Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
VQA wines this holiday season --
From the Grape Growers of Ontario --
When you purchase a bottle of VQA wine you are generating $98 in economic impact, supporting small business & farm families. This holiday season we hope enjoy a glass of 100% Ontario grown wine and toast to all the good things that grow in Ontario
Your health depends on my health. We cannot escape one another in these perilous times.
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
Friday, December 18, 2020
MORE FOOD AND DRINK BOOKS REVIEWED...
--THE ART & SCIENCE OF FOOD PAIRING (Firefly Books, 2020, 388 pages, $49.95 hardbound) is by the team of Peter Coucquyt (chef), Bernard Lahousse (bio-engineer), and Johan Langenbick (entrepreneur) who together co-founded "Foodpairing", a creative food-tech agency that works with chefs and bartenders to provide new food combos. They analyze foods to identify flavour components and have created the world's largest ingredient/flavour database. The pairings have been validated by 14 top chefs. Here they present 10,000 flavour matches such as chocolate on cauliflower and kiwi with oyster. It's all based on aromatic molecular properties of foods (80% of the taste is via the nose, the rest is vua the tongue). The matches that they give us are graphed as taste wheels and colour keys. You look up one ingredient and you wil find 10 food pairings with a colour wheel that states the taste results. They cover key food characteristics ( a Modal Varietal Character, which I use in my wine reviews), aroma profiles, classic and contemporary combos – all with scientific explanations. The top 150 ingredients are listed (maybe there is more to come?) along with their wheels and keys. This is a great book at a decent price for that foodie at Christmas.
--TRAVELS WITH MY SPATULA (Ryland Peters & Small, 2020, 144 pages, $27.95 hardbound) is by Tori Haschka, a food and travel writer-blogger from Sydney. She's got you covered for eating fresh sardines with Campari, peach and fennel in Venice, and apple fritters in the Swiss Alps, or maybe some different breakfasts for when you wake up. It's a mix of food and travel, as that is what Tori is. Good enough as a host gift for the inveterate traveller. The photography is all plated food while the travelling is all text. You'll have to use your imagination in this lively book. Check her out at www.eatori.com
-GLUTEN-FREE HOLIDAY COOKIES (Artisan, 2020, 96 pages, $17.95 hardbound) is part of the Artisanal Kitchen series of small handbooks. This one is by Alice Medrich with Maya Klein. They've got over 30 recipes "to sweeten the season" . Not all then preps are exclusively Christmas: the standards here reflect both the classics (chocolate chip, ginger, double oatmeal, nutty thumbprint, et al)
and the festives (buckwheat walnut or hazelnut tuiles, toasty pecan biscotti, chocolate sables, ginger-peach squares, et al). Sure to be a winner in the hostess gift sweepstakes, for it even includes conversion charts.
--JEWISH HOLIDAY BAKING (Artisan, 2020, 112 pages, $17.95 hardbound) is part of the Artisanal Kitchen series of small handbooks. This one is by Uri Scheft with Raquel Pelzel. They've got over 25 preps for inspirations dealing with Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, and more. The savoury section includes challah, potato hamantaschen, spinach burekas; the sweets have date mamoul, chocolate rugelach, sufganiyot. Another great hostess gift, which also includes conversion charts.
--THE GOODE GUIDE TO WINE; a manifesto of sorts (University of California Press, 2020, 233 pages, $24.95 hardbound) is by the renowned UK wine writer Jamie Goode, who visits a lot of wine regions. It's a collection of observations and opinions about wine absurdities, excitements, interests, and how things could be better in wine culture. Of late he has been doing and saying nice things about Ontario wines, but there 's nothing here about that. There is, however, an illuminating article on how to succeed at wine writing by writing boring articles. It's a great book for the knowledgeable wine lover who has almost everything.
--MAN'OUSHE; inside the Lebanese street corner baker (Interlink Books, 2020, 200 pages, $43.95 hardbound) is by Barbara Abdeni Massaad, a food writer whose family owned a Lebanese restaurant "Kebabs and Things" in Florida. She has since located back to Lebanon, and here gives us a stunning document about kitchen rituals and traditions of Lebanese culture. The national pie is man'pushe, and she has 70 recipes for the perfect style of pies as found in a Lebanese bakery. It's a great snack, and she goes through the range of fillings, from cheese, yogurt, egg, chicken, meat preserve, and Armenian sausage. Photography is by her and by Raymond Yazbeck. She tells stories about the bakeries, the places, and the types of pies. She's got a pantry description as well as kitchen tools and techniques for making/baking the dough. And of course it all starts with za'tar and wild thyme pie. It's a work of art, not just a cookbook, and has been been endorsed by both Alice Waters and Paula Wolfert.
--DELICIOUS DIPS (Ryland Peters & Small, 2017, 2020, 64 pages, $13.95 hardbound) is a publisher's collection of some 50 recipes for dips from fresh and tangy to rich and creamy, using meats, legumes, veggies, herbs, olives, nuts, seeds, yogurt and cheese. Something for all, from 13 different UK food writers, principally Hannah Miles (with 15 preps).
--HOW TO DICE AN ONION (Dog 'n' Bone, 2020, 128 pages, $14.95 hardbound) is by Anne Sheasby. These are hacks, tips and tricks for the home cook, originally published in 2007 as "Kitchen Wisdom". Scores and scores of fail-safes will reward the budding home cook, offering assistance in all aspects of cookery. The best tips are those that try to correct your mistakes; next best are those tricks that employ substitution. It's an easy read, but try to dip into it often for reminders.
--PINK GIN (Ryland Peters & Small, 2020, 64 pages, $14.95 hardbound) is a collection of some 30 or so pink-hued cocktails. Most of the preps come from Julia Charles, with some more from Laura Gladwin. It's an open-and-shut slender work, with the recipes scattered among three categories: cocktails, sparklers, and coolers. Most call for "pink gin" but you can use regular gin and add your own colouring, if need be (grenadine, cranberry juice, rose/red wine).
--VENETIAN REPUBLIC (Interlink Publishing Group, 2020, 256 pages, $49.95 hardbound) is by Nino Zoccali, chef-owner of some Italian restaurants in Sydney Australia. He has written before on diverse cuisines of Italy. These recipes here come from the days when Venice was a world power, the centre of the spice/salt/silk trade routes. The four key regions were: Venice and the lagoon islands, the surrounding Veneto, the Croatian coast, and the Greek Islands (Santorini, Cyprus, Crete, Corfu, et al). Hence, we have Venetian Prosecco and snapper risotto, Croatian roast lamb shoulder with olive oil potatoes, Cretan sweet and sour red mullet, Corfu's zabaglione, and Dubrovnik's ricotta and rose liqueur crepes. It's all arranged by the regions, with sub-arrangement by course (from antipasti to dolci). And it has a whack of history/culture behind each prep. Loaded with mostly pictures of finished plates, but there are also some maps and tourist attractions.
--THE SICILY COOKBOOK (DK Publishing, 2020, 240 pages, $39 hardbound) is by Cettina Vicenzino who was born in Sicily and grew up in Germany. She is a cook, food photographer, and writer, and has written several books on Italian and Sicilian cuisine. Three types of food are here --cucina povera (peasant food), cibo di strada (street food), and cucina dei monsù (sophisticated food).
It's part cookbook and part travel, with loads of her own photos and cultural/gastronomical notes emphasizing local chefs and food producers.. The arrangement is by course, primi (Sicilian cuisine doesn't include antipasti) pasta, through secondi mains and piatto unico, intermezzi, and dolci. She's got a few non-alcoholic drinks and some wine. In all, the vast majority of her 70 preps use local spices, citrus, cheeses, olives, tomatoes, eggplant and seafood. This is a real treat for Sicilian food lovers, featuring ricotta dumplings in an orange and tomato sauce, stuffed sardines, salt cod, and grilled octopus with ricotta hummus.
--ARAN (Hardie Grant Books, 2019, 240 pages, $42.50 hardbound) is by Flora Sheddon, who became the youngest ever semi-finalist on The Great British Bake Off Baking Show in 2015. She runs Aran bakery in Dunkeld, Highland Perthshire. She has also written a weekly baking column for the Sunday Telegraph. These are recipes and stories from a bakery in the heart of Scotland. Material includes the origins of the bakery (aran is Scottish Gaelic for bread or loaf) and a day in its life from dawn to dusk. There is location photography plus a slew of recipes for breakfast, lunch and High Tea. Typical are a pork, apple and sage sausage roll, and apricot and almond frangipani. Try also chocolate oat cookies, pear, coffee and hazelnut cake, and pomegranate and raspberry financiers. An impressive giftbook for the baker in your life.
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Time for my annual Christmas Greeting to all my beloved friends...A Child's Christmas in Scarborough...
A Child's Christmas in Scarborough
By the late Howard Engel, with apologies to Dylan Thomas, and with felicitations from Dean at the end...
Whenever I remember Christmas as a child in Scarborough, I can never remember whether the slush was new or old, or whether we lived on the sixth street north of the shopping plaza stoplights and I was seven years old, or whether it was the seventh street and I was six. But still my nose and fingertips tingle at the thought of Christmas in the row-housing, whose names rang their challenging, forlorn ways down to the fast-backed, nerve and gear-wracking lanes of the freeway: Elegance Manors, Tweedingham Mews, Buckingham Back Courts; and I am again a boy among boys, riding our crash-barred, chrome-bedazzling bikes through the supermarket swing doors, grabbing girls' toques and Popsicles in the Mac's Milk and diving with our arms spread to make angels in the snow-banks that the ploughs churned up, plunging our hands to the soggy, stitch-straining armpits and pulling out, as I am doing now, uncles with ham-red hands, scratchy and sizzling-hot in their wife-bought cable-knits and après ski, who through the live-long Christmas afternoons watched the Buffalo Bills and the Los Angeles Rams battling in full colour on a purple field, and sat through Sugar Bowls and Dust Bowls, Cotton and Flannel Bowls until the punch bowl was emptied for the last time and they moved up the queasy, shifting stairs from the rec-room to the hall. And clear as the chlorinated water in the taps, but not so clear as a secret rivulet in the snows that we boys found near the highway that was gone in the spring when the hill was cleared for a condominium, I see Uncle Harry turning away the Salvation Army girl at the door and making us all laugh as she fell on the path on the ice I should have chipped away.
Christmas in Scarborough was nothing if it was not families and laughter. But before the compacts and the late-models and the single sports car owned by Aunt Hetty, the divorcee, who bought the Fugs record, before the hordes of uncles and aunts and cousins jousted for a parking spot and the superintendent appeared to ask us to remove a car that had been parked in someone else's spot, there were the presents that smoothed Father's absence due to overtime, and Mother's voice raised in the kitchen downstairs while the supper held in the stove at low heat congealed.
And there were disappointments, for as one scavenged among boxes and ribbons and discarded batteries from robots that never worked, and broken strings from suddenly mute Talking Barbies, there had to be one, small, bright and unutterably just right present that lies forever hiding over the rim of memory even now, as I remember, I can see it dancing somewhere in the dark room before sleep, and even in the dreams of Christmas night, when I ran through the vanished fields of our subdivision and climbed and tumbled in the haylofts of the vanished barns, it was there amongst the ghosts of swallows and blue jays and horses -- all gone now, like the words we wrote in last year's snow: Fanny Hill puts out. And, in the moonlight in the dark of the yard unlit by streetlights because of Charlie's air rifle and where no car would desecrate its stillness and the dark velvet of its shadows with the cold incandescence of its lights, I crept close to the sleeping whaleback of the hay-breathing house. I stole past the oaken veneer majesty of my parents' door, and finally warm in the acrylic goose down of my bed above orchards and cockcrow and the sailing ship moon on the skating pond; I slept until dawn sped back the whole farm and the cattle and the soft-eyed horses back to the darkest corner of my room where the sun never shines and socks can sometimes be found amid the slut's wool.
And then it was afternoon: and all the cousins, friends of friends, who had been stuffed into spare rooms and cautioned to nap because they had stayed up all night in candy-caned anticipation of catching Santa and delayed for a day his return to the department store throne, were awakened and sent off into the streets. And, waking from a dream in which I chased the blue and white stocking-capped boys, bigger boys from the skating rink at City Hall, glimpsed once on television, I dress in my fur-lined boots, was stuffed into station wagons with protesting uncles who drove as though the football games of all the world were punting in the shadows of the last-minute goalposts. And then we were sliding down the slopes of everlasting snow, everlasting for as long as the machine flew Niagaras of chipped ice over its diesel-throbbing back. And there, in that spinning time, I have my ski-lift ticket stapled to me, as though I were my own receipt for being, and hug for dear day the live cable that pulls me to the top and almost doesn't let go, and then I am poised on last year's skis, and am ready to take my turn. And then I do that. And I do it again, and then I come home for tea, uncles and the barracks of my Christmas soon-to-be-forgotten child's life.
And I remember that Aunt Hetty, who was the centre of attention in the kitchen but was not allowed in to help with the gossip, lay stretched out on the Spanish sofa, her soft, brandy-breath keeping Ernie, her latest lover, stupefied. Then Uncle Herbert appeared from the depths of the basement like a drunken porpoise and chased the whole kitchen gaggle with a plastic spring of mistletoe, and came to a bad end with his elbow in the gravy boat. Then Father phoned from Number 41 Station to say that he had been in the eggnog again and that he would be detained, and Mother drank the cooking sherry, and the turkey went unbasted. Then Uncle Frank who had been a stockbroker and then a convict tried again to dance the Windfall of '65 and fell through the picture window. Then the neighbours knocked on the wall and we knocked on the neighbour's wall and then the police came. – Howard Engel
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From Dean: Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral, winter solstice holiday, practised within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all.
Additionally, please accept a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2021, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical disability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee.
[Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.]
By The Way, this Christmas greeting is good for TWO years, 2021-2022, in case COVID-19 is still around.
SO: Have a Merry...and a Happy....
AND http://gothicepicures.blogspot.com
AND https://twitter.com/gothicepicures
Dean Tudor, Ryerson University Journalism Professor Emeritus
Treasurer, Wine Writers' Circle of Canada http://winewriterscircle.ca
Look it up and you'll remember it; screw it up and you'll never forget it.
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Prank-O Wine Labels !!
When looking to inject humor into celebratory events, you might want to consider a series of prank wine labels (you won't get these at the LCBO). Each set comes with a back and a front label. They are both hilarious, and they are both removable/reusable for multiple experiences. Just apply them over existing labels, and then easily remove them later for other viewings with other, different guests at future dinners.
One such wine label is "Sloppy Girl Wines" (front label) with text on the back label that reads "Sloppy Girl Vineyard redefines what it means to act like a lady. During the vinification process of this light little beauty, we reverse the bonding effect of the tannins, which negates the wine's ability to fuse to fabrics and skin, hiding inevitable stains at bay." Dyn-no-myte -- and useful too !!
You can find more info at https://pranko.com/products/sloppy-girl?pr_prod_strat=copurchase&pr_rec_pid=4824298553480&pr_ref_pid=5762893873320&pr_seq=uniform
and at https://pranko.com/collections/more/products/highways-bounty-wine-label (which describes wine to accompany roadkill, from the Highway's Bounty Winery).
There is also The Happy Napper from Sonoma, touted as a sleep-aid, and the Chateau La-Di-Da from the Fancy Du Schmancy Winery in France. More are in development...
Price? For multiple entertaining, a mere $5 USD for each set of front and back labels, from www.pranko.com or www.30watt.com
There is also The Happy Napper from Sonoma, touted as a sleep-aid, and the Chateau La-Di-Da from the Fancy Du Schmancy Winery in France. More are in development...
Price? For multiple entertaining, a mere $5 USD for each set of front and back labels, from www.pranko.com or www.30watt.com
They ship to Canada too....
Enjoy the fun of the holidays!!!
Enjoy the fun of the holidays!!!
Your health depends on my health. We cannot escape one another in these perilous times.
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
Friday, December 11, 2020
WORLD WINE WATCH TOP WINES AT VINTAGES: under/over $20 for DECEMBER 12, 2020
WORLD WINE WATCH TOP WINES AT VINTAGES: under/over $20 for DECEMBER 12, 2020
By DEAN TUDOR, Gothic Epicures Writing deantudor@deantudor.com. My "Wines, Beers and Spirits of the Net", a guide to thousands of news items and RSS feeds, plus references to wines, beers and spirits, has been at http://www.deantudor.com since 1994.
These notes for good wines available through LCBO Vintages (on a bi-weekly basis) can always be found at http://www.gothicepicures.blogspot.ca or at http://www.deantudor.com No winery can buy their way into – or out of – this publication.
Scores are a combination of MVC (Modal Varietal Character, e.g. a Southern Rhone would taste like a Southern Rhone) and QPR (Quality/Price Ratio value in the marketplace above or below its price).
Currently, the wine media have no access to the tasting samples usually provided to us in the LCBO lab on a fortnightly basis. This will go on or some time. HOWEVER, the wine media will still have access to the advance spreadsheet of the wines to be released. So I know what is to be released and when. SOME (but not many) of these 100 or so biweekly released wines I have recently tasted since January 2020 or so, and I can comfortably recommend them based on this prior sampling.
Some Interesting New Wine Etc. Books for the Holidays!! --
--A YEAR OF GOOD BEER 2021 PAGE-A-DAY CALENDAR (Workman, 2020, 320 pages, $20.99 CAD) quenches the beer lover's thirst: microbrewery recommendations, beer lore, trivia, history, labels, vocabulary, tasting notes, beer festivals, and more daily fun. Discover Bell's Porter whose smoky coffee notes lend an intriguing aroma profile; a hoppy Noble Prize Imperial Pilsner; and a perfect summer aperitif in the burgundy-hued Brombeere Blackberry Gose. Includes beer drinking games (like Buffalo Club, in which you must never be caught drinking with your right hand), recipes for refreshing beer cocktails, and "Hop Lookout" notes (like the smoothly bitter Cashmere, developed by Washington State University in 2013). Some of the beers appear as imports in Canada, but otherwise there are few Canadian brews included. Lights, wheat, lagers, ales, porters, stouts, seasonal beers, and lambrics – they're all here, 165 or so craft beers. If you buy any of the PAD calendars, then you can go online to the website and pick up other, free stuff, at www.pageaday.com.
Quality/Price Rating: 91
--WINES YOU SHOULD TRY; a guide for Canadians (Whitecap, 2019, 204 pages, $22.95 paperbound) largely supersedes the ninth annual edition (2016) of "The 500 Best-Value Wines In the LCBO 2017". This new work by wine scribe Rod Phillips is now national, and has both international and domestic wines arranged by wine colour and then by region/country with an indication of a price range (under $12 to over $49). He tasted about 1000 wines, and chose about 500 wines that are available in at least two provinces. Each of the wines has some value, or else they would not be in this tool: they can be considered at least "better" if not "best" of what's around in Canada. Each has an indication of food pairings. A good guidebook which features only those wines available in Canada -- that you should try. Quality/Price Rating: 91
--THE GOODE GUIDE TO WINE; a manifesto of sorts (University of California Press, 2020, 233 pages, $24.95 USD hardbound) is by the renowned UK wine writer Jamie Goode, who visits a lot of wine regions. It's a collection of observations and opinions about wine absurdities, excitements, interests, and how things could be better in wine culture. Of late he has been doing and saying nice things about Ontario wines, but there 's nothing here about that. There is, however, an illuminating article on how to succeed at wine writing by writing boring articles. It's a great book for the knowledgeable wine lover who has almost everything. Quality/Price Rating: 91
--PINK GIN (Ryland Peters & Small, 2020, 64 pages, $14.95 USD hardbound) is a collection of some 30 or so pink-hued cocktails. Most of the preps come from Julia Charles, with some more from Laura Gladwin. It's an open-and-shut slender work, with the recipes scattered among three categories: cocktails, sparklers, and coolers. Most call for "pink gin" but you can use regular gin and add your own colouring, if need be (grenadine, cranberry juice, rose/red wine).Quality/Price Rating: 89
--GROWING YOUR OWN COCKTAILS, MOCKTAILS, TEAS & INFUSIONS (Fox Chapel Publishing, 2020, 152 pages, $18.99 USD soft covers) is by Jodi Helmer gardening author, who gives us gardening tips and how-to techniques for making artisanal beverages at home. Jeannette Hurt, author "Drink Like a Woman" works out the recipes. There are 64 plant profiles here for the best homegrown drink ingredients (rhubarb, lemon balm, kale, chamomile, ginger, etc.). The recipes range from a lavender mojito to a garden gin-and-tonic, to mint iced tea, and veggie juice. It is all arranged by plant part: leaves, flowers, fruits and vegetables, and roots, with other material about syrups, shrubs, and alcohol-free drinks. There are plant hardiness zone maps for Canada and the USA, plus a resources list for ordering through the internet. A perfect stay-at-home project. Preparations have their ingredients listed in both metric and avoirdupois measurements, but there is no table of metric equivalents. Some interesting or unusual recipes: anise hyssop; fruit smoothie; citrus lift tea; French hibiscus 75; rhubarb gimlet; red sangria; garden margarita with strawberries and basil. Quality/Price Rating: 91
THIS MONTH'S SPECIAL FINDS --
+499152 ALVEAR PEDRO XIMENEZ DE AÑADA DOP Montilla-Moriles, Spain 2015 $24.95 MVC/QPR: 89
+234161 JACKSON-TRIGGS ENTOURAGE GRAND RESERVE BRUT SPARKLING Traditional method, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Ontario 2016 $29.95 MVC/QPR: 89
+560367 INNISKILLIN SPARKLING VIDAL ICEWINE Charmat method, VQA Ontario 2018 $79.95 MVC/QPR: 89
Under $20
=========
W+734798 THORNBURY SAUVIGNON BLANC Marlborough, South Island 2019 $18.95
MVC/QPR: 89
W+341586 FEATHERSTONE FOUR FEATHERS VQA Niagara Peninsula 2019 $14.95 MVC/QPR: 90
W+277228 CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES OLD VINES RIESLING VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake 2015 $18.95 MVC/QPR: 91
R+14667 CHÂTEAU HYOT RÉSERVE AC Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux 2015 $17.95
MVC/QPR: 89
R+18667 SPECK BROTHERS FAMILY TREE THE PADRÉ CABERNET/MERLOT Sustainable, VQA Niagara Peninsula 2018 $18.95 MVC/QPR: 91
Over $20
=========
Sparkling+16602 ALBINO ARMANI EXTRA DRY CONEGLIANO VALDOBBIADENE PROSECCO SUPERIORE DOCG, Friuli, Italy $22.95 MVC/QPR: 89
W+410712 MEIOMI CHARDONNAY Monterey, Sonoma and Santa Barbara Counties 2017 $21.95 MVC/QPR: 89
W+140525 DOMAINE BONNARD SANCERRE AC 2019 $29.95 MVC/QPR: 89
R+287367 PLUME CABERNET SAUVIGNON Alexander Valley, Sonoma County 2016 $39.95 MVC/QPR: 89
R+15667 NK'MIP CELLARS QWAM QWMT PINOT NOIR BC VQA Okanagan Valley 2018 $34.95 MVC/QPR: 89
R+261784 PAPALE LINEA ORO PRIMITIVO DI MANDURIA DOP 2016 $23.95 MVC/QPR: 89
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
FOOD BOOK OF THE MONTH !!
FLAVORBOMB; a rogue guide to making everything taste better (Appetite by Random House, 2020, 262 pages, ISBN 978-0-525-61089-2 $35 CAD) is by Bob Blumer, best known here as The Surreal Gourmet, from his Food Network shows. He's also an eight-time Guinness World Record holder of note and advocate for food banks and food politics. Currently, he works out of LA, living under the D of the Hollywood sign. A "flavourbomb" is a dish that explodes with flavour and texture. This latest book, after six previously-acclaimed cookbooks, pretty well summarizes his cooking philosophy which he shares with us: such rules as making food taste good without playing by the rules. The first half is full of cooking advice in the form of tips, hacks, and techniques. Here we find his thoughts on caramelization, umami, olive oil, lemon juice, cured pork (including bacon), balsamic vinegar, garnishes, and more.
This primer starts with the flavour building blocks (salt levels, spicy heat, sweetness, acid balance, herbaceousness, and of course the lily family (garlic, shallots, et al), and then the importance of tasting all of your ingredients. And, of course, the necessity to taste and adjust as you cook. This section on adjustment is very important: very few home cooks seem to adjust for salt, sweet, acid, or spice levels. Probably because they do not know how or what to adjust. Well, Bob's your uncle here, he guides us through nicely. Memorize this section. The primer ends with discourses on techniques, such as using a chinois fine mesh sieve, food processor, deep fryer, BBQs, grills, knives, mandoline, microplanes, and cast iron pans. He's got material on toasting, roasting, crusting, braising, deglazing, reducing, emulsifying, sous vide, and pan-searing. And as a final note BEFORE passing us off to the food prep recipes: he adds "read the recipe", set up the mise en place, taste as you cook, and plate like an artist. And then, I guess, Bob REALLY is your uncle...
The second half has 75 step-by-step common sense recipes that use the strategies of part one. The base here is the simplicity of the dish, followed by the topping up with added flavours to make the final dish more tasty, and even addictive, such as umami. This section is arranged in menu order, from nibbles to soups, salads, mains, veggies, and desserts – with special side-trips for brunch dishes and the basic sauces and condiments. Needless to say, everything is full of flavour, right down to the last recipe in the book: rustic fried breadcrumbs. Typical are caramelized cauliflower florets, avocado and butter bean hummus, Japanese fried chicken, Thai coconut corn soup, rapido ravioli and pan-seared arctic char. Each prep comes with headed notes dealing with time, yield, advance work, and liquidity (accompanying beverage, eg. white wine, sherry, beer, or others). His instructions are full but do bear with him. There's also a glossary and a listing of key ingredients that can be used in many different ways. As Blumer says, "If you want to go deeper, I encourage you to let your fingers do the googling."
Quality/Price Rating: 95
Your health depends on my health. We cannot escape one another in these perilous times.
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
RE: MY 24th(!!) ANNUAL SURVEY OF FOOD AND DRINK-RELATED BOOKS SUITABLE AS HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR THE 2020 COVID-19 PERIOD
Thank you very much Dean. Your support us always appreciated.
Best regards,
David
Sent from my Galaxy
-------- Original message --------
From: Dean Tudor <dtudor@pathcom.com>
Date: 2020-12-02 11:20 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: blog1 <dtudor2.epicures@blogger.com>
Subject: MY 24th(!!) ANNUAL SURVEY OF FOOD AND DRINK-RELATED BOOKS SUITABLE AS HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR THE 2020 COVID-19 PERIOD
ON THE DEAN'S LIST:
MY 24th(!!) ANNUAL SURVEY OF FOOD AND DRINK-RELATED BOOKS
SUITABLE AS HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR THE 2020 COVID-19 PERIOD
DECEMBER 1, 2020
==============================================================
By Dean Tudor, Ryerson Journalism Professor Emeritus and Gothic
Epicures Writing, www.deantudor.com (World Wine Watch Newsletter).
Twitter: @gothicepicures
Reviewer Timeline: Cookbook Reviewer, Library Journal, 1969-1974; Cookbook Columnist and Lead Reviewer, The Booklist (American Library Association), 1974-1985; CBRA Cookbook Reviewer, 1975-1985; Freelance Cookbook Reviewer, 1985-1999; Gothic Epicures Writing Lead Cookbook Reviewer, 2000+
These food and wine book reviews are always available at www.deantudor.com and http://gothicepicures.blogspot.ca
------
There are always many new food and wine books out there for people who have picky tastes!! What to choose? I have cast about for material and have come up with a decent selection of materials published in 2020 to satisfy any pocketbook, any host, and any friend or relative. All books and book-like materials that are listed here are RECOMMENDED for gifting, and can be purchased at a discount via Amazon.Ca, Chapters.Indigo.Ca (with free delivery on a total purchase of over $25 or so), or even The Book Depository in Guernsey UK (free delivery and no GST).
Price Alert: Books are in CAD, but because of USD fluctuations, all prices may vary.
Part One: TOP GIFT BOOKS
========================
A. Art/travel/restaurant cookbooks might be some of the best books to give a loved one (or to yourself, since you are your own best loved one). Most may cost you an arm and a leg. Books for the coffee table have their place in the gift scheme: just about every such book is only bought as a gift! And are often perused first by the donor (you). Don't let the prices daunt you. Such books are available at a discount from online vendors. Because of the "economy", not too many pricey food and wine books were released this year. Herewith, and in random order:
--MAN'OUSHE; inside the Lebanese street corner baker (Interlink Books, 2020, 200 pages, $43.95 hardbound) is by Barbara Abdeni Massaad, a food writer whose family owned a Lebanese restaurant "Kebabs and Things" in Florida. She has since located back to Lebanon, and here gives us a stunning document about kitchen rituals and traditions of Lebanese culture. The national pie is man'pushe, and she has 70 recipes for the perfect style of pies as found in a Lebanese bakery. It's a great snack, and she goes through the range of fillings, from cheese, yogurt, egg, chicken, meat preserve, and Armenian sausage. Photography is by her and by Raymond Yazbeck. She tells stories about the bakeries, the places, and the types of pies. She's got a pantry description as well as kitchen tools and techniques for making/baking the dough. And of course it all starts with za'tar and wild thyme pie. It's a work of art, not just a cookbook, and has been been endorsed by both Alice Waters and Paula Wolfert.
--TRAVELS WITH MY SPATULA (Ryland Peters & Small, 2020, 144 pages, $27.95 hardbound) is by Tori Haschka, a food and travel writer-blogger from Sydney. She's got you covered for eating fresh sardines with Campari, peach and fennel in Venice, and apple fritters in the Swiss Alps, or maybe some different breakfasts for when you wake up. It's a mix of food and travel, as that is what Tori is. Good enough as a host gift for the inveterate traveller. The photography is all plated food while the travelling is all text. You'll have to use your imagination in this lively book. Check her out at www.eatori.com
--VENETIAN REPUBLIC (Interlink Publishing Group, 2020, 256 pages, $49.95 hardbound) is by Nino Zoccali, chef-owner of some Italian restaurants in Sydney Australia. He has written before on diverse cuisines of Italy. These recipes here come from the days when Venice was a world power, the centre of the spice/salt/silk trade routes. The four key regions were: Venice and the lagoon islands, the surrounding Veneto, the Croatian coast, and the Greek Islands (Santorini, Cyprus, Crete, Corfu, et al). Hence, we have Venetian Prosecco and snapper risotto, Croatian roast lamb shoulder with olive oil potatoes, Cretan sweet and sour red mullet, Corfu's zabaglione, and Dubrovnik's ricotta and rose liqueur crepes. It's all arranged by the regions, with sub-arrangement by course (from antipasti to dolci). And it has a whack of history/culture behind each prep. Loaded with mostly pictures of finished plates, but there are also some maps and tourist attractions.
--THE SICILY COOKBOOK (DK Publishing, 2020, 240 pages, $39 hardbound) is by Cettina Vicenzino who was born in Sicily and grew up in Germany. She is a cook, food photographer, and writer, and has written several books on Italian and Sicilian cuisine. Three types of food are here --cucina povera (peasant food), cibo di strada (street food), and cucina dei monsù (sophisticated food).
It's part cookbook and part travel, with loads of her own photos and cultural/gastronomical notes emphasizing local chefs and food producers.. The arrangement is by course, primi (Sicilian cuisine doesn't include antipasti) pasta, through secondi mains and piatto unico, intermezzi, and dolci. She's got a few non-alcoholic drinks and some wine. In all, the vast majority of her 70 preps use local spices, citrus, cheeses, olives, tomatoes, eggplant and seafood. This is a real treat for Sicilian food lovers, featuring ricotta dumplings in an orange and tomato sauce, stuffed sardines, salt cod, and grilled octopus with ricotta hummus.
--ARAN (Hardie Grant Books, 2019, 240 pages, $42.50 hardbound) is by Flora Sheddon, who became the youngest ever semi-finalist on The Great British Bake Off Baking Show in 2015. She runs Aran bakery in Dunkeld, Highland Perthshire. She has also written a weekly baking column for the Sunday Telegraph. These are recipes and stories from a bakery in the heart of Scotland. Material includes the origins of the bakery (aran is Scottish Gaelic for bread or loaf) and a day in its life from dawn to dusk. There is location photography plus a slew of recipes for breakfast, lunch and High Tea. Typical are a pork, apple and sage sausage roll, and apricot and almond frangipani. Try also chocolate oat cookies, pear, coffee and hazelnut cake, and pomegranate and raspberry financiers. An impressive giftbook for the baker in your life.
--PALESTINE ON A PLATE; memories from my mother's kitchen (Interlink Publishing Group, 2020, 240 pages, $34.95 paperbound) is by Joudie Kalla, a UK chef who specializes in Palestine food. She earlier had also written the cookbook "Baladi Palestine". This is the home-cooked food of her heritage, paying homage to the Palestine that her family knew and remembers. She starts off with her world of ingredients before moving on to the courses (breakfast, desserts) and the major ingredients: grains, legumes, veggies, lamb, chicken, fish. There's also a bibliography and a list of suppliers. First rate photography with strong memoir-ish cook's notes and travel info.
--MOSQUITO SUPPER CLUB (Artisan, 2020, 367 pages, $51.75 hardbound) is by Melissa M. Martin, a longtime native of the Louisiana coast. She had opened the Club for serving family-styled Cajun dinners in 2014 as a sustainable restaurant, preparing Cajun recipes from a disappearing bayou scene. It's arranged by major ingredient, beginning (after the primer on the Cajun pantry/larder) with shrimp, then crab, oysters, crawfish, gumbo, poultry, meat and rice, fish, salt pork, beans, veggies, sweets and breads. Very comprehensive, with a resources list for both ingredients and equipment, such as file, Louisiana rice, and crawfish boilers. She's also got some interesting comments and discussions about Creole and Cajun food similarities and differences. Superb photography of the travel area, techniques of handling crawfish and crabs, and the final plated dish. An excellent gift package!
B. And how about gift books for the beverage drinker? Try –
--THE GOODE GUIDE TO WINE; a manifesto of sorts (University of California Press, 2020, 233 pages, $24.95 hardbound) is by the renowned UK wine writer Jamie Goode, who visits a lot of wine regions. It's a collection of observations and opinions about wine absurdities, excitements, interests, and how things could be better in wine culture. Of late he has been doing and saying nice things about Ontario wines, but there 's nothing here about that. There is, however, an illuminating article on how to succeed at wine writing by writing boring articles. It's a great book for the knowledgeable wine lover who has almost everything.
C. Perhaps some food and drink reference books? Such as:
--THE ART & SCIENCE OF FOOD PAIRING (Firefly Books, 2020, 388 pages, $49.95 hardbound) is by the team of Peter Coucquyt (chef), Bernard Lahousse (bio-engineer), and Johan Langenbick (entrepreneur) who together co-founded "Foodpairing", a creative food-tech agency that works with chefs and bartenders to provide new food combos. They analyze foods to identify flavour components and have created the world's largest ingredient/flavour database. The pairings have been validated by 14 top chefs. Here they present 10,000 flavour matches such as chocolate on cauliflower and kiwi with oyster. It's all based on aromatic molecular properties of foods (80% of the taste is via the nose, the rest is vua the tongue). The matches that they give us are graphed as taste wheels and colour keys. You look up one ingredient and you wil find 10 food pairings with a colour wheel that states the taste results. They cover key food characteristics ( a Modal Varietal Character, which I use in my wine reviews), aroma profiles, classic and contemporary combos – all with scientific explanations. The top 150 ingredients are listed (maybe there is more to come?) along with their wheels and keys. This is a great book at a decent price for that foodie at Christmas.
--BOWLS; vibrant recipes with endless possibilities (America's Test Kitchen, 2020, 246 pages, $35 hardbound) is just one a series of ATK books, now numbering in the seventies. They always take a theme and look at it from every angle, to produce the absolute best cooking ideas and recipes, taking into account kitchen equipment and varying cooking skills. This one produces presp on salad bowls, grain and bean bowls, noodle bowls, and soup bowls. There are master meal preps with make-ahead components, some mix and match items, and handy use of leftovers. There are 63 toppings and sauces, making enough here for a year full of bowls, many of them customized. This is probably the only bowl cookbook you will ever need. Great ideas, with service ranging mostly from two to six, and with full nutritional information for each. There are tables of conversions and equivalents. Just perfect for the zoomer starting out in life.
--BIG FLAVORS FROM ITALIAN AMERICA: family-style favorites from coast to coast (America's Test Kitchen, 2020, 278 pages, $35 hardbound) is by the crew at America's Test Kitchens in Boston, where their motto is "recipes that work". The cookbook celebrates the basic red sauce (ragu gravy) cooking found in America, and also included here is a short history of Italian American food. Created here were spaghetti and meatballs, cioppino, and scali bread. Pizza shops, pasta shops, and sandwich shops came to every town., sustained by those customers who wanted simple and inexpensive meals – usually with garlic bread and modestly-priced baskets of chianti, often lasagna. As the years went by, new items appeared: risotto, polenta, different ravioli. This work also covers minor variations in restaurants across the USA – Philadelphia pork sandwiches, Utica greens, Detroit-Chicago-St Louis pizzas, eggplant pecorino, garlic knots and zeppole. Good holiday reading, from marinated olives through calamari, Sunday suppers, breads and desserts.
Part Two: STOCKING STUFFERS
===========================
Stocking stuffers should be at the very top of everybody's gift list: something affordable from under $10 up to $25 or so, and that can also double as a host gift, being something small and lightweight. Most of the books here are paperbacks. And of course, they can all stuff an adult stocking.
Typical for food are:
-GLUTEN-FREE HOLIDAY COOKIES (Artisan, 2020, 96 pages, $17.95 hardbound) is part of the Artisanal Kitchen series of small handbooks. This one is by Alice Medrich with Maya Klein. They've got over 30 recipes "to sweeten the season" . Not all then preps are exclusively Christmas: the standards here reflect both the classics (chocolate chip, ginger, double oatmeal, nutty thumbprint, et al)
and the festives (buckwheat walnut or hazelnut tuiles, toasty pecan biscotti, chocolate sables, ginger-peach squares, et al). Sure to be a winner in the hostess gift sweepstakes, for it even includes conversion charts.
--DELICIOUS DIPS (Ryland Peters & Small, 2017, 2020, 64 pages, $13.95 hardbound) is a publisher's collection of some 50 recipes for dips from fresh and tangy to rich and creamy, using meats, legumes, veggies, herbs, olives, nuts, seeds, yogurt and cheese. Something for all, from 13 different UK food writers, principally Hannah Miles (with 15 preps).
--HOW TO DICE AN ONION (Dog 'n' Bone, 2020, 128 pages, $14.95 hardbound) is by Anne Sheasby. These are hacks, tips and tricks for the home cook, originally published in 2007 as "Kitchen Wisdom". Scores and scores of fail-safes will reward the budding home cook, offering assistance in all aspects of cookery. The best tips are those that try to correct your mistakes; next best are those tricks that employ substitution. It's an easy read, but try to dip into it often for reminders.
--JEWISH HOLIDAY BAKING (Artisan, 2020, 112 pages, $17.95 hardbound) is part of the Artisanal Kitchen series of small handbooks. This one is by Uri Scheft with Raquel Pelzel. They've got over 25 preps for inspirations dealing with Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, and more. The savoury section includes challah, potato hamantaschen, spinach burekas; the sweets have date mamoul, chocolate rugelach, sufganiyot. Another great hostess gift, which also includes conversion charts.
Other little books (and calendars), for beverages, include those on beer, wine and spirits:
--PINK GIN (Ryland Peters & Small, 2020, 64 pages, $14.95 hardbound) is a collection of some 30 or so pink-hued cocktails. Most of the preps come from Julia Charles, with some more from Laura Gladwin. It's an open-and-shut slender work, with the recipes scattered among three categories: cocktails, sparklers, and coolers. Most call for "pink gin" but you can use regular gin and add your own colouring, if need be (grenadine, cranberry juice, rose/red wine).
--HUGH JOHNSON'S POCKET WINE BOOK 2021 (Mitchell Beazley, 2020, 336 pages, $18.99 hardbound, $14.99 Kindle ebook) is a guide to wines from all around the world, not just to the "best" wines. It is in its 42nd year (first published in 1977). Johnson claims more than 6000 wines and growers are listed. News, vintage charts and data, glossaries, best value wines, and what to drink now are here. His book is arranged by region, with notes on the 2019 vintage and a few details about the potential of 2020, along with a closer look at the 2018. He's got notes on what wines are ready to drink in 2020. Johnson is also moving into food pairing: there is a section on food and wine matching. He also has a listing of his personal 200 fave wines. The Kindle edition is digitally enhanced for word searching, so it often beats a printed index for retrieving data – and it is $4 cheaper! A great purchase....
--WINES YOU SHOULD TRY; a guide for Canadians (Whitecap, 2019, 204 pages, $22.95 paperbound) largely supersedes the ninth annual edition (2016) of "The 500 Best-Value Wines In the LCBO 2017". This new work by wine scribe Rod Phillips is now national, and has both international and domestic wines arranged by wine colour and then by region/country with an indication of a price range (under $12 to over $49). He tasted about 1000 wines, and chose about 500 wines that are available in at least two provinces. Each of the wines has some value, or else they would not be in this tool: they can be considered at least "better" if not "best" of what's around in Canada. Each has an indication of food pairings. A good guidebook which features only those wines available in Canada -- that you should try.
--A YEAR OF GOOD BEER 2021 PAGE-A-DAY CALENDAR (Workman, 2020, 320 pages, $20.99)
quenches the beer lover's thirst: microbrewery recommendations, beer lore, trivia, history, labels, vocabulary, tasting notes, beer festivals, and more daily fun. Discover Bell's Porter whose smoky coffee notes lend an intriguing aroma profile; a hoppy Noble Prize Imperial Pilsner; and a perfect summer aperitif in the burgundy-hued Brombeere Blackberry Gose. Includes beer drinking games (like Buffalo Club, in which you must never be caught drinking with your right hand), recipes for refreshing beer cocktails, and "Hop Lookout" notes (like the smoothly bitter Cashmere, developed by Washington State University in 2013). Some of the beers appear as imports in Canada, but otherwise there are few Canadian brews included. Lights, wheat, lagers, ales, porters, stouts, seasonal beers, and lambrics – they're all here, 165 or so craft beers. If you buy any of the PAD calendars, then you can go online to the website and pick up other, free stuff, at www.pageaday.com.
====================================
Your health depends on my health. We cannot escape one another in these perilous times.
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
AND http://gothicepicures.blogspot.com
AND https://twitter.com/gothicepicures
Dean Tudor, Ryerson University Journalism Professor Emeritus
Treasurer, Wine Writers' Circle of Canada http://winewriterscircle.ca
Look it up and you'll remember it; screw it up and you'll never forget it.
MY 24th(!!) ANNUAL SURVEY OF FOOD AND DRINK-RELATED BOOKS SUITABLE AS HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR THE 2020 COVID-19 PERIOD
ON THE DEAN'S LIST:
MY 24th(!!) ANNUAL SURVEY OF FOOD AND DRINK-RELATED BOOKS
SUITABLE AS HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR THE 2020 COVID-19 PERIOD
DECEMBER 1, 2020
==============================================================
By Dean Tudor, Ryerson Journalism Professor Emeritus and Gothic
Epicures Writing, www.deantudor.com (World Wine Watch Newsletter).
Twitter: @gothicepicures
Reviewer Timeline: Cookbook Reviewer, Library Journal, 1969-1974; Cookbook Columnist and Lead Reviewer, The Booklist (American Library Association), 1974-1985; CBRA Cookbook Reviewer, 1975-1985; Freelance Cookbook Reviewer, 1985-1999; Gothic Epicures Writing Lead Cookbook Reviewer, 2000+
These food and wine book reviews are always available at www.deantudor.com and http://gothicepicures.blogspot.ca
------
There are always many new food and wine books out there for people who have picky tastes!! What to choose? I have cast about for material and have come up with a decent selection of materials published in 2020 to satisfy any pocketbook, any host, and any friend or relative. All books and book-like materials that are listed here are RECOMMENDED for gifting, and can be purchased at a discount via Amazon.Ca, Chapters.Indigo.Ca (with free delivery on a total purchase of over $25 or so), or even The Book Depository in Guernsey UK (free delivery and no GST).
Price Alert: Books are in CAD, but because of USD fluctuations, all prices may vary.
Part One: TOP GIFT BOOKS
========================
A. Art/travel/restaurant cookbooks might be some of the best books to give a loved one (or to yourself, since you are your own best loved one). Most may cost you an arm and a leg. Books for the coffee table have their place in the gift scheme: just about every such book is only bought as a gift! And are often perused first by the donor (you). Don't let the prices daunt you. Such books are available at a discount from online vendors. Because of the "economy", not too many pricey food and wine books were released this year. Herewith, and in random order:
--MAN'OUSHE; inside the Lebanese street corner baker (Interlink Books, 2020, 200 pages, $43.95 hardbound) is by Barbara Abdeni Massaad, a food writer whose family owned a Lebanese restaurant "Kebabs and Things" in Florida. She has since located back to Lebanon, and here gives us a stunning document about kitchen rituals and traditions of Lebanese culture. The national pie is man'pushe, and she has 70 recipes for the perfect style of pies as found in a Lebanese bakery. It's a great snack, and she goes through the range of fillings, from cheese, yogurt, egg, chicken, meat preserve, and Armenian sausage. Photography is by her and by Raymond Yazbeck. She tells stories about the bakeries, the places, and the types of pies. She's got a pantry description as well as kitchen tools and techniques for making/baking the dough. And of course it all starts with za'tar and wild thyme pie. It's a work of art, not just a cookbook, and has been been endorsed by both Alice Waters and Paula Wolfert.
--TRAVELS WITH MY SPATULA (Ryland Peters & Small, 2020, 144 pages, $27.95 hardbound) is by Tori Haschka, a food and travel writer-blogger from Sydney. She's got you covered for eating fresh sardines with Campari, peach and fennel in Venice, and apple fritters in the Swiss Alps, or maybe some different breakfasts for when you wake up. It's a mix of food and travel, as that is what Tori is. Good enough as a host gift for the inveterate traveller. The photography is all plated food while the travelling is all text. You'll have to use your imagination in this lively book. Check her out at www.eatori.com
--VENETIAN REPUBLIC (Interlink Publishing Group, 2020, 256 pages, $49.95 hardbound) is by Nino Zoccali, chef-owner of some Italian restaurants in Sydney Australia. He has written before on diverse cuisines of Italy. These recipes here come from the days when Venice was a world power, the centre of the spice/salt/silk trade routes. The four key regions were: Venice and the lagoon islands, the surrounding Veneto, the Croatian coast, and the Greek Islands (Santorini, Cyprus, Crete, Corfu, et al). Hence, we have Venetian Prosecco and snapper risotto, Croatian roast lamb shoulder with olive oil potatoes, Cretan sweet and sour red mullet, Corfu's zabaglione, and Dubrovnik's ricotta and rose liqueur crepes. It's all arranged by the regions, with sub-arrangement by course (from antipasti to dolci). And it has a whack of history/culture behind each prep. Loaded with mostly pictures of finished plates, but there are also some maps and tourist attractions.
--THE SICILY COOKBOOK (DK Publishing, 2020, 240 pages, $39 hardbound) is by Cettina Vicenzino who was born in Sicily and grew up in Germany. She is a cook, food photographer, and writer, and has written several books on Italian and Sicilian cuisine. Three types of food are here --cucina povera (peasant food), cibo di strada (street food), and cucina dei monsù (sophisticated food).
It's part cookbook and part travel, with loads of her own photos and cultural/gastronomical notes emphasizing local chefs and food producers.. The arrangement is by course, primi (Sicilian cuisine doesn't include antipasti) pasta, through secondi mains and piatto unico, intermezzi, and dolci. She's got a few non-alcoholic drinks and some wine. In all, the vast majority of her 70 preps use local spices, citrus, cheeses, olives, tomatoes, eggplant and seafood. This is a real treat for Sicilian food lovers, featuring ricotta dumplings in an orange and tomato sauce, stuffed sardines, salt cod, and grilled octopus with ricotta hummus.
--ARAN (Hardie Grant Books, 2019, 240 pages, $42.50 hardbound) is by Flora Sheddon, who became the youngest ever semi-finalist on The Great British Bake Off Baking Show in 2015. She runs Aran bakery in Dunkeld, Highland Perthshire. She has also written a weekly baking column for the Sunday Telegraph. These are recipes and stories from a bakery in the heart of Scotland. Material includes the origins of the bakery (aran is Scottish Gaelic for bread or loaf) and a day in its life from dawn to dusk. There is location photography plus a slew of recipes for breakfast, lunch and High Tea. Typical are a pork, apple and sage sausage roll, and apricot and almond frangipani. Try also chocolate oat cookies, pear, coffee and hazelnut cake, and pomegranate and raspberry financiers. An impressive giftbook for the baker in your life.
--PALESTINE ON A PLATE; memories from my mother's kitchen (Interlink Publishing Group, 2020, 240 pages, $34.95 paperbound) is by Joudie Kalla, a UK chef who specializes in Palestine food. She earlier had also written the cookbook "Baladi Palestine". This is the home-cooked food of her heritage, paying homage to the Palestine that her family knew and remembers. She starts off with her world of ingredients before moving on to the courses (breakfast, desserts) and the major ingredients: grains, legumes, veggies, lamb, chicken, fish. There's also a bibliography and a list of suppliers. First rate photography with strong memoir-ish cook's notes and travel info.
--MOSQUITO SUPPER CLUB (Artisan, 2020, 367 pages, $51.75 hardbound) is by Melissa M. Martin, a longtime native of the Louisiana coast. She had opened the Club for serving family-styled Cajun dinners in 2014 as a sustainable restaurant, preparing Cajun recipes from a disappearing bayou scene. It's arranged by major ingredient, beginning (after the primer on the Cajun pantry/larder) with shrimp, then crab, oysters, crawfish, gumbo, poultry, meat and rice, fish, salt pork, beans, veggies, sweets and breads. Very comprehensive, with a resources list for both ingredients and equipment, such as file, Louisiana rice, and crawfish boilers. She's also got some interesting comments and discussions about Creole and Cajun food similarities and differences. Superb photography of the travel area, techniques of handling crawfish and crabs, and the final plated dish. An excellent gift package!
B. And how about gift books for the beverage drinker? Try –
--THE GOODE GUIDE TO WINE; a manifesto of sorts (University of California Press, 2020, 233 pages, $24.95 hardbound) is by the renowned UK wine writer Jamie Goode, who visits a lot of wine regions. It's a collection of observations and opinions about wine absurdities, excitements, interests, and how things could be better in wine culture. Of late he has been doing and saying nice things about Ontario wines, but there 's nothing here about that. There is, however, an illuminating article on how to succeed at wine writing by writing boring articles. It's a great book for the knowledgeable wine lover who has almost everything.
C. Perhaps some food and drink reference books? Such as:
--THE ART & SCIENCE OF FOOD PAIRING (Firefly Books, 2020, 388 pages, $49.95 hardbound) is by the team of Peter Coucquyt (chef), Bernard Lahousse (bio-engineer), and Johan Langenbick (entrepreneur) who together co-founded "Foodpairing", a creative food-tech agency that works with chefs and bartenders to provide new food combos. They analyze foods to identify flavour components and have created the world's largest ingredient/flavour database. The pairings have been validated by 14 top chefs. Here they present 10,000 flavour matches such as chocolate on cauliflower and kiwi with oyster. It's all based on aromatic molecular properties of foods (80% of the taste is via the nose, the rest is vua the tongue). The matches that they give us are graphed as taste wheels and colour keys. You look up one ingredient and you wil find 10 food pairings with a colour wheel that states the taste results. They cover key food characteristics ( a Modal Varietal Character, which I use in my wine reviews), aroma profiles, classic and contemporary combos – all with scientific explanations. The top 150 ingredients are listed (maybe there is more to come?) along with their wheels and keys. This is a great book at a decent price for that foodie at Christmas.
--BOWLS; vibrant recipes with endless possibilities (America's Test Kitchen, 2020, 246 pages, $35 hardbound) is just one a series of ATK books, now numbering in the seventies. They always take a theme and look at it from every angle, to produce the absolute best cooking ideas and recipes, taking into account kitchen equipment and varying cooking skills. This one produces presp on salad bowls, grain and bean bowls, noodle bowls, and soup bowls. There are master meal preps with make-ahead components, some mix and match items, and handy use of leftovers. There are 63 toppings and sauces, making enough here for a year full of bowls, many of them customized. This is probably the only bowl cookbook you will ever need. Great ideas, with service ranging mostly from two to six, and with full nutritional information for each. There are tables of conversions and equivalents. Just perfect for the zoomer starting out in life.
--BIG FLAVORS FROM ITALIAN AMERICA: family-style favorites from coast to coast (America's Test Kitchen, 2020, 278 pages, $35 hardbound) is by the crew at America's Test Kitchens in Boston, where their motto is "recipes that work". The cookbook celebrates the basic red sauce (ragu gravy) cooking found in America, and also included here is a short history of Italian American food. Created here were spaghetti and meatballs, cioppino, and scali bread. Pizza shops, pasta shops, and sandwich shops came to every town., sustained by those customers who wanted simple and inexpensive meals – usually with garlic bread and modestly-priced baskets of chianti, often lasagna. As the years went by, new items appeared: risotto, polenta, different ravioli. This work also covers minor variations in restaurants across the USA – Philadelphia pork sandwiches, Utica greens, Detroit-Chicago-St Louis pizzas, eggplant pecorino, garlic knots and zeppole. Good holiday reading, from marinated olives through calamari, Sunday suppers, breads and desserts.
Part Two: STOCKING STUFFERS
===========================
Stocking stuffers should be at the very top of everybody's gift list: something affordable from under $10 up to $25 or so, and that can also double as a host gift, being something small and lightweight. Most of the books here are paperbacks. And of course, they can all stuff an adult stocking.
Typical for food are:
-GLUTEN-FREE HOLIDAY COOKIES (Artisan, 2020, 96 pages, $17.95 hardbound) is part of the Artisanal Kitchen series of small handbooks. This one is by Alice Medrich with Maya Klein. They've got over 30 recipes "to sweeten the season" . Not all then preps are exclusively Christmas: the standards here reflect both the classics (chocolate chip, ginger, double oatmeal, nutty thumbprint, et al)
and the festives (buckwheat walnut or hazelnut tuiles, toasty pecan biscotti, chocolate sables, ginger-peach squares, et al). Sure to be a winner in the hostess gift sweepstakes, for it even includes conversion charts.
--DELICIOUS DIPS (Ryland Peters & Small, 2017, 2020, 64 pages, $13.95 hardbound) is a publisher's collection of some 50 recipes for dips from fresh and tangy to rich and creamy, using meats, legumes, veggies, herbs, olives, nuts, seeds, yogurt and cheese. Something for all, from 13 different UK food writers, principally Hannah Miles (with 15 preps).
--HOW TO DICE AN ONION (Dog 'n' Bone, 2020, 128 pages, $14.95 hardbound) is by Anne Sheasby. These are hacks, tips and tricks for the home cook, originally published in 2007 as "Kitchen Wisdom". Scores and scores of fail-safes will reward the budding home cook, offering assistance in all aspects of cookery. The best tips are those that try to correct your mistakes; next best are those tricks that employ substitution. It's an easy read, but try to dip into it often for reminders.
--JEWISH HOLIDAY BAKING (Artisan, 2020, 112 pages, $17.95 hardbound) is part of the Artisanal Kitchen series of small handbooks. This one is by Uri Scheft with Raquel Pelzel. They've got over 25 preps for inspirations dealing with Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, and more. The savoury section includes challah, potato hamantaschen, spinach burekas; the sweets have date mamoul, chocolate rugelach, sufganiyot. Another great hostess gift, which also includes conversion charts.
Other little books (and calendars), for beverages, include those on beer, wine and spirits:
--PINK GIN (Ryland Peters & Small, 2020, 64 pages, $14.95 hardbound) is a collection of some 30 or so pink-hued cocktails. Most of the preps come from Julia Charles, with some more from Laura Gladwin. It's an open-and-shut slender work, with the recipes scattered among three categories: cocktails, sparklers, and coolers. Most call for "pink gin" but you can use regular gin and add your own colouring, if need be (grenadine, cranberry juice, rose/red wine).
--HUGH JOHNSON'S POCKET WINE BOOK 2021 (Mitchell Beazley, 2020, 336 pages, $18.99 hardbound, $14.99 Kindle ebook) is a guide to wines from all around the world, not just to the "best" wines. It is in its 42nd year (first published in 1977). Johnson claims more than 6000 wines and growers are listed. News, vintage charts and data, glossaries, best value wines, and what to drink now are here. His book is arranged by region, with notes on the 2019 vintage and a few details about the potential of 2020, along with a closer look at the 2018. He's got notes on what wines are ready to drink in 2020. Johnson is also moving into food pairing: there is a section on food and wine matching. He also has a listing of his personal 200 fave wines. The Kindle edition is digitally enhanced for word searching, so it often beats a printed index for retrieving data – and it is $4 cheaper! A great purchase....
--WINES YOU SHOULD TRY; a guide for Canadians (Whitecap, 2019, 204 pages, $22.95 paperbound) largely supersedes the ninth annual edition (2016) of "The 500 Best-Value Wines In the LCBO 2017". This new work by wine scribe Rod Phillips is now national, and has both international and domestic wines arranged by wine colour and then by region/country with an indication of a price range (under $12 to over $49). He tasted about 1000 wines, and chose about 500 wines that are available in at least two provinces. Each of the wines has some value, or else they would not be in this tool: they can be considered at least "better" if not "best" of what's around in Canada. Each has an indication of food pairings. A good guidebook which features only those wines available in Canada -- that you should try.
--A YEAR OF GOOD BEER 2021 PAGE-A-DAY CALENDAR (Workman, 2020, 320 pages, $20.99)
quenches the beer lover's thirst: microbrewery recommendations, beer lore, trivia, history, labels, vocabulary, tasting notes, beer festivals, and more daily fun. Discover Bell's Porter whose smoky coffee notes lend an intriguing aroma profile; a hoppy Noble Prize Imperial Pilsner; and a perfect summer aperitif in the burgundy-hued Brombeere Blackberry Gose. Includes beer drinking games (like Buffalo Club, in which you must never be caught drinking with your right hand), recipes for refreshing beer cocktails, and "Hop Lookout" notes (like the smoothly bitter Cashmere, developed by Washington State University in 2013). Some of the beers appear as imports in Canada, but otherwise there are few Canadian brews included. Lights, wheat, lagers, ales, porters, stouts, seasonal beers, and lambrics – they're all here, 165 or so craft beers. If you buy any of the PAD calendars, then you can go online to the website and pick up other, free stuff, at www.pageaday.com.
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Your health depends on my health. We cannot escape one another in these perilous times.
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
AND http://gothicepicures.blogspot.com
AND https://twitter.com/gothicepicures
Dean Tudor, Ryerson University Journalism Professor Emeritus
Treasurer, Wine Writers' Circle of Canada http://winewriterscircle.ca
Look it up and you'll remember it; screw it up and you'll never forget it.
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