Tag Archives: Storey Publishing

Gift Guide 2017: Petrucelli Picks the Best Cookbooks of the Year

Parmesan cheese made from wood pulp. Lobster rolls containing no lobster at all. Extra-virgin olive oil that isn’t. So many fake foods are in our supermarkets, our restaurants and our kitchen cabinets that it’s hard to know what we’re eating anymore. In Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do About It (Algonquin Books, $16.95), Larry Olmsted convinces us why real food matters and empowers consumers to make smarter choices. Olmsted brings readers into the unregulated food industry, revealing the shocking deception that extends from high-end foods to everyday staples such as coffee, honey, juice and cheese. It’s a massive bait and switch in which counterfeiting is rampant and in which the consumer ultimately pays the price. It’s not a cookbook, but an essential expose look at fake food. We suggest not taking another bite or another sip until you’ve digest this eye-opener.

Terry Edwards and his best friend George Craig, the creators of London’s most popular pop-up restaurant Check On, have dished out their debut cookbook, Cooking for Friends: Bring People Together, Enjoy Good Food, and Make Happy Memories  (Harper Design, $35). Now everyone can replicate the Check On experience at home: Cooking for Friends boasts 100 recipes inspired by British ingredients and culture that reflect their playful aesthetic.

Our fave: A Pudding of Eggs and Soldiers (eggshells filled with crème brulee and mango jelly, accompanied by shortbread soldiers for dipping). Have a Yorkshire Rhubarb Martini on the side. The recipes include detailed, offering step-by-step instructions and are accompanied by lush and inviting photographs.

Christopher Kimball wants to teach people a new way to cook. Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street (Little, Brown and Company, $40), the first cookbook connected to Milk Street’s public television show, delivers more than 125 new recipes arranged by type of dish: from grains and salads, to a new way to scramble eggs, to simple dinners and twenty-first-century desserts.Product Details At Milk Street, there are no long lists of hard-to-find ingredients, strange cookware, or all-day methods. Skillet-charred Brussels sprouts, Japanese fried chicken, rum-soaked chocolate cake, Thai-style coleslaw, and Mexican chicken soup all deliver big flavors and textures without your having to learn a new culinary language. These recipes are more than just good recipes. They teach a simpler, bolder, healthier way to cook that will change your cooking forever. And cooking will become an act of pure pleasure, not a chore. Seconds anyone?
 
Another ambitious new approach to cooking by a major new culinary voice: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (Simon & Schuster, $35). Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements—Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food—and anything you cook will be delicious. Product DetailsBy explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time. 
 

The daughter of a restaurateur―the restaurant was New York’s legendary Ratner’s―Judy Gethers discovered a passion for cooking in her 50s. In time, she became a mentor and friend to several of the most famous chefs in America, including Wolfgang Puck. She also wrote many cookbooks and taught cooking alongside Julia Child. In her 80s, she was robbed of her ability to cook by a debilitating stroke. But illness has brought her closer than ever to her son: Peter regularly visits her so they can share meals, and he can ask questions about her colorful past, while learning her kitchen secrets. My Mother’s Kitchen: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and the Meaning of Life (Henry Holt, $28), is a funny, moving memoir about a son’s discovery that his mother has a genius for understanding the intimate connections between cooking, people and love. The recipes are few, but the book will leave you warm and fuzzy; your soul will be nourished. You will be glad you savored it.

Think of this as the Hawn of a New Day since Goldie’s daughter’s book is so much more than a cookbook. In Pretty Fun (Dey Street Books, $26.99) Kate Hudson shares her philosophy behind gatherings, how to be in the moment, make them uniquely yours, embracing occasions to just be together. Product DetailsA beautiful, fun, and nourishing guide filled with dozens of dazzling color photos, fabulous recipes for healthy and even some more indulgent snacks and beverages, and infused with Kate’s mindful and healthy approach to life, Pretty Fun will help you plan a year of special events, while remembering the healing power of gathering and celebration.

Yum! The Field Roast Grain Meat Co. offers their first cookbook, Field Roast: 101 Artisan Vegan Meat Recipes to Cook, Share and Savor (Da Capo Lifelong Books, $30), in which Chef Tommy McDonald shares recipes, fundamental techniques and tips, as well as vegan recipes for using them in every meal from breakfast through dinner. The 100 recipes are flexible: Want to make your own plant-based meats? Great! Product DetailsWant to use Field Roast products instead? That will work too. All you need are grains, veggies, and spices; easy-to-find whole food ingredients for authentic, hearty taste. Burnt Ends Biscuit Sandwiches anyone?

French pastry? Oui! Oui! With Maison Kayser’s French Pastry Workshop (Black Dog & Leventhal, $29.99), you can master the art of French pastry with step-by-step instructions from one of Paris’s best bakers, Eric Kayser. One of the draws to this ever-growing chain is the dozens of colorful and delicate pastries found in the window every day. And now you can make them at home. Product DetailsFrom festive creations to simple but sophisticated fare, Kayser provides clearly written recipes and his expert insight so you can replicate his delectable creations. More than 70 recipes include his bakery bestsellers, such as raspberry macaroons, lemon meringue tartlets, Epiphany cake, Yule logs, financiers, chocolate hazelnut tarts.

Pamela Salzman shares a simple but powerful mantra: Eat well, live well, be well. In Kitchen Matters (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 22.99), she shares the recipes that have won the praise of such mega-fans as Nicole Richie, Rashida Jones and Audrina Patridge. Product DetailsThe recipes rely on accessible veggie-forward ingredients that are anti-inflammatory and nutrient-dense, and can be customized for vegetarian, vegan and grain-free diets. The book offers a roadmap for new and busy home cooks to begin including more wholesome foods every day, for meals as nourishing as they are unforgettable.

When it opened in 2003, wd~50 was New York’s most innovative, cutting-edge restaurant. Mastermind Wylie Dufresne ushered in a new generation of experimental and free-spirited chefs, and introduced a wildly unique approach to cooking, influenced by science, art and the humblest of classic foods such as bagels and lox and American cheese. wd~50: The Cookbook (ECCO/Harper Collins, $75) brims with gorgeous photography, detailed recipes explaining Wylie’s iconic creations and stories from the last days of the restaurant. A cookbook and time capsule, wd~50 is a collectible piece of culinary memorabilia. Fans of Wylie, food lovers, and industry insiders who have been waiting for a chance to relive the excitement and artistry of wd~50 can finally do just that. 

Drunk with the thoughts of knowing all about rum? Rum: The Manual (Mitchell Beazley , $19.99) is an instruction manual, if you will, about how to drink rum of all kinds. Product Details More than 100 different rums are featured and analyzed, from rich, sweet mellow Guyana rums to the vegetal peppery rums of Martinique or Guadeloupe and contemporary spiced rums. A selection of classic and contemporary cocktails shows just how wonderfully versatile this spirit is.

Also on the menu: Two nifty spiral-bound cookbooks for the young-at-heart, both from Storey at $18.95 each Baking Class: 50 Fun Recipes Kids Will Love to Bake! fits kids ages 8–12 and features 50 easy-to-follow recipes. Product DetailsLively step-by-step photos teach bakers-in-training how to knead dough, make biscuits, decorate cookies, and produce a perfect pie, along with essential skills like following directions and accurately measuring ingredients. They’ll learn to make both sweet and savory treats and will use fresh fruits and vegetables in recipes such as Bursting with Blueberry Muffins. The tasty companion: Cooking Class: 57 Fun Recipes Kids Will Love to Make (and Eat!) contains more than 50 recipes designed for the cooking abilities and tastes of children ages six to 12. Product DetailsBasic cooking techniques are explained in kid-friendly language, and recipes include favorites such as applesauce, French toast, popcorn chicken and pizza. There’s also some great imaginative presentations . . . think egg mice, fruit flowers and mashed potato clouds. 

Crazy over coconuts? Savor Ramin Ganeshram’s new tasty cookbook

The big question: Are coconuts nuts?

The simple answer: No. Coconuts are classified as drupes (more specifically “dry drupes”; a drupe is a fruit with a hard stony covering enclosing the seed (like a peach or olive).  Got it?

Now get Cooking with Coconut: 125 Recipes for Healthy Eating: Delicious Uses for Every Form—Oil, Flour, Water, Milk, Cream, Sugar, Dried & Shredded (Storey Publishing, $18.95) the new book by Ramin Ganeshram, an award-winning cookbook author and professionally trained chef. That may be a long title, but coconuts are among the hottest food trends around, with eaters everywhere eager for new and exciting ways to incorporate it into their diets. Not only is it a superfood—boosting energy and improving heart health—but coconut is delicious, bringing fresh, rich flavor to any dish.

In her book, Ganeshram (who grew up with an appreciation for coconut, passed down from her Trinidadian father) presents all those original recipes that use coconut in all its forms, from coconut milk and oil, dried and powdered, to fresh coconut. Options span the menu, from breakfast dishes like Gluten-Free Coconut Bread with Meyer Lemon Glaze, and Savory Coconut Crepes, to dinner and dessert dishes like Coconut Tikka Masala, and Coconut Rum Crème Brulee. Ganeshram also tells the captivating stories behind her dishes, many of which have roots in traditional coconut-producing countries like Brazil, Jamaica and Thailand.

Ganeshram dishes up everything home cooks and health-conscious eaters need to know to fully enjoy this delectable powerhouse. Mmmm!

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE 2016: THE YEAR’S BEST RECIPE AND FOOD BOOKS (PART TWO)

Following up on their best-selling The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book, award-winning bartender Joy Perrine and restaurant critic and drinks writer Susan Reigler return to offer new recipes that will delight both the cocktail novice and the seasoned connoisseur. More Kentucky Bourbon Cocktails (University Press of Kentucky, $16.95) features more than 50 delicious new concoctions―including variations on classics such as the Old Fashioned and the Manhattan. The useful bourbon glossary and bibliography will appeal to professional or at-home bartenders eager to experiment, invent, and savor their own recipes.

Gwyneth Paltrow is back to share more than 125 of her favorite recipes that can be made in the time it would take to order takeout (which often contains high quantities of fat, sugar and processed ingredients). All the dishes in It’s All Easy: Delicious Weekday Recipes for the Super-Busy Home Cook (Grand Central Life & Style, $35) are surprisingly tasty, with little or no sugar, fat or gluten. From easy breakfasts to lazy suppers, this book has something for everybody. Yummy recipes include Chocolate Cinnamon Overnight Oats, Soft Polenta with Cherry Tomatoes, Chicken Enchiladas, Pita Bread Pizzas and Quick Sesame Noodles. There’s also an innovative chapter for “on-the-go” meals that you can take for lunch to work or school, to a picnic,or to eat while watching soccer practice.

Cattail Moonshine & Milkweed Medicine: The Curious Stories of 43 Amazing North American Native Plants (Storey Publishing, $19.95) is an offbeat and welcome food book. History, literature, and botany meet in this charming tour of how humans have relied on plants to nourish, shelter, heal, clothe, even entertain us. 61qubgvxcwlDid you know that during World War II, the US Navy paid kids to collect milkweed’s fluffy white floss, which was then used as filling for life preservers? And Native Americans in the deserts of the Southwest traditionally crafted tattoo needles from prickly pear cactus spines. These are just two of the dozens of tidbits that Tammi Hartung highlights in the tales of 45 native North American flowers, herbs, and trees that have rescued and delighted us for centuries.

If you’re vegan or simply looking to go dairy-free, enjoying the creamy simple pleasure of a cone or dish of ice cream can be a challenge. Then there’s the longing for the ooey, gooey goodness of cheese. vegancheeseicecreamadvancecoverThe answers (and recipes) can be found in The Best Homemade Vegan Cheese & Ice Cream Recipes (Robert Rose, $19.95), the only vegan recipe book that combines both ice cream and cheese recipes. All of the recipes, by Marie Laforet, contain natural and organic ingredients, making them healthy and surprisingly easy to prepare. With a little bit of organization and preparation, you’ll be creating sorbets, ice cream, ice pops and frozen desserts, along with flavorful artisanal cheeses, in the warmth and comfort of your kitchen.

Introduce your baby to a world of flavors with easy-to-make recipes for homemade baby food, featuring healthy ingredients, baby-friendly spices, and cuisines from India, China, France, Mexico and Morocco. The recipe for such success is Around the World in 80 Purees: Easy Recipes for Global Baby Food (Quirk Books, $19.99). The recipes are quick and easy, with imaginative variations featuring your favorite spices and flavors. Broaden your baby’s palate by the spoonful!

The warm sand. The salt air. The boardwalk. And, of course, Coastal cuisine from Asbury Park to Cape May. Summer at the Jersey Shore is unforgettable no matter which seaside destination is yours. And with The Jersey Shore Cookbook (Quirk Books, $22.95), you can have a taste of summer all year long. It features 50 recipes contributed by well-loved shore town restaurants, bakeries, markets, and more. From fresh oysters, scallops and tilefish to Garden State tomatoes, corn and blueberries, the perfect New Jersey ingredients shine.

When Candace Nelson started Sprinkles, America’s first cupcakes-only bakery, in 2005, people thought she was crazy. But Sprinkles sold out on opening day . . . and hasn’t slowed down since. Now, in The Sprinkles Baking Book: 100 Secret Recipes from Candace’s Kitchen (Grand Central Life & Style, $26), Candace opens up her recipe vault to bring you 100 irresistible desserts she can’t live without. But Candace doesn’t stop there. She shares the recipes for her all-time favorite cakes, pies, quick breads, cookies, bars, and other treats, plus delicious guest recipes from Sprinkles friends like Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts and Michael Strahan. Treat yourself to this sweet cookbook and share in the fun.

Over two years in the making, with Mario Batali searching for truly delicious dishes from all corners of the U.S., Big American Cookbook: 250 Favorite Recipes from Across the USA (Grand Central Life & Style, $40) features the best America has to offer. With over 250 simple recipes celebrating the treasures of the state fairs and the dishes of the local rotary clubs and ethnic groups. Batali has interpreted these regional gems with the same excitement and passion that he has approached traditional Italian food.All the dishes are  simple to prepare, and while Batali uses recipes passed down through the generations, he also shares hints on what he would add to the recipe to take the flavor up a notch.

Air-frying food is an innovative method of cooking that is incredibly healthy because although it produces crispy and tasty results, it uses very little oil. And although they are called air fryers, they also roast and bake, making them an ingenious and indispensable kitchen appliance. The recipes in 175 Best Air Fryer Recipes (Robert Rose, $24.95) are guaranteed to perform in an air fryer. On the Top 10 fave list: Beer Battered Fried Fish, Buttermilk Fried Chicken, Coconut Fried Shrimp, Potstickers and Old-Fashioned Cake Donuts. Yum!

Holiday Gift Guide 2016: The Year’s Best Non-Fiction Books (Part One)

Everything old is new again. A Very Vintage Christmas (Globe Pequot Press, $24.95) embodies the nostalgia and sentimentality associated with the holiday season. Vintage ornaments, lights, decorations, cards and wrapping all conjure up happy memories of Christmases past and serve as tangible mementos of holidays shared with family and friends. In fact, finding these objects, decorating with them and sharing them with others brings an instant feeling of comfort and joy. Coupled with beautiful photographs, tips on collecting, and secret shopping haunts, A Very Vintage Christmas offers a look at holiday decor in America and gives suggestions on how to make vintage finds work for today’s audience. While each chapter of A Very Vintage Christmas is unique, there is a common thread that runs through them all: the love of beautiful holiday decorations, and the interest in their history, value, and preservation. Quite merry.

On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana. Much of New Orleans still sat under water the first time Gary Rivlin glimpsed the city after Hurricane Katrina as a staff reporter for The New York Times. Four out of every five houses had been flooded. The deluge had drowned almost every power substation and rendered unusable most of the city’s water and sewer system. Six weeks after the storm, the city laid off half its workforce—precisely when so many people were turning to its government for help. How could the city possibly come back? A decade later, Rivlin traces the storm’s immediate damage, the city of New Orleans’s efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm’s lasting effects not just on the area’s geography and infrastructure—but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric of one of this nation’s great cities.

In 1535, William Tyndale, the first man to produce an English version of the Bible in print, was captured and imprisoned in Belgium. A year later he was strangled and then burned at the stake. His co-translator was also burned. In that same year the translator of the first Dutch Bible was arrested and beheaded. These were not the first, nor were they the last instances of extreme violence against Bible translators. The Murderous History of Bible Translations: Power, Conflict, and the Quest for Meaning (Bloomsbury, $28) tells the remarkable, and bloody, story of those who dared translate the word of God. Harry Freedman describes brilliantly the passions and strong emotions that arise when deeply held religious convictions are threatened or undermined. Can I hear an amen?

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners (Little, Brown and Company, $25) is a most deliciously scandalously guide to the secrets of Victorian womanhood. Therese O’Neill opens the doors to everything we secretly wanted to know about the Victorian era, but didn’t think to ask. Knickers with no crotches? Check. Arsenic as a facial scrub? Check. The infrequency of bathing and the stench of the Victorian human body?  It’s silly, sinful and superb! And the photos!

Herbs are hot! And in Making Love Potions (Storey Publishing, $16.95), Stephanie L. Tourles shows you how to bring that heat into your bedroom. She playfully presents 64 easy recipes for natural body oils, balms, tonics, bath blends and sweet treats to share with your special someone.  With beautiful illustrations and engaging explanations of the power that herbs, flowers, and natural oils have over our physical bodies, this is the perfect gift for lovers everywhere.

Buzz! Listen closely. The international bee crisis is threatening our global food supply, but we have a secret fix. The user-friendly 100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive (Storey Publishing, $16.95) shows what you can do to help protect our pollinators. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers browsable profiles of 100 common flowers, herbs, shrubs and trees that attract bees, butterflies, moths and hummingbirds. The recommendations are simple: Sow seeds for some plants—such as basil, rhododendron and blueberries—and simply don’t mow down abundant native species, including aster, goldenrod, and milkweed. This guide will empower homeowners, landscapers, apartment dwellers—anyone with a scrap of yard or a window box—to protect our pollinators.

For a new generation of homeowners and renters, the dual Domino books are the decor bible: a constant source of guidance, inspiration, and excitement. The Domino Decorating Books Box Set: The Book of Decorating and Your Guide to a Stylish Home Domino: The Book of Decorating (Simon & Schuster, $70) crack the code to creating a beautiful home, bringing together inspiring rooms, how-to advice and insiders’ secrets from today’s premier tastemakers in an indispensable style manual. The editors take readers room by room, tapping the best ideas from domino magazine and culling insights from their own experiences. With an eye to making design accessible and exciting, this book demystifies the decorating process and provides the tools for making spaces that are personal, functional and fabulous. Expert decorating tips, lush photography, and shrewd shopping strategies converge in straightforward guides. Maybe that sofa should be a bit closer to the window?

The Bible doesn’t call homosexuality a sin, and it doesn’t advocate for the one-man-one-woman model of the family that has been dubbed “biblical.” The Bible’s famous “beat their swords into plowshares” is matched by the militaristic, “beat your plowshares into swords.” The often-cited New Testament quotation “God so loved the world” is a mistranslation, as are the titles “Son of Man” and “Son of God.” The Ten Commandments don’t prohibit killing or coveting. What does the Bible say about violence? About the Rapture? About keeping kosher? About marriage and divorce? In The Bible Doesn’t Say That (Thomas Dunne Books, $25.99), acclaimed translator and biblical scholar Dr. Joel M. Hoffman walks the reader through dozens of mistranslations, misconceptions and other misunderstandings about the Bible. In 40 short, straightforward chapters, he covers morality, life-style, theology, and biblical imagery explores what the Bible meant before it was misinterpreted over the past 2,000 years.

Is your handwriting simply scribble? In the digital age of instant communication, handwriting is less necessary than ever before, and indeed fewer and fewer schoolchildren are being taught how to write in cursive. Anne Trubek argues that the decline and even elimination of handwriting from daily life does not signal a decline in civilization, but rather the next stage in the evolution of communication. In The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting (Bloombury, $26), Trubek uncovers the long and significant impact handwriting has had on culture and humanity-from the first recorded handwriting on the clay tablets of the Sumerians some four thousand years ago and the invention of the alphabet as we know it, to the rising value of handwritten manuscripts today. Establishing a novel link between our deep past and emerging future, Trubek offers a colorful lens through which to view our shared social experience.

Give us a little Razzle Dazzle. Please. Michael Riedel’s book is a love letter to Broadway, both a splendid history of this American institution and a wonderful account of how art gets made. Filled with Broadway’s history and its myths—heroes and villains, ups and downs, dirt and dish—raise the curtain. Please. Razzle Dazzle:  The Battle for Broadway (Simon & Schuster, $17) builds suspense as Riedel chronicles productions from idea to stage to reviews to Tony Awards. A captivating gift to theater lovers. This narrative account of the people and the money and the power that turned New York’s gritty back alleys and sex-shops into the glitzy, dazzling Great White Way is perfect for Broadway buffs.

Did you know that Frank Sinatra was nearly considered for the original production of Fiddler on the Roof? Or that Jerome Robbins never choreographed the famous “Dance at the Gym” in West Side Story? Or that Lin-Manuel Miranda called out an audience member on Twitter for texting during a performance of Hamilton (the perpetrator was Madonna)? In Show and Tell: The New Book of Broadway Anecdotes (Oxford University Press, $19.95), Broadway aficionado-in-chief Ken Bloom takes us on a spirited spin through some of the most intriguing factoids in show business, offering up an unconventional history of the theatre in all its idiosyncratic glory. From the cantankerous retorts of George Abbott to the literally show-stopping antics of Katharine Hepburn, you’ll learn about the adventures and star turns of some of the Broadway’s biggest personalities.

Agates: Treasures of the Earth (Firefly Books, $19.95) is a comprehensive, easy-to-use identification guide for rock lovers. The book describes names of agates (mineralogical, geological, local, trade, trivial); properties of agates (color, wall-banded, level-banded, cracked, thunder eggs); sources of agates (eruptions, lava, sediment, limestone beds, fissures);
lapidary (sawing, grinding, sanding, polishing); imitations and forgeries of agates  . . . and much more. Amateur gemologists and agate collectors alike will find this informative and beautifully illustrated book to be an indispensable resource.