice, syrup, and sparkling water. Yum. The perfect companion drink for the backyard barbecue.

If summertime means entertaining to you, then you will love the great recipes in Summertime Treats , which occupy the last two sections of the book. As a child, I remember standing next to my mom as she prepared salads and snacks for guests in the warmer seasons, helping her in whatever ways I could. Kids love doing that, and with Perry's ideas, your gang certainly will be able to help out in the kitchen, too. Recipes for Black Bean and Corn Salsa Salad; Iceberg Wedges with Blue Cheese Dressing; and Tomato, Mozzarella, and Basil Salad are fine ways to start off a tailgate picnic party. Continue the meal with the Super Sub Sandwich, Grilled Flank Steak, or the Mixed Summer Grill (a marinade that's perfect for anything that you are throwing on the grill). Finally, no meal is complete without some summer desserts. Chocolate Spanish Peanut Cookies, Fresh Fruit Cookie Pie, and Silver S'Mores are just a sampling from Summertime Treats .

If these projects and recipes don't make you want to speed up the clock and fast-forward to Memorial Day weekend — the unofficial first day of summer — then I don't know what will. This summer take a break from your beach reading and call your kids in from the pool. The quality time spent making frames or mixing iced tea are the days you and your children are certain to remember for years to come.

— Soozan Baxter



Monday, February 2, 2009

Ex Boyfriend Cookbook or The New York Times Passover Cookbook

Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook: They Came, They Cooked, They Left (But We Ended up with Some Great Recipes)

Author: Thisbe Nissen

Every time we tell someone about this book we get puzzled grins, raised eyebrows, and hilarious guesses as to what on earth The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook might possibly be. Every time we tell a guy about it, he becomes instantly intent on doing pretty much anything if it'll get him into the book. One boy (who swears he only went out with Thisbe in order to get a recipe named after him) found out he'd missed the print deadline by a hair but that the cover wasn't done yet and quickly e-mailed with a list of potential subtitles for the front jacket: Men Are from Marzipan, Women Are from Bean Dip; Dear John, I'm Leaving You and Taking the Cuisinart; He Would Eat His Grandmother's Pie All Night While Mine Just Sat There and Got Cold, Love in the Time of Colander... We don't have anyone exactly clamoring to be our boyfriends, yet they're practically lining up to get to be our exes!

We swear we didn't conceive of this book as a way to pick up guys. At least it didn't start out that way. Really: One day we were planning a barbecue at the Iowa farmhouse where we lived and Erin said, "Oh, I'll make Davis's spicy BBQ rub!" And we kind of looked at each other and said, "We should write a cookbook of all the recipes we've gotten from ex-boyfriends over the years!" And an idea was born.

It was the perfect project for us, too. We're both pack rats, collectors who hold on to every scrap of paper anyone's ever handed us. While all our friends grilled burgers that night and played volleyball on the lawn, the two of us took our beers upstairs and hauled out all of our aging boxes and envelopes full of tear-stained letters, ticket stubs, withered flowers, valentines....Wetold each other the stories behind every one of those scribbled scraps. "And, god," we'd find ourselves saying, "he made the most incredible vinaigrette...." We never made it outside to our own barbecue. We've pretty much been in our rooms since then, pecking away at this book like crazy people, the floors littered with old letters, our hands covered in rubber cement. We were driven, obsessed, compulsively determined to bring you The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook. And voila! Here it is!

Now that the book is out, we're starting to let our imaginations take hold of us again. We've got all sorts of ideas. Like maybe we could spend a year letting a different man cook us dinner every night. We'd bring along cameras, collect artifacts from the evening like budding archaeologists, and select the best dishes for a sequel! But maybe we're getting a little ahead of ourselves....



Book about: Rogues Rebels and Rubber Stamps or Gods Profits

The New York Times Passover Cookbook: More than 200 Holiday Recipes from Top Chefs and Writers

Author: Linda Amster

More Than 200 Holiday Recipes from Top Chefs and Writers

At last, from the paper of culinary record, comes a treasure trove of more than 200 recipes that celebrate the delicious festivity of the Passover table. Compiled from Times articles spanning almost fifty years, The New York Times Passover Cookbook represents Jewish cuisine from all over the world.

It contains family recipes that have been passed down for generations as well as innovative kosher cuisine from such celebrated chefs as Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters. Acclaimed Times writers Molly O'Neill, Ruth Reichl, and Mimi Sheraton have all contributed essays on the different ways that the Passover experience has enriched their lives.

Recipes from Craig Claiborne, Mimi Sheraton, Molly O'Neill, Marian Burros, and Florence Fabricant are also included, allowing the reader to see -- and taste! -- how the experts at The New York Times cook for Passover.

With dozens of fantastic main-course dishes for both meat and dairy meals, you'll have a tough time deciding between the Shad with Pineapple-Rhubarb Salsa and the Braised Moroccan-Style Lamb with Almonds, Prunes and Dried Apricots. Maybe this year your guests will savor a traditional dish like Chicken with Fresh Herbs and 40 Cloves of Garlic -- or perhaps something different, like Southwestern Blackened and Braised Brisket of Beef or Paul Prudhomme's Veal Roast with Mango Sauce. The chapter on Vegetables and Salads contains an ample selection of memorable side dishes: Carrot and Apple Tsimmes, Butternut Squash Ratatouille, the Union Square Cafis Matzoh Meal Polenta, and Beet Crisps are just a few of the flavorful recipes you'll want to enjoyall year round.

Publishers Weekly

Passover is celebrated at the table with ritual words and food; this serious new collection does justice to both. And as Amster, a regular contributor to the New York Times food pages, points out, there's another tradition associated with Passover. Every year, home cooks eagerly await recipes, conforming with the holiday's dietary restrictions, published in the Times. The 175 recipes reprinted from cookbooks by the paper's well-known food writers, as well as by celebrated chefs, range from the traditional to the innovative and are drawn from European, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern traditions. Anne Rosenzwieg offers a haroseth recipe that uses rhubarb. The section on gefilte fish includes Wolfgang Puck's variation, served in cabbage leaves, and Barbara Kafka's version, prepared in the microwave. In addition, Amster imparts seven ways to roast a chicken, including Chicken Breasts with Green Olives and Tomatoes. Paul Prudhomme serves up his Veal Roast with Mango Sauce, a dish he prepared in Jerusalem in honor of the city's 3000th anniversary. Nathan's knowledgeable foreword describes dietary restrictions and offers definitions and explanations of the symbolism behind the food. Taken together, Amster has produced what may be the definitive word in Passover cookbooks, from recipes to the feelings evoked by sitting at a beautifully set, bountifully laden table.

Jodi L. Israel, Jamaica Plain, MA - Library Journal

With more than eight recipes for haroseth alone, The New York Times Passover Cookbook will be invaluable for anyone who hosts a Passover seder — or even takes a dish to one. Amster has put together an impressive and delicious collection of recipes from the Times food section and from cookbooks by three of its well-known writers: Craig Claiborne, Mimi Sheraton, and Molly O'Neill. Chapters are organized by course or special dish, and there are moving reminiscences of special Passover seders, as well as a good general introduction by Joan Nathan, an authority on Jewish cooking. Recipes range from the traditional to the contemporary, with dishes from chefs such as Wolfgang Puck alongside family recipes passed down for generations. Highly recommended. Cooking teacher and author Zeidler offers an appealing collection of simple but sophisticated kosher recipes, with a few more complicated holiday dishes she couldn't bear to leave out. Some are adaptations of top chefs' recipes, such as Alain Ducasse's Fennel "Caviar"; others were inspired by Zeidler's yearly sojourns in Italy. There's no reason that the audience for Zeidler's latest book should be limited to kosher cooks; her Gourmet Jewish Cook (LJ 9/15/88) has been a staple for years. For most collections.
— Jodi L. Israel, Jamaica Plain, MA
— Jodi L. Israel, Jamaica Plain, MA
— Jodi L. Israel, Jamaica Plain, MA
— Jodi L. Israel, Jamaica Plain, MA
— Jodi L. Israel, Jamaica Plain, MA



Sunday, February 1, 2009

The Mystery Of Herbs And Spices or Massimos Italian Kitchen

The Mystery Of Herbs And Spices

Author: James Moseley

The Mystery of Herbs and Spices offers 53 tell-all biographies of celebrated spices and herbs. Tales of war, sex, greed, hedonism, cunning, exploration and adventure reveal how mankind turned the mere need for nourishment into the exaltation of culinary arts. Is it a spice or herb? Where does it come from and what causes its taste? What legends or scandals embellish it? To what curious uses has it been put? How can you use it today? Neither a cookbook nor dry scholarship, the book employs anecdotes and humor to demystify the use and character of every spice or herb.

Sample chapters from The Mystery of Herbs and Spices follow.
INTRODUCTION
"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred."
- Proverbs 15:17

Herbs and spices. They impart glory to food, and variety to life. They are what separate the mere cook from the gourmet.
But they can be confusing. What is the difference between a herb and a spice? What foods do they go with? And don't you feel silly, not knowing if you are supposed to say "herb" or "erb"?
You might think a gourmet, who understands such things, is a sort of wizard - that's what people thought in the Middle Ages, when users of herbal medicines were accused of witchcraft and burnt!
But to people who grow up in India or Thailand, exotic spices are common. They use a wealth of seasonings as casually as we scatter ketchup and pepper.
Cooking with cardamom or cumin might seem a mystery of subtle kitchens, but did you know that ordinary pepper was once precious and rare? If you lived in Europe seven hundred years ago, you could pay your rent or taxes in peppercorns, counting them out like coins. You couldhave bought a horse for a pound of saffron; a pound of ginger would get you a cow; and a pound of nutmeg was worth seven fat oxen. If you were an exceptionally lucky bride, your father might give you peppercorns as a dowry. Now consider how casually we dash a bit of pepper over a fried egg today!
Like anything else, herbs and spices are easy to use when you are familiar with them. But, like nothing else, the story of spices is laced with adventure.
Ferdinand Magellan launched the first voyage around our planet. By the time he reached the Pacific Ocean, he had been out of touch with civilization for a year. Sailing from the west coast of South America, he headed out onto a briny desert of burning glass. He had no maps. He had no radio. He had ridiculously small and leaky ships. He was going where no one had ever gone before. The hissing swells of the Pacific would take him four frightening months to cross, without laying eyes once on land.
There would be nothing like this adventure for another five hundred years - not until our exploration of space.
Magellan died out there in the unknown. Only eighteen of his 237 sailors straggled back to Spain.
What did they have to show for it?
Silver?
Gold?
Scientific discoveries?
No.nutmegs and cloves! Twenty-six tons of them - enough to pay for the entire cost of the voyage and make a profit of 500 gold ducats for every shareholder.
No one doubted for one second that the whole adventure had been worth it!
Spices. They enhance our food. That's all.
But, since the human race began to dream, the story of spices has enchanted our fantasy as well.
Where do they come from? Why are they so enticing? In what new ways can we use them?
This is a book of discovery. Unfurl your sails, like Magellan, and follow the fragrance of spices and herbs to their source, gather their lore, and let them not only season your cooking, but enrich your enjoyment of life.

PETER PIPER If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

It might seem funny now, but it wasn't funny at the time.
Pierre Poivre of Lyons, France, otherwise known as Peter Pepper or Peter Piper, was a real person. Born in 1719, he started his career as a Christian missionary, and founded a bank in Vietnam.



Book about: The Real Jimmy Carter or Just Jackie

Massimo's Italian Kitchen: Authentic One-Dish Meals from a Seasoned Chef

Author: Massimo Capra

The ease of one dish meals meets the brio of Italian cuisine in a match made in food lover's heaven. Chef Massimo Capra brings the joyful appetite of his native Italy to the tempting, one-pot collection of simple and delicious recipes from his celebrated restaurants Mistura and Sopra.

The book features:

  • One-pot Italian recipes for soups, salads, pasta, fish, poultry, meat, vegetables, and desserts.
  • Authentic Italian one-dish recipes for every appetite and occasion
  • Includes 75+ photographs