4. EVERYONE CAN COOK FOR CELEBRATIONS; seasonal recipes for festive
occasions (Whitecap, 2009, 261 pages, ISBN 978-1-55285-993-3, $24.95
CAD soft covers) is by Eric Akis, a food writer for the Times Colonist
in Victoria, BC. He's a former chef and the bestselling author of the
"Everyone Can Cook" series (covering basics, seafood, appetizers, and
midweek meals). There are five in this series, and I guess you could
call him Canada's answer to Mark Bittman. These are simple festive
dishes, suitable to a wide range of meals such as just entertaining,
Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, et al. But their
usefulness lies in the creative planning of menus, and some of these
are given on pages 250 – 251, with page references to the original
recipe. He has a Retro New Year's Eve dinner, and elegant New Year's
Day dinner, a New Year's Day breakfast, and a Chinese New Year's
buffet. Each of his sections has menus, so there must be about 30 of
them and 140 recipes. Preparations have their ingredients listed in
both metric and avoirdupois measurements, and there is no table of
equivalents. There are plenty of cook's notes and options for
variations here.
Audience and level of use: beginner or home cooks.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: spinach salad with
strawberries and walnuts; chanterelle mushroom crostini; shrimp baked
in champagne butter sauce; Yorkshire pudding; apple-glazed breakfast
sausages; mushroom-pinot noir sauce; fig and olive tapenade.
The downside to this book: the quantities for each ingredient are set
in pastel colours on the page, which makes for squinty reading and poor
photocopying. I advocate photocopying recipes for actual kitchen
preparation (saves wear and tear on the book, and you can clip the
recipe to a shelf or cupboard).
The upside to this book: a good clean look.
Quality/Price Rating: 86.
5. THE FINEST WINES OF CHAMPAGNE; a guide to the best cuvees, houses,
and growers (University of California Press, 2009, 320 pages, ISBN 978-
0-520-25940-9, $34.95US soft covers) is by Michael Edwards, who has
written many guides to champagnes. This book (and the one below) is
part of a major series of illustrated guides created by the editorial
team at "The World of Fine Wine" magazine (which sells for $80US a
copy). It has been co-published with Quarto-Aurum in the UK.
Producers, vineyards and vintages are all covered in the series by
regional look. According to Hugh Johnson, one of the founders, the
books cover "the wines most worth talking about". Thus, the appeal is
to the serious wine lover who will read about what the wines taste
like, why they taste that way, and how they mirror the people and times
that made them. The Champagne book is terroir-driven, with 90 profiles
of the best houses and growers. It is organized geographically, from
Reims, Ay, Epernay and beyond. Each entry gets a description and
assessment, a photo or two, some tasting notes of the "finest" wines,
and bare bones co-ordinates of street address, phone number, and web-
site. The intro covers the mystique of sparkling wines, while the last
section covers lists. Here will be found surveys of the previous 20
years of Champagne, matching of wine and food (including places to
eat), and ten top-ten tables to give us a list of the best 100
champagnes (ten best roses, ten top-value, ten prestigious, etc.).
Other valuable sections cover a glossary and a bibliography.
Audience and level of use: the serious wine lover, wine and cooking
schools, libraries.
Some interesting or unusual facts: Just after the authorities in
Champagne increased acreage (this was an acrimonious pursuit), the
bottom fell out of the world's economy and sales plummeted.
The downside to this book: the worst I can complain about is the too
thin fabric bookmark.
The upside to this book: good value, far less expensive than the
magazine.
Quality/Price Rating: 90.
6. THE FINEST WINES OF TUSCANY AND CENTRAL ITALY; a regional and
village guide to the best wines and their producers (University of
California Press, 2009, 320 pages, ISBN 978-0-520-25942-3, $34.95US
soft covers) is by Nicholas Belfrage, MW, who has written many guides
to Italian wine. This book (and the one above) is part of a major
series of illustrated guides created by the editorial team at "The
World of Fine Wine" magazine (which sells for $80US an issue). It has
been co-published with Quarto-Aurum in the UK. Producers, vineyards
and vintages are all covered in the series by regional look. According
to Hugh Johnson, one of the founders, the books cover "the wines most
worth talking about". Thus, the appeal is to the serious wine lover who
will read about what the wines taste like, why they taste that way, and
how they mirror the people and times that made them. The Tuscan book is
terroir-driven, with over 90 profiles of the best houses. It is
organized geographically, from Chianti and Montalcino through
Montepulciano, Umbria, and Marche. Each entry gets a description and
assessment, a photo or two, some tasting notes of the "finest" wines, a
word about some recent vintages, and bare bones co-ordinates of street
address, phone number, and web-site. Both red and white wines are
covered. The intro covers the mystique of terroir plus winemaking
styles and grapes (sangiovese mostly), while the last section covers
lists. Here will be found surveys of the previous 19 years of the
region, matching of wine and food (but no places to eat), and ten top-
ten tables to give us a list of the best 100 wines (ten great
brunellos, ten top-value, ten top whites, etc.). Other valuable
sections cover a glossary and a bibliography.
Audience and level of use: the serious wine lover, wine and cooking
schools, libraries.
Some interesting or unusual facts: From the author, "I will no doubt be
taken to task for including certain producers I represent commercially
or have done at some point in a longish career as a buyer, retailer,
importer, and broker of Italian wine."
The downside to this book: the worst I can complain about is the too
thin fabric bookmark.
The upside to this book: good value, far less expensive than the
magazine.
Quality/Price Rating: 90.
7. MORE VEGETABLES, PLEASE! Over 100 easy & delicious recipes for
eating healthy foods each & every day (New Harbinger Publications,
2009; distr. Raincoast, 227 pages, ISBN 978-1-57224-590-7, $ 21.95US
soft covers) is by Elson Haas, MD, and Patty James, MS (founder of the
first certified organic cooking school in the USA). The subtitle pretty
well says it all. The authors strive to incorporate as many veggies as
possible into standard dishes such as mac and cheese, pizza and chicken
pot pie. This is family driven food. They have tips for adding ]veggies
to favourite dishes, making veggies taste better with seasonings, using
seasonal selections of veggies, and in general, making everyone in the
family aware of what nutrition and good taste is all about.
Audience and level of use: home cooks with families.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: red pepper strips with
artichoke and caper filling; tofu cauliflower soup; spaghetti squash
supreme; asparagus quiche; yam casserole.
The downside to this book: Preparations have their ingredients listed
in avoirdupois measurements, but there is no metric table of
equivalents.
The upside to this book: good introductory material on how to approach
food, and how to get kids interested in the kitchen (let them help).
Quality/Price Rating: 86.
8. SOUP (DK Books, 2009, 352 pages, ISBN 978-0-7566-5697-3, $25US hard
covers) is a book package assembled by four food editors and four
recipe testers. This is a compendium of 200 basic soups preps, from
appetizers to hearty and full meals. It has been organized by food
ingredient, such as summer vegetables, winter vegetables, legumes and
nuts, fish and shellfish, poultry game and meat. Each prep has the
usual cook's notes and advice. There are separate technique and recipe
planning chapters – these also have plenty of photos. The planners have
pix and page references to recipes for topical soups such as
vegetarian, chilled, hearty, healthy, spicy, quick, and "main meals".
Each recipe has service level, prep and cook times, and storage
possibilities. The last chapter has some ten bread recipes.
Preparations have their ingredients listed in both metric and
avoirdupois measurements, and there is no table of equivalents.
Audience and level of use: home cooks
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: mussels in a ginger and
chile brother; red pepper soup; fish soup with fennel; chicory
gazpacho; smoked tomato soup; curried broth with peppers.
The downside to this book: I wanted more recipes, not just the basics.
The upside to this book: nice large print fonts, clear and easy to use.
Quality/Price Rating: 89.
9. DRINK THIS; wine made simple (Ballantine Books, 2009, 352 pages,
ISBN 978-0-345-51165-2, $26US hard covers) is by Dara Moskowitz
Grumdahl, a top wine and food writer (she's won four Beards for wine
writing and restaurant criticism). She reminds us that personal taste
is the only deciding factor in what to drink. Of course, you'll need to
recognize what you like and do not like, and that demands a fair bit of
tasting. The first tasting should be the Old World vs. the New World,
the food wine vs. the party wine, the dry vs. the off-dry, the red vs.
the white, the still vs. the sparkling. It goes on. Here, the author
categorizes most wines by eight varieties, claiming, quite rightly,
that these grapes make most of the wines consumed in the USA:
zinfandel, sauvignon blanc, riesling, chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon,
syrah, sangiovese, tempranillo, and pinot noir. A lot of the material
is presented by way of Q and A, sidebars, and lists, with wine
recommendations based on price and availability. It takes a while to
work your way through this book, but in the end it works.
Audience and level of use: wine novices
Some interesting or unusual facts: the book does very well in handling
restaurant situations, menus and pricings, and sommeliers.
The downside to this book: I think it could use some more work on
"other" grape varieties.
The upside to this book: while not explicitly stated, I think that this
book would be terrific for women who don't give a hoot over a wine's
exact provenance or track record, the way some men would.
Quality/Price Rating: 87.
10. GINGERBREAD (Chronicle Books, 2009; distr. Raincoast, 144 pages,
ISBN 978-0-8118-6191-5, $19.95 US hard covers) is by Jennifer Lindner
McGlinn, a pastry chef and food writer. Here she promotes all things
ginger-y, emphasizing cakes, cookies, ice cream, candy and other
desserts, including two gingerbread houses. Nothing says Christmas more
than "gingerbread" – it is so European. She has a short history of
gingerbread in the primer section. There are about 50 recipes here plus
more for variations, different dough, and sauces. Preparations have
their ingredients listed in avoirdupois measurements, but there is a
metric table of equivalents.
Audience and level of use: home cooks
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: bread and butter pudding
with pain d'epices and quince; gingerbread maple-moon pies; gingerbread
pumpkin ice cream sandwiches; gingerbread blackberry trifle; pumpkin-
gingerbread torte; buche de noel; gingerbread brownies.
The downside to this book: cook's notes are hard to read because the
typeface is so faint.
The upside to this book: she has a special chapter on gingerbread
breakfasts.
Quality/Price Rating: 88.
11. 12,167 KITCHEN AND COOKING SECRETS; everyday tips, hints,
techniques and more (Robert Rose, 2009, 704 pages, ISBN 978-0-7788-
0222-8, $27.95 CAD soft covers) has been assembled by well-known
Toronto Star newspaper food columnist Susan Sampson. Her premise: to
present kitchen advice that she has gathered over the years, in this
case, totaling 12,167. It is all arranged by major topic. There's a
collection of advice on tools (cookware, knives, wraps, linens,
household supplies, blender, coffee grinder, deep-fryer, microwave,
plus the major appliances), shopping and storing, pantry basics,
produce, meat, seafood, cooking techniques, baked goods, entertaining,
plus safety and hygiene. She even manages to give us several dozen
recipes as a sort of lagniappe (preps have their ingredients listed in
both metric and avoirdupois measurements, but there is no table of
equivalents). She also has Master Plans (MPs) for techniques in cooking
standard dishes. Under Lamb, she has an MP for both slow-roasted lamb
and herb-crusted lamb. I could go on, but you can read the other 12,000
or so secrets for yourself. Maybe somebody will do a blog, call it
Sully and Susan, in which Sully tries to do 12,167 kitchen secrets in a
year – that's over 33 a day! Just kidding. A book like this is only as
good as its index, and this one is about 3,000 entries long. And she
gives us five handy websites for pictures and recipes and more tips
(Cook's Thesaurus, Recipesource.com, Epicurious.com, Chow.com, and
Baking911.com). At the end, she gives us advice to ignore, such as
"blanching basil beforehand makes smoother pesto". To her, it also
makes blander pesto. So don't do it.
Audience and level of use: home cooks, the experienced, the curious,
reference libraries.
Some interesting or unusual facts: "A technique that one cook swears
by, another shrugs off. Just because a famous chef says something
…doesn't mean it is written in stone…Please don't think of cooking tips
as rules…most rules are just guidelines."
The downside to this book: it could also have been useful as a released
CD database, fully searchable by keyword.
The upside to this book: she lists eight places to continue to find
kitchen tips.
Quality/Price Rating: 90.
12. REFLECTIONS OF A WINE MERCHANT (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008;
distr. by DMPI, 257 pages, ISBN 978-0-374-24856-7 $24 US hard covers)
is by Neal I. Rosenthal, an organic farmer who also has a wine
importing company, Rosenthal Wine Merchant. Log rollers include a US
poet laureate and Victor Hazan. Rosenthal specializes in sustainable
wineries; he only imports traditionally made wines produced by small
family-owned estates in France and Italy. He was featured in the
documentary "Mondovino" (by J. Nossiter), and in Lawrence Osborne's
"The Accidental Connoisseur". Rosenthal is one of the outspoken critics
of globalization and homogenization. He is a strong believer in
terroir. This book recounts his visits to a variety of cellars and
vineyards, plus the vignerons. Chock full of useful anecdotes.
Audience and level of use: memoir readers.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: I found it strange that
Rosenthal never ever mentioned Mondovino, nor The Accidental
Connoisseur, nor their authors.
The downside to this book: no Mondovino?
The upside to this book: there is an index, which makes this book
extremely useful.
Quality/Price Rating: 88.
13. THE GRISWOLD AND WAGNER WARE CAST IRON COOKBOOK (Skyhorse
Publishing, 2009; distr. T. Allen, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1-60239-803-0
$24.95 US hard covers) is by Joanna Pruess, a magazine and newspaper
food writer and cookbook author (about a dozen books). The American
Culinary Corporation now owns Griswold, Wagner, and WagnerWare; their
cast iron products have won more gold medal awards than any other
producer's. You can, of course, use any cast iron cookware in doing
these 66 cast iron recipes. The arrangement is by food product:
luncheon, vegetables, mains (poultry, meat, seafood) and desserts. The
introduction has a history and a primer on cast iron ware, along with
some antique adverts (which are also strewn about the book). Cast iron
has been making a comeback, principally because it is seen as
"traditional". Yet it is a healthy alternative to regular cook ware,
its only drawback being its high maintenance and weight. There is also
a cast iron FAQ and a glossary. David G. Smith, a collector of cast
iron for over 30 years, also contributed to this book. Preparations
have their ingredients listed in avoirdupois measurements, but there is
no metric table of equivalents.
Audience and level of use: home cook, traditionalists.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: mac and cheese with bacon;
Asian quesadillas; oven roasted asparagus with macadamias; buttermilk
fried chicken; Provencal lamb stew; Finnian haddie; salted caramel
sauce.
The downside to this book: a few more recipes might have been useful.
The upside to this book: a useful contribution to cast iron cooking.
Quality/Price Rating: 89.
14. APPETITE CITY; a culinary history of New York (North Point Press,
2009; distr. DMPI, 368 pages, ISBN 978-0-86547-692-9, $30 US, hard
covers) is by William Grimes, resto critic for the New York Times,
1999-2003 and co-author of "The New York Times Guide to New York City
Restaurants". That Grimes was able to condense his history into a
workable 368 pages must be seen as a minor miracle, since the history
of New York restaurants is the history of American food. In fact, I can
offer no better synopsis than to quote the publisher: "a grand tour of
the city's restaurants, exploring the ways in which sex and class
determined where and how a person would eat, and how the city's
restaurant scene mirrored the larger social and political forces in
shaping New York." There is an index, so you can check out his
extensive writings about Delmonico's. He introduces a lot of characters
through anecdotes. Covered are the oyster bars, the steak houses, the
ice cream parlours, the beef-and-beans joints, the Automat, the restos
of the 1939 World's Fair, the modern multicultural places of today, and
the Bowery.
Audience and level of use: food historians, restaurant lovers.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: he began his book when he
was asked to curate a display of vintage menus in the New York Public
Library collection.
The downside to this book: the title is slightly misleading, since this
is a history of restaurants in New York, not all foods.
The upside to this book: he has just a few, but also just the right
number, of black and white antique or historical photos or
illustrations of restos.
Quality/Price Rating: 89.
