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Cookbooks 2012


DanM

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While not a cookbook, Ruth Bourdain is about to release her guide to gastronomy... Cover Me with Offal. The description from Amazon.

Twitter sensation and culinary mash-up Ruth Bourdain, winner of the 2011 James Beard Foundation Award for Humor, is your personal guide on this culinary adventure, sharing a wealth of knowledge acquired through years in restaurant kitchens, experimentation with food porn, smoking tangerine zest, and an unfortunate incident involving a durian. Along the way, Comfort Me with Offal features vivid and fascinating personal stories from Ruth Bourdain’s extraordinary life in food, including appearances from many of the world’s most renowned chefs.

Not since Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s landmark The Physiology of Taste has there been a more comprehensive guide to the world of food and wine. From food history to dining etiquette to matters of taste, this practical handbook offers the basics for navigating every aspect of gastronomy, including:

· • A food timeline, from the dawn of man to the modern era

· • The importance of celebrity chef hairstyles

· • Achieving the orgasmic potential of chocolate

· • Culinary pick-up lines

· • The twenty types of offal you need to eat before you die

· • Becoming a “master baster” on Thanksgiving

· • A field guide to the modern foodie, from carniwhores to gastrosexuals

· • Essential exercises for bulking up your taste buds

· • Tips for raising a baby gastronome

· • How to prepare for a vegan apocalypse

· • And so much more . . .

http://www.amazon.com/Comfort-With-Offal-Bourdains-Gastronomy/dp/1449427480/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345732273&sr=8-1&keywords=ruth+bourdain

"Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea." --Pythagoras.

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Of course, LT Wong,

I received the book yesterday. I have only browsed through it but I am eager to get started.

The chapters are arranged by ingredient:

Chapter 1 is Peanut butter

Chapter 2 is Lemon And Lime

Chapter 3 is Carmel

Chapter 4 is Booze

Chapter 5 is Pumpkin

Chapter 6 is Malted Milk Powder

Chapter 7 is Cinnamon

Chapter 8 is Cheese

Chapter 9 is Chocolate

Chapter 10 is Banana

There are lots of pictures. Everything looks delicious.

The book has cakes, pie, cookies, souffles, bars,sugar pretzels, whoopies pies, quiche, chocolate cheese cake muffins, pudding, tarts, banana in a blanket, scones and more.

My husband loves upside down cakes. There is a Whiskey Peach Upside-Down Cake that looks great and is different than anything I have made before.

I am very excited about this book.

I love the 2 previous Baked books. Even more, I love the fact that the authors are accessible and answer their email questions. I asked how much their cup of flour weighs. I got a response saying it is 139g. That information is very important to me. Everything I have ever made from their previous books was GREAT!

I hope you enjoy the book. If you would like to know anything else about the book, just let me know :smile:

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  • 3 weeks later...

A few more on my watchlist (this has a more UK bias)

Memories of Gascony - from an iconic former *** French chef, long out of print, recently republished.

Pierre Gagnaire - 175 Home Recipes with a Twist

The Square - Savoury - first cookbook from a longstanding London ** chef.

Two Many Chefs, Only One Indian - first book from Sat Bains, a cutting edge Anglo-Indian cheffy moleculary type chap.

Ta

J

More Cookbooks than Sense - my new Cookbook blog!
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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

PS I pillaged the selection at Foyles (London's best cookbook selection) the other week and two volumes I thought particularly interesting were Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu and Secrets of the Sommeliers by Rajat Parr (this one might be a year or two old - its a US import).

Both def were worth looking at

J

More Cookbooks than Sense - my new Cookbook blog!
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Has anyone got hold of a copy of Bouchon Bakery yet? Any comments to share?

Just get a copy. I have not opened it up yet. I will report back.

The Philip Mahl Community teaching kitchen is now open. Check it out. "Philip Mahl Memorial Kitchen" on Facebook. Website coming soon.

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For me it is Fuchsia Dunlops "Every Grain of Rice". This book has had a huge impact on our diet and weekly dinners (for the better). I cook at least a couple of recipes out of this book and have done since it came out. The guy at my small local asian supermarket even knows me :laugh:

Other than that MCAH has consumed alot of my weekends, and often to good effect.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I know there are mixed feelings around here about their first charcuterie book, but I'll be curious to see Polcyn and Ruhlman's Salumi. I haven't gotten into dry curing yet, so it'll be mostly academic, but I'm hoping it'll be an interesting read.

I'm a big fan of Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie, so I'm definitely looking forward to Salumi.

Unfortunately, I found Salumi quite disappointing.

I waited a long time for the book with big hopes and expected to like it.....maybe my expectations were too great.

~Martin

Edited by DiggingDogFarm (log)

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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I know there are mixed feelings around here about their first charcuterie book, but I'll be curious to see Polcyn and Ruhlman's Salumi. I haven't gotten into dry curing yet, so it'll be mostly academic, but I'm hoping it'll be an interesting read.

I'm a big fan of Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie, so I'm definitely looking forward to Salumi.

Unfortunately, I found Salumi quite disappointing.

I waited a long time for the book with big hopes and expected to like it.....maybe my expectations were too great.

~Martin

Martin - can you elaborate a little bit? What did you find disappointing about the book? I don't have it but would be interested in hearing your opinion. I own Charcuterie.

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.....especially compared to the utter crap that was available before it.

I think that's part of the reason why I had such great expectations.

~Martin

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Martin - can you elaborate a little bit? What did you find disappointing about the book? I don't have it but would be interested in hearing your opinion. I own Charcuterie.

Where to start? LOL

Okay, in a nutshell.....

First let me say that the illustrations in the book are excellent, the butchering information is pretty good and what few new Salumi recipes are in the book appear to be okay for the most part.

Unfortuantely, overall, I expected more depth to the book, more meat and less cheap filler, part of it is a rehash of Charcuterie (I understand that some rehashing is to be expected), part of it is some Salumi recipes and the rest of it amounts to a fairly general Italian cookbook. Does the world really need another general Italian cookbook?

Does someone with enough of an advanced interest to be pursuing information on salumi making really need recipes for roasted garlic, crostini, pesto, tapenade, basic pizza dough and pizza, chicken stock, aioli etc. or even the other recipes utilizing salumi? There are a gazillion and one Italian cookbooks with recipes such as those, but there are very few that contain salumi making recipes and info.

I felt cheated.

The lack of photos is a major disappointment.

There could have been much better information on establishing, maintaining and troubleshooting a fermentation and/or curing chamber, which is where most home meat curers face the greatest challenge to successful home curing.

I find it odd that they promote Trapani Sea Salt from Sicily (which is great), yet they're very lax when it comes to other ingredients..as an example..paprika from Spain in the Nduja di Calabria instead of Calabrian peppers!? GASP!!!

They promote the use of northern European starter cultures ratheer than the much more appropriate southern European cultures. GASP!

Salt levels in some of the recipes are unpalatable.

The recommended dry curing humidity levels are, IMHO, way too low and will, in many cases, lead to case hardening and it's associated problems.

The book contains some down right scary information.

"0.25% sodium nitrate relative to the weight of the meat to be ideal for dry curing."

Yikes!!!!! That's potentially very dangerous information!!!!!

Do they not know that may be taken literally by some folks? Especially in parts of the world other than the US.

Of course, what they really mean is Cure#2, not sodium nitrate. That's not made clear in every instance.

Another thing that bothered me is the bad-mouthing of manual grinders.

They demonize manual grinders for no good reason at all claiming that they "heat-up" the meat too much...that's absolute hogwash!!! Well, maybe if you're the Bionic Man and you run your manual grinder at some crazy RPMs it's a problem, but as far as the rest of us are concerned it's a total myth that manual grinders heat the meat too much.

I've checked the temperature of the meat before and after grinding several times while using a manual grinder, sometimes there's not much of a change in temperature at all and no more than 2-3 degrees difference any time that I have checked.

Maybe it's that they feel manual grinders are beneath them, I don't know, I can't think of any other reason to condemn them. A heck of a lot of meat has been put through manual grinders over the years!!!

It seems especially ironic considering the fact that some of my first generation Italian immigrant friends use manual grinders to make some of the finest Salumi that I know of!!!!!

They're also critical of the way that some packers label their "naturally cured" products, insisting that they are trying to deceive they're customers. That's incorrect...they are simply following labeling laws.

He attempts to make the same point on his blog.....

http://ruhlman.com/2...-safety-issues/

http://ruhlman.com/2...tes-added-hoax/

re: No Nitrates Added Hoax.....

From the blog post above........

"It’s my belief that companies advertising their products as “nitrite-free,” are either uninformed themselves or are pandering to America’s ignorance about what is healthy and what is harmful in our foods. In other words, the term “no nitrites added” is a marketing device, not an actual health benefit."

They're not uninformed, pandering or using the terms as a sneaky marketing device, they're doing what the 'rulers' at the almighty USDA tell them to do as far as labeling goes.

From USDA materials.....

"The USDA currently does not recognize naturally occurring nitrates as effective curing agents in meats, so if using Celery Juice Powder for products being sold to the public, the end-products must be labeled "Uncured"

"Bacon can be manufactured without the use of nitrite, but must be labeled "Uncured Bacon, No Nitrates or Nitrites added" and bear the statement "Not Preserved, Keep Refrigerated Below 40 °F At All Times" — unless the final product has been dried according to USDA regulations, or if the product contains an amount of salt sufficient to achieve an internal brine concentration of 10% or more, the label does not have to carry the handle statement of "Not Preserved, Keep Refrigerated below ___" etc. Recent research studies have shown for products labeled as uncured, certain ingredients added during formulation can naturally produce small amounts of nitrates in bacon and, therefore, have to be labeled with the explanatory statement "no nitrates or nitrites added except for those naturally occurring in ingredients such as celery juice powder, parsley, cherry powder, beet powder, spinach, sea salt etc."

And there you have it....part of it! LOL

Full review to come sometime in the not too distant future.

I wish the book could have been as good as Ruhlman's Twenty, I think that's a pretty good book that will benefit many a home cook.

~Martin

Edited by DiggingDogFarm (log)

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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For me it is Fuchsia Dunlops "Every Grain of Rice". This book has had a huge impact on our diet and weekly dinners (for the better). I cook at least a couple of recipes out of this book and have done since it came out. The guy at my small local asian supermarket even knows me :laugh:

Other than that MCAH has consumed alot of my weekends, and often to good effect.

Amazon shows the book coming out next Feb. Do you have an advanced copy? How practical is it for daily cooking? Is it vegetarian friendly?

"Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea." --Pythagoras.

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For me it is Fuchsia Dunlops "Every Grain of Rice". This book has had a huge impact on our diet and weekly dinners (for the better). I cook at least a couple of recipes out of this book and have done since it came out. The guy at my small local asian supermarket even knows me :laugh:

Other than that MCAH has consumed alot of my weekends, and often to good effect.

Amazon shows the book coming out next Feb. Do you have an advanced copy? How practical is it for daily cooking? Is it vegetarian friendly?

For me it is Fuchsia Dunlops "Every Grain of Rice". This book has had a huge impact on our diet and weekly dinners (for the better). I cook at least a couple of recipes out of this book and have done since it came out. The guy at my small local asian supermarket even knows me :laugh:

Other than that MCAH has consumed alot of my weekends, and often to good effect.

Amazon shows the book coming out next Feb. Do you have an advanced copy? How practical is it for daily cooking? Is it vegetarian friendly?

I'll jump in and answer some of this

1. The book is already out in UK so I just ordered it through Amazon.co.uk site

2. What I love about it is the fact that it is so practical for everyday cooking - the recipes are fairly easy and there's not much in terms of exotica in the ingredient lists.

3. Lots of vegetarian recipes or mentions of modifying for vegetarians.

Edited by Gruzia (log)
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For me it is Fuchsia Dunlops "Every Grain of Rice". This book has had a huge impact on our diet and weekly dinners (for the better). I cook at least a couple of recipes out of this book and have done since it came out. The guy at my small local asian supermarket even knows me :laugh:

Other than that MCAH has consumed alot of my weekends, and often to good effect.

Amazon shows the book coming out next Feb. Do you have an advanced copy? How practical is it for daily cooking? Is it vegetarian friendly?

I'm really just echoing Gruzia's comments here:

- It is hugely practical for everyday cooking. Thats one of the reasons I love it: it is one of the few cookbooks I cook from 1, 2 even 3 times a week! Even when I'm pressed for time. Fuchsia also gives alot of variation suggestions which give insight into how you might substitute ingredients (i.e. mostly veg).

- It is also VERY vegetarian friendly. Without counting I'd say it is at least 50% vegetarian (add the variations into that and it might go higher). This is also another reason why I love the book because although I enjoy meat my partner is a vegetarian so we eat a vegetarian diet 90% of the time.

... As you can tell I really love this book :wub:

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Does anyone know anything about "astrance: a cooks book" ? I preordered months ago, then somehow it went out of stock on amazon, and now I got a letter from amazon saying a pre release item I ordered will not be available by christmas. Has this book been scrapped and its not coming out?

http://www.amazon.com/Astrance-Cooks-Book-Pascal-Barbot/dp/2812306629

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Something I thought was great with Every Grain of Rice compared to Fuchsia Dunlop's previous books was the sections with pictures of all the various ingredients, both in terms of fresh vegetables and packets of things like 'red-in-snow', tofu bamboo, etc. With previous books I had a lot of trouble going around Chinatown asking people about Cao Guo, etc. having the pictures makes things a lot easier, and certainly in London at least I've easily found most of the branded things she's using like the black bean sauce, fermented tofu etc. It definitely feels more accessible in general as well.

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