Dictionary of Culinary & Menu Terms (Wordsworth Reference) Review

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(More customer reviews)While this book is interesting to read, it has some fundamental problems that make it more entertaining than useful.
1. It is not a true "dictionary". Some of the words are not spelled correctly, and most importantly, there are no pronunciations! I don't know how this book can even dare to call itself a dictionary when no pronunciations are even attempted.
2. It will have multiple entries for the same word for different languages. For example, there are two entries for the word "blåbær". One says the word means "bilberry" in Danish and Norwegian. The other says it means "bilberry" in Norwegian. Why the two entries when it was already stated that the word was BOTH in the previous definition? It's these kinds of careless mistakes that make the book difficult to use as a reference. Also, do I really need to know the Norwegian word for bilberry? Unless it's a classic ingredient in Norway, I don't need to know the Norweigian word for it. And I wouldn't know if it is used in Norway, because the definition of "blåbær" is simply "bilberry", and the definition of "bilberry" does not tell where the berry is native to.
3. It has misspelled a number of words. One that sticks out in my mind is "pepperoni". The book spells this "peperoni". While it is true that the word "peperoni" is a correct spelling in Italy, it does NOT mean "pepperoni". Peperoni in Italy is a green or red sweet pepper. Pepperoni is the sausage. But in this book, "peperoni" is defined as Italian for both green or red sweet pepper, and also the sausage. This is incorrect.
4. I somehow expected the definitions in the book to include some common kitchen equipment, too. It did not. As far as I can tell, this book only contains definitions for dishes, ingredients, and some types of drinks. (For example, it defines lemonade and tequila, but not mirin.)
It may be a bit nit-picky to bring up these issues, especially given the fact that the book only cost me $7.99 through Amazon, but I think people should understand the shortcomings of this particular book before they purchase. If you're a foodie who just wants an interesting read, this might be suitable. If you're a culinary professional who was looking for a reference text to help you define and pronounce important culinary words, this isn't going to be what you're hoping for.
As a foodie, I would give this book 3.5 to 4 stars, because it is interesting to read from a purely entertainment standpoint. I could not give it five stars because of the mistakes and lack of pronunciations. As a culinary professional, I could only give this book 3 stars. Because of the numerous mistakes, I don't feel confident trusting this book in a professional setting.

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The Wordsworth Dictionary of Culinary & Menu Terms contains over 12,000 entries and should prove useful to budding chefs and gourmands, fascinating to browsers and crossword enthusiasts, and a handy companion for hungry travellers or those wishing to avoid the potential pitfalls of self-catering and ordering meals in restaurants in foreign lands. In short, this book is essential reading for those who want to know the difference between chiorro, chiozzo, choko and chorizo, or who cannot tell a kaboucha from a kabanosi.Rodney Dale has assembled and arranged a rich diet of terms used for ingredients and recipes which are encountered in cuisine world-wide. This pabular vocabulary will be eagerly embraced by all those interested in and engaged in food and its preparation from whatever culture and tradition they may come.

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Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey Treats for Kids Review

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(More customer reviews)This is such an eye-pleasing book. I just love the scallop edged pages, and the sturdy, colorful cover. The lay flat spiral binding inside is also a good feature. I love food photography so I do wish this book had a picture of every recipe, but I understand the space constraints. There are a good amount of photographs though, and they are all beautiful!
We already own a lot of kid-related cookbooks, so I wasn't sure if we needed another one. I was delighted to find that this book is really appropriate for the more advanced young chef. My 13 year old daughter takes her cooking very seriously and she felt like this book was filled with fun recipes that were the kind a real chef would make.
Banana Split Pancakes, New York Crumb Cake, and Chock-a-block Chocolate Chip Gingerbread Muffins are on the top of my list of projects I can wait to taste from this book!
My only complaint is just related to the packaging done by amazon; some of my pages were bent by the inner cardboard piece inserted into the book.

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Teeny tummies love yummy treats. Sticky Chewy Messy Gooey Treats for Kids is bursting with 30 tasty but simple recipes for sticky sweets and gooey breakfasts. Such delights as Pinkalicious Princess Cupcakes, Wicked Good Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding Cups, Banana Split Pancakes, and Hunka Chunka Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies are the kinds of treats kids will love. With a lay-flat binding, an easy-to-clean cover, and step-by-step instructions, this book gets the whole family gathered around the mixing bowl.

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The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe from Each Year 1941-2009 Review

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(More customer reviews)As a longtime subscriber to both Gourmet and Bon Appetit, I used to tell people that I liked Gourmet for its savory recipes and Bon Appetit for its sweets. This new compilation of the best cookie recipes, decade by decade, from Gourmet confronted me with the fallacy of that statement. Some of my long-time favorite cookie recipes, including strawberry tart cookies and cranberry pistachio biscotti, can be found here. The best part of this book, however, is not the recipes, as good as they are, but the history behind them. The division of the recipes by decades offers glimpses into trends, subscribers, changing culinary tastes and abilities, and, of course, the focus of the magazine itself.
Interestingly, when the magazine was first published in 1940s and people baked more than they do today, the cookie recipes were much more simple, with tastes that highlighted a few ingredients: butter, nuts, spices. Even in the 1950s, when baking ingredients were more available, the cookies remained somewhat homey and classic, with gingerbread men, lace cookies, and sesame-seed-coated queen's biscuits taking center stage. In the 1960s, however, Gourmet's cookies started taking on a more international note; as the editors note, commercialized air travel and growing national unrest led to more daring recipes. As the book states, "not a single one of the four cookie recipes that appeared in Gourmet in 1963 was of American origin." With this new internationalism came other recipes with more sophisticated lists of ingredients and flavors. By jumping ahead to the 2000s, Gourmet's final decade, one can see how much American tastes have changed: many of the cookies are classics with gourmet twists that make them look more like professionally baked treats than homemade lunch box snacks. Because the book contains a full page photograph of each recipe, it is obvious that later recipes focused as much on aesthetics as taste, while most earlier ones were content with a plain appearance.
Because this book contains recipes exactly as they appeared in the magazine (with some recipe notes for clarification), contemporary bakers may be somewhat taken aback by the format in the earlier decades, as their directions are "remarkably casual, a kind of mysterious shorthand that assumes that each reader is an accomplished cook." While I dispute that these early recipes require any sort of advanced experience, they are definitely written out as though one person is describing the process to another, with ingredients not listed separately but as part of the instructions. (Separate lists of ingredients don't appear until 1982, when recipes were "no longer able to count on the readers' experience.") In some ways, I found the earlier recipes easier to follow because I didn't have to worry about going back and forth between adding sugar and reading how much sugar was called for. The amount was right there in the text.
But how are the recipes themselves? Absolutely wonderful. Not a single one of the recipes I tried missed, although, obviously, some recipes, such as the sparkling lemon sandwich cookies, took more time and effort. From the humble honey refrigerator cookies to the sophisticated coconut macadamia shortbread, these recipes will please contemporary palates.
-- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

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Sweet Simplicity: Jacques Pepin's Fruit Desserts Review

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(More customer reviews)Jacques has done it again! Each fruit has its own chapter with descriptions of varities of each fruit, ripeness tests, many color pictures of the finished results along with the uncomplicated recipes.
Fresh fruit season is beginning, so the big decision is where to start. There are great sounding recipes for all seasons, plus preparation time and nutritional analysis for all of them.
Jacques' PBS shows are always special as are his cookbooks. Keep them coming. A great read!

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the girl & the fig cookbook: More than 100 Recipes from the Acclaimed California Wine Country Restaurant Review

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(More customer reviews)This book by restaurant owner Sondra Bernstein, with recipes by executive chef John Toulze represents the cuisine served at a chain of Sonoma County based restaurants after which the book is titled. Based on the passions of Ms. Bernstein and her staff, the book and the restaurants focus on figs; dishes based on figs; the produce of Sonoma County; the cuisine of Provence, France; and the similarity of the terroir of Sonoma with Provence.
One object of the book is to publicize the chain of restaurants and the line of products based on the owner's love of figs. This is not too unusual, as I am certain this is one of the motives behind every celebrity chef / restaurant owner's cookbook. Some, like Tom Colicchio are less obvious about this interest. Others, like Emeril Lagasse, are pretty out front about this objective. All restaurant based cookbooks aim at providing the reader with some twist to their cuisine or it's presentation which adds sugar to the bait to create an interest in the restaurant(s).
One special feature of this book is borrowed from Ms. Bernstein's distinguished California culinary neighbor, Thomas Keller of the French Laundry. This is the addition of sidebars on some of the restaurants' more important, or, at least, more interesting suppliers. This includes fig, mushroom, and cheese vendors, past and present. This highlights one weakness to the book, in that it is so thoroughly based on what is available from the gardens and vineyards of Sonoma County. Not everyone in the United States is blessed with access to wild mushrooms and the talented foragers who supply them, or to cheeses from artisinal cheese makers. Happily, the chef / recipe writer has supplied generally available products to substitute for his Sonoma pantry.
The cornerstone of the book's cuisine is the parallel between the Sonoma and Provence produce and the cuisine which can be based on that similarity. Therefore, it should be no surprise to see most recipes appear to be straight out of the pages of books by Patricia Wells and Lydie Marshall. One of the most pleasant parallels is that the Bernstein / Toulze cuisine is based on fairly simple recipes, often with the kind of recipe modularity of sauces and pantry preparations common to an influence from Julia Child. The recipes for stocks, for example are about as simple as they come. There is no Thomas Keller / Judy Rodgers obsessiveness about technique here. Most recipes follow a recent quote I heard from Wolfgang Puck who said that the trick was to start with great ingredients and try not to mess them up. There are some unusual twists, such as the cooking oil of choice, a `blended oil' of one part olive oil and three parts canola oil. I am totally baffled that disciples of Provencal cuisine should eschew pure olive oil.
The recipes are organized by size and role of the dish rather than by main ingredient. Recipe chapters are:
`a small bite' hors d'ourves with figs, radishes, mushrooms, olives, shellfish, charcuterie, and crackers
`from the garden to the stockpot' soups, including many Provencal classics
`in the salad bowl' with lots of vinaigrettes, figs, asparagus, beans, endive, beets, walnuts, and cheese
`large plates' 25 familiar dishs such as pastas, coq au vin, duck cassoulet, and lamb shanks
`sauce over and under' with lots of butter, aioli, pistou, rouille, citrus, shallots, remoulade, and figs
`on the side' with lots of balsamic reductions, familiar vegetable, polenta, couscous, olives, mushrooms...
`sweets' with lots of figs, apples, pears, nuts, lavender, cheese, and cream
The cuisine owes a fair amount to the exchange of cuisine between Provence and northern Italy, with a fairly substantial contingent of recipes involving pasta, risotto, polenta, cipollini onions and balsamic vinegar. This makes the abandoning pure olive oil in favor of the blended oil even more puzzling. In spite of this mystery, I am certain that these recipes, especially those based on figs, are superior to many and worthy of the authors' dedication to Provence.
One very serious aspect of the restaurants' connection to Provence is Ms. Bernstein's commitment to wines based on varietals originating in the Rhone valley rather than the wines which made Napa and Sonoma wines famous. These are the Carignane, cinsault, Grenache, Roussanne, Syrah and Vognier grapes. All but the Syrah are unfamiliar to me, but that's just a symptom of my ignorance of wine. Each recipe gives a very simple recommendation of wine selected from this list. The emphasis on simple is important to contrast it to the elaborate, sometimes arcane recommendations given by Patricia Wells and others.
The authors' dedication to their chosen cuisine and their featured product is genuine and fruitful, producing many simultaneously simple and worthy recipes. There are occasionally long recipes for standards such as cassoulet and coq au vin, but that should be no surprise. They have convinced me to look forward to a visit to their restaurants if I ever get to northern California.
Recommended recipes for even novice cooks. A good read at a fairly reasonable list price. If you already own 10 books on Provence cuisine, you may want to take a pass.

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Canning and Preserving Your Own Harvest: An Encyclopedia of Country Living Guide Review

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(More customer reviews)Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest is a no-nonsense, step-by-step guide to properly (and safely - improper canning can promote food poisoning) preserving one's food, from freezing, drying, and canning to creating a root cellar, making fruit preserves, pickling, and much more. The second half of Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest is devoted to recipes that make delectable use of one's preserved food! A "must-have", user-friendly guide for anyone interested in preserving what they have grown themselves, Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest is highly recommended.

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Equipped with the knowledge of when to harvest, how to harvest, and what supplies are needed, anyone can learn what it means to create authentic, old-fashioned recipes in this age of grocery-store dependence. Carla Emery's in-depth knowledge comes from her years spent with farmers and homesteaders who truly lived off the land. Organized by food categories, this book — culled from and expanding on sections in the famed Encyclopedia of Country Living — features a wealth of recipes, each preceded by a discussion of our changing motivation as food consumers along with detailed explanations of the processes behind canning and preserving. From drying to pickling to freezing, Emery's preserving methods are as broad in scope as the recipes themselves. Do-it-yourselfers can welcome summer's arrival with chunky peach jam and oven-dried tomatoes, or host a fall harvest with fresh herb bouquets and smoked chicken. Step-by-step instructions, charts, and informational sidebars make the process easy and enjoyable.

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Apples for Jam: Recipes for Life Review

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(More customer reviews)If you want a "just the facts, ma'am" type of cookbook this is not for you. However, beyond the good range of simple but inspiring recipes, it was the stories and pictures that are mixed in that really made this book for me. (NB: I didn't mind the colour-coding of the recipes as there is an alphabetical index in the back)
I will definitely be adding more of Tessa Kiros in my cookbook collection.

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Inspired by the excitement and simplicity of childhood, Tessa has brought together recipes based around colourful and pure fresh ingredients that create uncomplicated and delicious family meals. From the comfort of soups and roasts, to the striking colours of beetroot gnocchi and mango sorbet, to the simplicity of rice pudding with nutmeg, this book weaves recipes with reflections and hopes. Alternative ingredients and options for serving suggestions are given for many of the recipes, extending their appeal. The evocative text and innovative recipes are complemented by beautiful photographs and hand-drawn pictures. Key points: more than 100,000 copies sold worldwide; like Tessa's other bestsellers, "Venezia" and "Falling Cloudberries", this also mixes a traditional recipe style with a rich and personal narrative on Tessa's own passion for food; featuring mouth watering food photography and traditional recipes; and, reads beautifully and captures Tessa's warm and genuine voice in the recipes and accompanying text.

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