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I was excited to see Bayless publishing a new cookbook this month, More Mexican Everyday. He's one of my favorite chefs both for his cooking and his cookbooks, and I love Mexican food. Plus, living in Oklahoma I have access to pretty much all of the necessary ingredients. Has anyone else ordered this? I'm headed to the local mercado this afternoon to stock up on ingredients. The cookbook arrives tomorrow, but I won't have time to shop later in the week so I'm going to guess at the necessities based on the Table of Contents. I figure masa, crema, and poblanos are a safe bet! Plus some tomatoes and jalapenos. What am I missing?

I am a big fan of Kenji Lopez-Alt's columns on Serious Eats and was pleasantly surprised today to learn that he has a book coming out. It is being released by Amazon Sept. 21. I plan on buying a copy. Anyone else? The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

It may be that I have missed it in the topics, but I can't find any reference to the 2011 publication of Cook's Illustrated Cookbook: 2,000 Recipes from 20 Years of America's Most Trusted Food Magazine. It appears to retail in the USA for $40 but is available on Amazon for far less than that. Obviously lots of recipes with interesting notes also. I always love the notes and explanations. Back home in Canada my library doesn't carry Cook's Illustrated and the larger city library has only a few issues. I've borrowed it from the local library in Utah and am thinking about buying it. Any thoughts, please ?

Previously I described radicchio and gorgonzola pasta sauce, for which I used Roquefort. Yum. Tonight I made grilled radicchio with creamy cheese, namely Pierre Robert, as specified. When I was reading this recipe a few nights ago, I was enjoying a wedge of Pierre Robert on sale, having purchased a full wheel. Yum.

I am attempting a recipe from Peter Greweling's book "Chocolates & Confections." It's the Salt & Pepper Bars. In the recipe you first lay down a layer of salted caramel in your frame, then spray with cocoa butter before laying down the second layer. I don't have an airbrush or any equipment really. Can anyone shed light onto how this is done - I've searched the book and online, but haven't found any sources to help. I get that it's supposed to help with moisture retention, but am not sure how to "spray with cocoa butter." Thanks for any tips!

Dear all, I was wondering if you could lend me some advice. I am a huge cookbook collector - with a special focus on collecting regional culinary bibles. If a cookbook has history/culture etc, I buy it. Basically, anything along the lines of Claudia Roden or David Thompson (Thai Food). I live in the UK, and do not eat pork. So buying a Mexican cookbook has never really been on my mind. However, I do feel I ought to have at least one book by Kennedy. I have however heard mixed reviews about the updated 'The Essential Cuisines of Mexico'. Would it be worth finding a used copy of the original 'Cuisines of Mexico'? Does it have more history, anthropology etc than the updated version? I am not interested in just having recipes. Also, as a side note, what would be a good substitute for pork lard? I know it features pretty heavily in Mexican cuisine but I feel like it shouldn't be a barrier to looking to my cooking. Would olive oil work? Or should I use Chicken or Goose fat (Much in the same way I would substitute Goose fat for pancetta when making bourguignon? Or is the pork lard absolutely essential? Many thanks!

I use and love both Edwald Notter's (Art of the Chocolatier) and Peter Greweling's (Chocolates & Confections) books on making chocolate confections. But sometimes I wonder about different advice each of these experts gives. Case in point: the chocolate pre-coating on slabbed ganache before it's cut. Greweling says to slab the ganache, allow it to crystalize and then apply a thin coat of tempered dark chocolate at 86 F on top of that. Notter says to first apply a thin coat of overtempered chocolate - hot (95 F to 100 F) - to acetate, then lay down the frame and pour/slab the ganache. I've tried both, and like aspects of both. Here are my issues. (Note that I use a knife as I don't have a guitar cutter.) I'm attaching two photos to illustrate. 1) Tempered chocolate at 86 F method seems to result in chocolate that's harder to spread (thickens as it cools) and seems to break quite easily when cutting, compared to the overtempered 95-100 F chocolate method. However I've had varying degrees of success with "overtempered" since I'm never quite sure if I've achieved overtempered or just out-of-temper chocolate. The chocolate is easier to spread at the higher heat, but sometimes it gets streaks all over and is just hideous. But when I get it right, it is noticeably easier to cut. 2) Additionally, as I don't have a guitar and I find acetate to be a bit spendy, I slab my ganache on parchment paper. When I used Notter's method of first applying overtempered chocolate to the parchment (he says to use acetate), the parchment kind of warps and doesn't stay flat. Perhaps the combination of shrinkage and heat? I use parchment paper because cutting on the acetate damages it, and it's just expensive to use a new sheet for every batch. It's a bit easier to just apply the chocolate to the top of the ganache, in my opinion, rather than applying it as the first layer (though that layer of chocolate on the bottom does hold the bars down nicely). In my photos you'll see one is nicely tempered (Greweling's method), but it cracks so easily when cutting. And you'll see one doesn't crack, but it's clearly not properly tempered as I was aiming for "overtempered." What's your experience? Thanks!!

Recently took a big casserole cookbook out of our local library. Taste of Home Casseroles. Lots of lovely photos and over 400 recipes. Alas, many of the recipes call for cans of cream of this soup and that soup, packages of instant rice and potato mixes, refrigerated rolls and so on. And almost all the recipes were very North American. Not that I am damning these ingredients to the nether realms...I just want to know: where are the good casserole cookbooks? Are there any? Who has a title for me? Thanks.

Hello everyone, I made warqa dough for the first time today, following a recipe from Paula Wolfert's The Food of Morocco cookbook. It was surprisingly easy to make, however, i am concerned that this pastry is way too fragile to use. Im not sure if i did something wrong. The leaves are very delicate, especially around the edges. Some of them have rips in the centers. I brushed each with olive oil and layered them according to instructions and popped them into a bag. I was planning on making Paula's seafood bastilla in a couple of days but i think i might end up using filo dough. Has anyone made homemade warqa? Have you used it for any recipes such as bastilla? Is yours soft or crispyish? The leaves came out more like a spring roll consistency then a filoish consistency. Please help. Im curious of other peoples experience with this.

My newest cookbook is and I've been cooking from it lately for the past week or so. I absolutely adore it, and the restaurant on which its based. (The seats however, are another story, but that's a minor quibble.) Anyone want to come along for the ride? (the last two pix are dishes at the restaurant, and recipes for those can be found in the book)

I'm wanting a good haute patisserie cookbook that's more than just a recipe book but would be more of a "textbook" for those of us who patisserie is a hobby, but aims to recreate professional level type patisseries etc. I am more interested in the more gateaux type desserts rather than chocolates. Can anyone suggest any books?

Has anyone bought and used Stephane Glacier's new patisserie book "Petits gâteaux, tartes et entremets au fil des saisons"? Any thoughts?

After USGM, I went over to a Barnes & Noble and bought which I've been wanting to get for a long, long time. My partner, B, has their book "Plenty" which came out in May 2010. I considered buying that, but it didn't "grab" me the same way that this one did. I'm dreaming about making a few things right off the bat, like for instance, maqluba (page 127), sabih (page 91), charred okra with tomato, garlic and preserved lemon (page 74) and roast chicken with clementines and arak (page 179). I'm looking forward to cooking my way through this book. Anyone want to join me?

The team over at Modernist Cuisine announced today that their next project will be an in-depth exploration of bread. I personally am very excited about this, I had been hoping their next project would be in the baking and pastry realm. Additionally, Francisco Migoya will be head chef and Peter Reinhart will assignments editor for this project which is expected to be a multi-volume affair.

I'm wondering what you recommend as the best books about France chocolate cakes or great chocolate? Thank

A few weeks ago I bought a copy of this cookbook which is a best-selling spin off from the highly successful television series by China Central Television - A Bite of China as discussed on this thread. . The book was published in August 2013 and is by Chen Zhitian (陈志田 - chén zhì tián). It is only available in Chinese (so far). There are a number of books related to the television series but this is the only one which seems to be legitimate. It certainly has the high production standards of the television show. Beautifully photographed and with (relatively) clear details in the recipes. Here is a sample page. Unlike in most western cookbooks, recipes are not listed by main ingredient. They are set out in six vaguely defined chapters. So, if you are looking for a duck dish, for example, you'll have to go through the whole contents list. I've never seen an index in any Chinese book on any subject. In order to demonstrate the breadth of recipes in the book and perhaps to be of interest to forum members who want to know what is in a popular Chinese recipe book, I have sort of translated the contents list - 187 recipes. This is always problematic. Very often Chinese dishes are very cryptically named. This list contains some literal translations. For some dishes I have totally ignored the given name and given a brief description instead. Any Chinese in the list refers to place names. Some dishes I have left with literal translations of their cryptic names, just for amusement value. I am not happy with some of the "translations" and will work on improving them. I am also certain there are errors in there, too. Back in 2008, the Chinese government issued a list of official dish translations for the Beijing Olympics. It is full of weird translations and total errors, too. Interestingly, few of the dishes in the book are on that list. Anyway, for what it is worth, the book's content list is here (Word document) or here (PDF file). If anyone is interested in more information on a dish, please ask. For copyright reasons, I can't reproduce the dishes here exactly, but can certainly describe them. Another problem is that many Chinese recipes are vague in the extreme. I'm not one to slavishly follow instructions, but saying "enough meat" in a recipe is not very helpful. This book gives details (by weight) for the main ingredients, but goes vague on most condiments. For example, the first dish (Dezhou Braised Chicken), calls for precisely 1500g of chicken, 50g dried mushroom, 20g sliced ginger and 10g of scallion. It then lists cassia bark, caoguo, unspecified herbs, Chinese cardamom, fennel seed, star anise, salt, sodium bicarbonate and cooking wine without suggesting any quantities. It then goes back to ask for 35g of maltose syrup, a soupçon of cloves, and "the correct quantity" of soy sauce. Cooking instructions can be equally vague. "Cook until cooked". A Bite of China - 舌尖上的中国- ISBN 978-7-5113-3940-9

The cooking with Modernist Cuisine at Home topic seems to have mostly run its course as many of us have had the book for quite a while. One thing I like a lot about the book is that it presents ideas for variations along with the recipes and presents many variations of ways of achieving similar results. So my motivation for this topic is to have a place to talk about our experiments in modifying the recipes - successful or not. You see I have difficulty following instructions... To start, is serendipity with this post in the sous vide thread asking about using bag juice that came out right as I finished up an experiment with the red wine glaze. The experiment was motivated by a mistake where I made SV short ribs at too high a temperature a while back. The meat was not very good but juice was wonderful. So instead of frying up a bunch of ground beef, I took a half kilo of relatively lean stewing beef and bunged it in the SV at 88 C for an hour. At the end of that time the meat was dry and the bag full of meat juice. The juice was very clear and light in colour with little in the way of 'gunk'. I added it to the wine and veg, started reducing, then strained the veg out and reduced the rest of the way. I skipped pressure cooking the knucklebones (I'm not sure why the recipe has you reduce the wine, then add water to pressure cook the bones, why not cook the bones in the wine then reduce?) To cut to the chase, I was quite happy with the result. I don't agree with the 'fat is flavour' mantra and the only fat in this was the little that rendered out of the meat in the SV. I might try adding a little gelatin for mouth feel and to make the glaze with less reduction. ... and the dog was happy with the dried out meat for his tea-time.

I bought something I've been eagerly awaiting from Kitchen Arts & Letters today. Now, I rarely cook from cookbooks, but I'll make an exception for this one. I have my eye on a few things, such as the coq au vin and cassoulet, but the things I want to make the most are probably all of the vegetable dishes in the book. It's probably too late for me this week (because what I get from USGM on Saturday generally sets the tone of menus for the next 3-4 days), but I'll be keeping some things in mind for down the road. Roast lamb with braised vegetables is an idea, ditto for the shakshuka. What will you be making?

I just received from the US the book Bachour. It brings plated desserts to a imaginable level with plenty of different recipes and ideas to use and modify. I think it's a great debut for the author and for one who wants to practice or learn gastronomic plated desserts.

Looks like a fair number of us have been wooed by Ken Forkish's wonderful new book! The bread thread is full of his loaves lately. I thought the book needed a thread of it's own so we could discuss some of the finer points of the various recipes - work arounds we have come up with - and just to generally praise (and of course critique) the tome. I haven't had a failed loaf from the book so far - but I do find myself trying to make some adjustments to suit my schedule and have had great success with that so far. The levain takes 5 days to make - I was fortunate as Anna N made it and I just inherited 300 grams that I have been keeping alive since. I've discovered that feeding 50 grams of levain with half as much flour and water as called for gives me enough to work with on any given day and it doesn't seem to suffer. And it appeals to my thriftiness as I don't like throwing out large quantities each day. Today I'm working on 2 loaves of pain de campagne - a request from one of the nurses who got all misty eyed when she tasted the loaf I brought last week. She said it tasted just like the bread she likes at home in Europe. High praise indeed I thought. I fiddled this recipe a bit - again to fit my schedule. I mixed the ferment last night, gave it 4 turns over about 90 minutes then popped it into the fridge until this morning. I let it warm for an hour or so - shaped my loaves then let them sit until they responded to poking as they should. Took about 3 hours. They are baking now - and look just like they should.

In the near future, a friend and I would like to do a Mexican themed dinner party. Any tips for internationally available Mexican cookbooks? I'd like something as "authentic" as possible (whatever that may mean ;-) – I should be able to get various dried chiles and other ingredients at the two Mexican supermarkets here in Vienna. Is Authentic Mexican (20th Anniversary Ed) by Rick Bayless any good? His name does crop here quite often, but judgements regarding authenticity seem to be mixed ...

Breakfast has become a problem at our house. We no longer get up at the same time and we no longer eat the same things every day for breakfast. So I have been searching for power/nutrition/energy/granola/health/power/etc bars to make for me to eat. DH doesn't eat them. Well, not at breakfast anyway. Recently a new cookbook, Power Hungry: The Ultimate Energy Bar Cookbook by Camilla V. Saulsbury has come out and I have started making a few of the bars in it. Some are excellent, some not wonderful, others way too sweet for me. The first section contains recipes for well-known "knock-offs". The only commercial bar we've tried is a Clif bar and both thought it was awful. I suspect that most of them are too sweet for our personal tastes. (To generalize wildly: Canadians are less addicted to sugar than Americans...more addicted to salt.) The book includes recipes for vegans and for folks who can't tolerate gluten. Lots of variations given with each recipe. I am proposing to go through the entire book of 30 recipes, making one after another, to find the ones which suit me. I'll report back on this. (Give me a purpose for surviving this horrible cold winter. ) Maybe someone else has the book, has tried some recipes, and is interested in this. Saulsbury also has a blog, http://powerhungry.com/ , in which she has posted some bars which are not in the book. I haven't figured out exactly which ones are repeated in the book yet. Should have added Europeans generally like less sugar than do Americans. Don't know about Aussies or other countries...

6 books outlining every dish they came up with over this time with essays etc. Appears to be about the size of Modernist Cuisine and has about the same price tag. I can't say I'm really that excited about it but I preordered anyway to add it to the collection as it wil surely be a historical record of what the pinnacle of that movement in cooking was about at the time. Even though it only shuttered 2 years ago, it seems like so much has changed in the culinary landscape. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0714865486/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Has anyone seen this book yet? If so, do you have any comments about it you can share? The Praline

Dear all, Have already checked some topics about cake books from the index, but would like to start another one. I am looking for the recipe cake books which has the recipes of absolutely delicious layered cakes. You know, not just a cake + buttercream, but perhaps something more interesting, when flavor combination just leaves you with WOW! And of course the compliments from others.. Preferably not too complicated, the one which is possible to make for the intermediate baker at home. Any suggestions?