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Very interesting article from last week’s Houston Chronicle, Click Here I took several classes at HCC and had no idea the Chef Eddy Van Damme (as far as I know he is not related to Jean Claude) is there. The food in the cafeteria sure did not reflect his presence . The excerpts above certainly caught my attention in the article as well as the recipes included. Has anyone heard of him or his book? Are the concepts mentioned in the article truly new? Or are they pretty common in the industry and the average diner is just learning about them? I figured if anyone will have something to say about Van Damm, the book, the concepts it will be the good ol’ bunch on the Pastry and Baking forum. So let us hear it. link to the book Elie

I will be in Madrid and Barcelona for vacation in a few weeks, and I'm looking for recommendations on bookstores, which have a large selection of cookbooks or are exclusively cookbook stores. Does anyone have any recommendations? And, do the stores have selections/translations in English?

Last night LonghornGal, F52, Rita and my friend Sarah took a Central Market Class with Rebecca Rather. It was a great class because it let us try four recipes out of her book, The Pastry Queen. Does anyone else own it? Now that we've tasted four of her cakes, Longhorngal and I plan to bake our way through it. We'll be posting pictures and reviews in this thread. So far, we've made her maple oatmeal cookies, café chocolate cherry cookies, and her blackberry bars. All were excellent, and I’ll post the pictures later. During last night's class, RR made the best white cake I’ve ever had (recipe is in her book), the strawberry ricotta cake, an American Beauty cake (which was really a chocolate mousse cake) and her “Totally Rummy” cake which has to be the best scratch rum cake I’ve ever eaten. Her book has lots of other sweet things, but there are quite a few savory recipes as well. I’ll list a few more recipes later and will cook and post more pictures and reviews here. If you get a chance, take one of her classes. Or better yet, road trip out to the Hill Country and visit her at the bakery before she becomes too famous. She’s incredibly talented. Here are a few pictures from last night. More to come. Pretty in Pink Cake (white cake) Rum Cake

Wondering if anyone has seen or owns this book. Amazon France has a deal on it with Gerard Mulots book. http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2501...4365179-1509865 Although I expect that there's as many savory recipes ( not a bad thing) in 'Tentations' as sweet, I love this guy and might just have to break down and order it. Talk to me! Thanks!!!

Moderator note: The original "Chocolate Desserts" by Pierre Herme topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: "Chocolate Desserts" by Pierre Herme (Part 1)] Continuing with the chocolate-caramel theme, I made the chocolate-caramel mousse from Desserts by Pierre Herme. This mousse has a whipped cream base, into which is folded melted into bittersweet chocolate+caramel sauce. Very sweet, and very delicious.

Not sure which forum to use for this, but I'm a dedicated foodie/egulletier and am working my way through Ducasse's Livre cookbook. It suddenly occurred to me that it would be great to secure the guidance of a professional chef to guide me through some of these recipes. My thought is the person would come to my apartment and we would cook some of the recipes together occasionally. Any thoughts of how I might go about finding such a professional in NYC? Thanks! BTW, I can be reached at: musettanyc@aol.com.

Linda Dannenberg's Paris Boulangerie and Patisserie: Recipes from Thirteen Outstanding Bakeries ($ for egullet if you order thru this Amazon link) just got reprinted (Mar 2005) by a new publisher (Grammercy Books) and at a great price (under $12 on Amazon). Until recently, it had been out of print (1994) and available for over 100 bucks on Amazon so I had to content myself with taking it out of the library from time to time. Of the 70 or so recipes, about 15 are breads, baguettes and brioche. It has great photos of most of the pastries/cakes/cookies/breads and features the following bakeries: L'Ancienne Tradition Storrer, Laduree, Dalloyau Les Specialistes Max Poilane, Le Maison du Chocolat, Patisserie Lerch Les Grandes Classiques Lenotre, Ganachaud, Marcel Haupois Les Jeunes Aritsans Extraordinaires Jean-Luc Poujauran, Moulin de la Vierge, Gerard Mulot and Au Peche Mignon. I have so far only cooked one item from the book: Tart al a Rhubarbe. It was excellent with a ground almond pate sucree dough and filled with rhubarb in a creme fraiche custard. I'm eager to tackle more recipes but thought it would also be nice to hear what other people may have tried...

My copy arrived yesterday. Creativity with twists, turns and backflips and some of the best plating and styling I've ever seen. I've seen some good looking food in my day but this is exceptional. The details and complexity of each dish are staggering, so be prepared for some high-end cooking without compromise. Having a dinner party in a few weeks and the entrée and main will be straight out of here. Will report back with photos.

Just got given some amazing Asparagus Root. Ive never cooked with it before. I was thinking of simmering it in some stock and doing a soup, or extracting the flavour into cream, but that seems super boring. Is there anything I can do with it thats a bit more avane garde? I was considering a gelee, but not sure how I would do that without having to extract the flavour out of it. I love how they look, and I want the actual root to be a part of the final presentation. Any help would be fantastic! Alex

I would like to expand my knowledge about the history of cooking in various countries in the world outside Europe, mainly Japan, China, India, the Persian area, but I'm open for everywhere. So I'm looking for books that deal about how a cooking style developed in relation with the area; I'm not interested in recipes, but in historical and sociological issues. Just for example, I'd like to read a book that tells the story of Kaiseki style, how it was born and developed, how the Japanese culture influenced it (Shintoism, temple cooking and so on). I'm more interested on the high end cooking styles, like Kaiseki and Imperial Chinese. But I'm quite ignorant and don't have any references on these matters. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance. Teo

OK, let's be frank. My goal is to read the set without shelling out $450. I would LOVE to pay $450 and own my own copy. But that isn't happening. I even agree that it's probably worth every penny. But that's 45,000 pennies I can't afford right now. So, has anyone heard of a school/library/foundation lending the thing?

Does anyone have any thoughts about Alice Waters' new "40 Years of Chez Panisse"? Not a recipe cookbook - more of a memoir/history/picture book.

Can anyone recommend a few good Italian baking/pastry books? (in English, I mean) I have Carol Field's The Italian Baker, the newish Biscotti by the American Academy in Rome Sustainable Food Project, and Gina de Palma's Dolce Italiano. Oh, and Sweet Maria's Italian Cookie Tray. TIA.

Hello. I would be grateful if anybody could advise on buying a book. It is a present for an Italian friend. He is not a novice baker but I wouldn't call him experienced . I'm pondering buying Rose's Heavenly Cakes for him, I don't own it myself (I'm not into cake baking), but I think she is very detailed and it could be a very good resource for him to learn. I'm just worried the flavors in the book are too far from the European taste. But I don't own the book. Any thought? I was thinking as an alternative Baking: From My Home to Yours by D. Greenspan or Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes by D. Lebovitz Thanks

Announcement of a new book by Blumenthal, due October 2011 in the UK. (Amazon UK are taking pre-orders, currently at £21.) From the publisher's blurb, it sounds like it might just be 'MC for the rest of us'. Hey, it has a section on sv! And at 432 A4-sized pages, its not going to be lightweight. http://www.bloomsbury.com/Heston-Blumenthal-at-Home/Heston-Blumenthal/books/details/9781408804407

Just picked up a copy of this neat new book at CostCo for $18, not expecting too much, but I must say, it's a really nice book! Nice production value, great photos, layout, organization. Hardcover, not too big, not too small. Short primers about each meat they cover, beef, pork, lamb, veal. Including a drawing of the animal indicating what's from where. No poultry and the veal chapter is the shortest with 12 recipes, but I'm still glad to see veal covered at all in a mass market book (published under the Williams-Sonoma brand), as I have to go to a specialty butcher to even buy veal. Maybe this is going to change? Sure would be nice. Each recipe has a little introduction, most have a "handwritten" note from a butcher explaining something. Clean layout, if there are things like pork and bbq sauce, each part has a headline in the ingredient list, the explanations are well done from what I read so far and easy to follow. Some really nice recipes as well! Recipes range from bbq over roasting to stews and pan fried, a nice mix of things. Now, if you have a bunch of meat books (ahem, like me) you probably don't need this (but might want it anyway, LOL), but it would certainly make a great gift or book for somebody expanding on what they do with meat. And all the bits and pieces of meat info thrown in are certainly worth reading, I always find something new in those things, even though I owm just about any book that has the title meat in it Check it out, lists at 29.95 but cheaper online or at CostCo right now, at least at ours here in Concord. Worth the money.

The original The Italian Baker was a groundbreaking book with it's well researched recipes and techniques on rustic Italian breads and pastries. It was a huge influence on my style of baking and I'm excited to see there is an updated version. I'll be picking up a copy in the next couple of weeks but I was wondering if anyone has gotten their hands on the new version and can comment on how much it has evolved?

Any online references listing ingredients textures?

Back in the late 80's, I was lucky enough to spend a year living in Panama City, working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research institute (STRI) as a research assistant. While there, I fell in love with the food. The best tamales I have ever had (and very different from Mexican tamales). Fantastic ceviche. Wonderful, filling soups. Some of the best Chinese food I have ever had, believe it or not, since many Chinese helped build the Panama Canal, so there is a large Chinese population. Wonderful fresh breads similar to Cuban breads. Wonderful fish dishes with coconut from the San Blas Islands. A sort-or tamale casserole called tamale de olla. I have not been able to find either a good Panamanian cookbook or a good Central/Latin American cookbook with a decent selection of Panamanian recipes. I have found a few recipes here and there on the internet, but none I have really loved. Does anyone know of any good cookbooks with Panamanian recipes? English preferred but my Spanish, although rusty, is good enough to do OK with a Spanish cookbook. Thanks!

For those who cant afford the 4,000 to use the volatile compounds in food database does anyone know a open source with the same data? Flavour.net has some stuff but I'm really looking for a bit more relevant data. Any thoughts?

I want to call it a plancha...because it sounds cool. It may not technically be a plancha - it's my reversible cast-iron stove top grill; you know the one - one side is flat and the other is ridged. Whatever it's called, I hardly use it...I guess because the grill side isn't really grilling, and if you've used the grill side and want to use the flat side, when you turn the sucker over all the drippings that dripped when you were "grilling" now get incinerated. But now I want to focus on using the flat side and yesterday I pulled it out of it's slot, heated it up and made breakfast, starting with griddling some Flying Pigs Farm's shoulder bacon... And finishing with some French toast, having been inspired by Fat Guy's French toast topic... The French toast came out quite good. The bacon, of course, was a no brainer. Do you own a plancha? If so, what do you use it for?

Just purchased the ibooks version of this new book. It contains the recipes from the book plus a number of instructional videos on how to prepare some of the dishes. Looking at the book, it is good to see sous vide entering the mainstream as just another cooking technique rather than some technological marvel. Neil Perry tells how they prepare the dishes in the restaurant, which is often sous vide, with times and temperatures. He then provides instruction on how to cook the dishes if you don't have the equipment. This is a steak house book written by a chef whose original flagship restaurant, Rockpool, has been in the San Pellegrino World's top 50 Restaurants. I'd totally recommend it either in paper or electronic form. ps. for our US friends, the measurements come in metric, imperial, and cups.

I was wondering if anyone else had purchased the book "Zumbo" or was using it? I just received my copy today. I bought it on-line from the Adriano Zumbo store at http://adrianozumbo.com/new-book-zumbo/ (it came signed by the man himself) But it is also available from other Australian retail outlets such as http://www.readings.com.au/collection/adriano-zumbo Or internationally at http://www.amazon.com/Zumbo-Adrian/dp/1742665713/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317859251&sr=8-1 (not yet available internationally I think) For international readers, Adriano Zumbo is a very well known Australian pastry chef who has spent time learning the craft with Pierre Herme and others. He has his own stores now in Sydney, Australia. http://adrianozumbo.com/adriano/ He became more of a household name through his numerous appearances on Masterchef Australia with extremely challenging pastry pieces for the contestants to create and has since had his own (short) series on SBS TV. He also does a lot of food festivals around Australia. His Masterchef recipes are challenging and can be located at: http://www.masterchef.com.au/guest-chef-adriano-zumbo.htm (See the list on the right of the screen under "Adriano Zumbo Recipes") And his SBS recipes are at: http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/zumbo/recipes/page/i/1/h/Recipes/ (Click through the different episode tabs near the top of the screen) His reputation is for being a little "different" - which comes through in the books layout and graphic design - with his pastries and so for me (who owns a number of pastry books already), this was a welcome addition to my collection as it has some unusual flavours/combinations - eg., sticky date, strawberry bubblegum and chocolate mayonaisse macarons to name just 3. The book is broken up into 6 sections: - Zumbarons (macarons which he is probably most well known for) - Chocolates - Pastries - Gateaux de Voyage - Cakes - Desserts with basic recipes and a glossary at the back. For a pastry book, the book is good value - $50 (or less at some spots) for a 250+ page, hardcover, book with colour photos on pretty much every page is pretty cheap compared to some others out there. I'll be spending the next few days reading through it and then I'll be trying a few things from it - it'll be nice to make an Australian Pastry Chef's recipes for a change

As mentioned in my eG foodblog, Anne Willan’s The Country Cooking of France is one of my favorite cookbooks (together with Les Halles, Lucques, and a few others). It’s very complete and covers regional specialties as well as a wide variety of techniques. I like the fact that the recipes are authentic and contain detailed instructions. Every time I think of a French specialty that I miss, I can find a recipe for it in this book. It won a James Beard award in 2008 in the international cookbook category. Here is some additional information from the publisher: Renowned for her cooking school in France and her many best-selling cookbooks, Anne Willan combines years of hands-on experience with extensive research to create a brand new classic. More than 250 recipes range from the time-honored La Truffade, with its crispy potatoes and melted cheese, to the Languedoc specialty Cassoulet de Toulouse, a bean casserole of duck confit, sausage, and lamb. And the desserts! Crêpes au Caramel et Beurre Salé (crêpes with a luscious caramel filling) and Galette Landaise (a rustic apple tart) are magnifique. Sprinkled with intriguing historical tidbits and filled with more than 270 enchanting photos of food markets, villages, harbors, fields, and country kitchens, this cookbook is an irresistible celebration of French culinary culture. As I was using this book few days ago, I thought that I should start a thread about it. I’ve been cooking from it regularly since I bought it a couple of years ago. Hopefully other people will join me. Pumpkin and leek soup with foie gras This is a simple but flavorful soup. The pumpkin is boiled with leeks and potatoes until soft, and then pureed in a blender. The soup goes from a simple and comforting dish to a great course that could be served in a dinner party thanks to the addition of a slice of seared foie gras. I used a cast iron skillet and it only took a minute or two per side to cook the foie gras. D’Artagnan sells frozen foie gras slices that work great in this application. Lastly, the soup is topped with thinly sliced chives. There is no cream in the soup, but the foie gras more than compensates for it!

This is a new book out on chocolate, has anyone read it/is it worth investing in?