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Hi, I'm interested in learning how to cook Pakistani/Indian food. I want a book that has relatively simple recipes and is for a beginner of this type of cuisine. The reason I say Pakistani and not Indian, is that I feel that I enjoy food in Pakistani restaurants generally more than Indian. I know they are similar in many ways, and even have many of the same dishes and ingredients, but I generally found the Pakistani versions to be spicer and generally more flavorful. I also would like to learn some good meat dishes and kebabs, and I know a lot of Indian books are more veg-centric. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks - WBC

can someone recommend one please? in english

I just received a copy of Pichet Ong's Sweet Spot and see some interesting new ideas and formulas that I will have to try out. Last night I made the dragon devil's food cupcakes and they are amazing! Next time I will use less tea and more burbon in the ganache, otherwise, spot on. Does anyone else have this book? What are your thoughts? Dan

Does anyone out there have any good suggestions for Thai food? I just moved to Seattle and am surrounded by fantastic Thai restaurants and am wanting to try it at home.

Can anyone direct me to any antique cookbooks that are viewable page by page online? I already know about the excellent Feeding America site, and I'm wondering if there's anything else like it out there, either individual books or collections. Thanks.

Sur La Table has entered the cookbook market, but instead of following Williams Sonoma's example of single subject books, they've come out with Things Cooks Love, (which is also the name of their new branded line of cooking gadgets -- I think it makes a better brand name than cookbook title, but maybe that's just me.) It's not surprising that much of the book seems to be dedicated to equipment. Not having seen the book itself, I can't say how useful it is, but it could be a good reference for the new cook. Likewise the "Global Kitchen" section, which is designed to give "comprehensive looks at the implements of global cuisines, detailed lists of essentials you’ll want in the pantry for a culinary tour, plus delicious recipes to put it all together." Regardless of the execution, it doesn't sound like something I'd get for myself, but I can see it being a nice gift if it's done well. Has anyone seen this?

I have just bought 4oz of fresh Perigord Truffles and have a question about whether the truffles should be warmed to release their maximum flavour or simply shaved ontop of the dish. Two weeks ago I got ahold of a Burgundy Fall truffle and was struck by the fact that when we shaved it ontop of an omelet the flavour was not nearly as strong as when we made another omelet and rolled the shaved truffles inside. With the Perigord Truffles I plan to use them to make truffled mashed potatoes. I had planned on shaving them over the individual servings at the table but now I am wondering if it would be better to fold them into the potatoes before serving them.

Janice Wong is the chef and owner of 2am Dessert Bar in Singapore, one of the few dessert restaurants in the world. This is her first book, and involves on her plated desserts. Visually it's great, the packaging and photos are stunning. I haven't tried any recipes, but after reading some they seem consistent. My main complaint is that this book has few dishes (about 30), it has about 120 pages, and a good amount are occupied by full 2 pages photos. So overall this book is on the pricey side (about 55 US$ plus shipping), but I'm happy to have bought it. As far as I know you can buy it only through the official website: http://perfectioninimperfection.com/ and until now it went under the radar of all the press. Teo

Do people own/have any good recommendations for cookbooks which have been self-published (or at least from small independent publishers)? Not that I think that there is anything inherently better about indie/self-publishing, but knowing people who have self-published (but not cookbooks) I know the problems of promotion and getting your work out there. So I though having such a wide ranging and knowledgeable community as eGullet (sycophantic I know!) collect and recommend some independent cookbooks would be useful for everyone!

We've been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Modernist Cuisine at Home since it was announced... copies started arriving today, so it's time to start cooking. My mom's in town for the weekend and wants to try the Apple Cream Pie: it's pretty straightforward, but I do have a question about the Granny Smith apple juice. Lacking a juicer, I have to make the juice the hard way; should I be doing this cold, or can I use one of the juicing techniques that heats the apples?

Hi, I ordered this book and its companion: The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef, both by Bo Friberg, and was wondering if anyone has experience with the books? I've bought them because I wanted to gain a better understanding and more comprehensive knowledge about pastry (especially the dessert side) and thought that this would be a good starting point. Please share your thoughts about the books and any advice on desserts! With kind regards, Koen

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 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.

Anyone picked up a copy yet? I've never been to the steakhouse--altho' flipping through the book, that's something I must correct when I head to the UK in '012--but this is a nice book. Obviously beef centric, altho' there are also recipes for other beasts--chicken, lamb, veal, goose, pork and shellfish. What's nice is that for a meat-centred book, the steak and burger recipes are less recipes and more detailed breakdowns of the technique. Indeed, the book as a whole has a lot of recipes (for cocktails as well as savoury dishes and puddings) but there's also a lot of room given to relevant techniques. Altho' being a steakhouse book there's obviously no discussion of sous vide, etc. A nice touch, too, that I'd never thought of before: the burger patties are made with ground meat and bone marrow. Genius. The breakfast section alone should mean that this book is sold in sealed black plastic and kept behind the counter and only sold after a waiver has been signed. I love this kind of book and I love this kind of food. Already this is one of my favourite British cookbooks. Tonight I'm cooking a T-bone steak (using their method, which differs somewhat from my usual) and some of the sides. Preparing a marinade for the 'Tamworth pork ribs', too.

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

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.

[Moderator note: The original Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 3)] Well, I was in the "didnt know" camp as I have sadly not cooked as many recipes as I would have liked from the book. After reading your post and seeing your pics I decided to give it a whirl and was definitely not disappointed, it was as good as any BBQ Ive ever had (and I live in central texas now, we have pretty good bbq here) Embarrassingly I think the only things Ive really cooked from the book are the mac and cheese, the carrot soup, the pastrami, and now the bbq ribs. Any other insanely popular recipes that I have missed and need to make since I have a few days off?

I've just recetly started to use sherry in my cooking, and thus far it's been to add flavor to soup, stock, and sauces, and to deglaze pans. I know there are different styles of sherry, and certainly a wide range of prices and, perhaps, even quality. However, for the described purposes, does the style, price, and quality make much, if any, difference. Rightg now I'm using a bottle of Amontillado that I picked up at TJ's for about $7.00 or so, and it seems to be OK. Any comments would be very welcome. Thanks!

Maybe I should be posting this in the cookbooks forum, but I think it belongs here (if there's a moderator in the room, please change it if this is the case) Phaidon has released "1080 recipes" by Simone Ortega in a luxurious, one volume edition, illustrated by Javier Mariscal and with an addendum of menus by famous chefs. When I first saw the enormous book in Frankfurt's book fair my first reaction was a (very loud for the place and occasion, I have to admit) WTF?! In my heart, Ortega's book is the kind that gets stained and loses its spine after a lot of use in a real kitchen, not something you'd be scared to open in fear of anything happening to it. Phaidon seem to have wanted to dress up an old workhorse (even though we are speaking about a very valuable one here!) as something fancy, and I'm not sure how foreign audiences will react to it, or whether we could say 1080 recipes actually portrays everyday Spanish food. But, then again I may be wrong... Here's a review from Slate about this. What do you guys think? Have you had a chance to take a deeper look to the English version? What would your number one choice in cookbooks be when introducing non Spaniards to Spanish food? Mar (Edited for typos)

I just heard about this site. Tastebook is a service that lets users take recipes from sites (I think just epicurious at the moment) and make a cookbook, which they can then pay to get printed copies of for themselves or to share. The site says it's $35 for a book with 100 recipes. I think it's a really neat idea and while I haven't tried playing with the site yet I might find myself doing so in the future. What do you think?

Supposedly coming out this year. Anyone know anything?

Here's the link to the cookbook: http://books.boomerangbooks.com/featuredbo...921259760&db=au I spotted Holiday at the bookstore a couple of days ago and while flipping through, thought it looked well presented and filled with recipes that are reasonable enough for me to do. Who here has bought this book and tried any of the recipes? I'd love to hear whether you suggest (or not) buying it

If so, how are the recipes? I'm mainly interested in the vegetarian, fish, and dessert recipes. http://www.amazon.com/Isabels-Cantina-Flav...95371904&sr=8-1

I'd like to get into collecting vintage and rare restaurant menus. Can anyone point me in the right direction on sourcing?

As has been mentioned around these parts, the CIA just published a third edition of Garde Manger: The Art and Craft of the Cold Kitchen. I've finally ordered a copy for myself, and I'm eager to start digging into the book, having consumed Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman. I'm wondering where to start in the book. Personally I'd like to hear about people's experiences with charcuterie, but I hope the topic itself can focus on all components of the book. So: where to begin?