2017 releases

[Anna N]

54 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 On the whole I am really, really into this book (Six Seasons) but the huge caveat is that there are no live links in the index of the Kindle version. This means that you must use the search feature.   It is a damned nuisance and in a lesser book might be a deal breaker.  On the other hand most of the recipes rely on ingredients that almost anyone who reads and uses eG will find in their cupboards or fridges. I have just stocked up on some fresh produce and hope to be posting some of the recipes in the appropriate (or, knowing me - inappropriate) meal threads soon. 

 

I am more than smiling to myself after reading  this review of On Vegetables.

 

"It is a well-known adage that cookbooks written by renowned chefs are best enjoyed in an armchair far from the kitchen lest the home cook end up in a pool of tears when trying to execute one of its recipes. With that in mind, On Vegetables, written by Jeremy Fox (the award-winning California chef who previously ran the Michelin-starred Ubuntu in Napa), does not disappoint."

 

 It is refreshing to read a review that acknowledges that not all cookbooks are appropriate for all cooks.

 

 The two books are about as far apart as it is possible to get on any sort of continuum of how to cook vegetables.  That is not to say that one is better than the other only that one will appeal to some and one will appeal to others.  I will let you guess which camp I fall into.

 

There is also a recipe in the LA Times from the Fox book for Carrot Juice Cavatelli.  I did not give a link because it seems to be behind some sort of wall but it is mostly available so Google it if you're interested.  The recipe calls for enough sub recipes to almost fill a booklet on its own. But I do know there are people who read eG for whom this is a challenge to be met  and I admire them for it.

 

[oferl]

Thanks everyone, very helpful. My preferences are exactly those "more complicated" books that have many sub recipes, which are always excellent ideas for the larder and combining generally in home cooking.. 

So it's more of inspiration and ideas, i think most of us "steal" some things here and there from the complicated books, i guess very few really go all the way and prepare whole dishes, at least when it comes to the 

"really complicated books". 

  

[Anna N]

On the Side: A Sourcebook of Inspiring Side Dishes by Ed Smith. 

 

 This is a British book that caught my eye when I was exploring something else entirely.   I am by no means far enough into the book to offer any sort of review  but did want to comment on something I have never before seen in a cookbook.   Ed Smith acknowledges the limitations of most home kitchens.  He notes that most home cooks are limited to one oven and can, at best, hope to use three burners.  Each of his recipes includes a note at the very beginning as to which of these scarce resources will be needed.  

[Anna N]

On May 14, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Anna N said:

On the Side: A Sourcebook of Inspiring Side Dishes by Ed Smith. 

 

 This is a British book that caught my eye when I was exploring something else entirely.   I am by no means far enough into the book to offer any sort of review  but did want to comment on something I have never before seen in a cookbook.   Ed Smith acknowledges the limitations of most home kitchens.  He notes that most home cooks are limited to one oven and can, at best, hope to use three burners.  Each of his recipes includes a note at the very beginning as to which of these scarce resources will be needed.  

I wanted to add a couple of comments. First of all it is relatively unusual to find that a cookbook author is also the food and prop stylist for the book.  So far every recipe I have come across is accompanied by a photograph of the finished dish so that is a lot of styling.

 

And then there is this:

 

"Bunched spinach requires a thorough wash: fill the sink or a large bowl with cold water, add the spinach and give it a good fondle."

 

How can you not show an interest in a book that suggests that you fondle your spinach?

 

Carry on.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I just received my long pre-ordered copy of Flavor and Seasonings, volume 2 in The Japanese Culinary Academy's Complete Japanese Cuisine:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/flavor-and-seasonings-9784908325045?cc=us&lang=en&

 

I haven't really started reading, but very detailed information on the technique of shaving katsuobushi.

 

[FrogPrincesse]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 2:00 PM, Honkman said:

 

I have only looked at "On Vegetables" in the bookstore but there is no doubt that I will buy it soon as it is written by Fox which has shown with Ubuntu years ago (some of the best meals for us) that he is very unique in creating vegetable-based dishes using unique flavors, thoughts, ideas. It is definitely not your next "standard" vegetable book 

 

I couldn't resist either. Vegetables + California, plus a few potentially interesting techniques meant that I had to get it! Hopefully I will be able to actually cook from it!

 

I also ordered Richard's Blais new book, So Good, after having a stellar meal at his San Diego restaurant Juniper & Ivy. It's supposed to be geared towards the home cook, and several recipes spoke to me immediately. We shall see!

[koen]

I was looking for some inspiration for side dishes (especially vegetables). Since I find them the hardest to be creative and non repetitive with, which actually is weird since you've got a lot more options (flavors and textures) than with meats and staples. Anyway, I ordered the Six Seasons book, and On the Side by Ed Smith. I can pick them up Saturday already, so that's quite fast. If anyone has more tips for must-have veggie or side dish inspiration books, please let me know!

[Anna N]

12 minutes ago, koen said:

I was looking for some inspiration for side dishes (especially vegetables). Since I find them the hardest to be creative and non repetitive with, which actually is weird since you've got a lot more options (flavors and textures) than with meats and staples. Anyway, I ordered the Six Seasons book, and On the Side by Ed Smith. I can pick them up Saturday already, so that's quite fast. If anyone has more tips for must-have veggie or side dish inspiration books, please let me know!

 I am enjoying both these books so I hope you do too.

[Honkman]

On 5/30/2017 at 1:43 PM, FrogPrincesse said:

 

I couldn't resist either. Vegetables + California, plus a few potentially interesting techniques meant that I had to get it! Hopefully I will be able to actually cook from it!

 

I also ordered Richard's Blais new book, So Good, after having a stellar meal at his San Diego restaurant Juniper & Ivy. It's supposed to be geared towards the home cook, and several recipes spoke to me immediately. We shall see!

There are a few recipes in the book which are from J&I but yes, it is more towards the home cook. (J&I is the one restaurant we miss from San Diego now that we live in Boston. It was our weekly ritual to have dinner there and at the end we knew many of their cooks/chefs/servers quite well and had some nice surprises during our last few visits)

[teonzo]

Some more stuff:

 

Rodolfo Guzman - "Borago: Coming from the South"
restaurant from Santiago, Chile

Tim Raue - "My Way: From the Gutters to the Stars"
restaurant from Berlin, Germany

 

Jason Licker - "Lickerland: Asian-Accented Desserts"
modern style plated desserts, seems to be a great book

 

Enrico Cerea + Roberto Cerea - "Da Vittorio: Recipes from the Legendary Italian Restaurant"
restaurant from Bergamo, Italy, style is classical

 

Wylie Dufresne - "wd~50: The Cookbook"
restaurant from New York, USA, I'm happy it's going to be released even if the restaurant closed, I'm really curious to get this

 

Daniel Patterson + Mandy Aftel - "The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food"
if I'm right this is a reprint, originally it was released more than 10 years ago

 

Homaro Cantu - "Moto: The Cookbook"
restaurant from Chicago, USA, I'm a bit skeptical about this one since the chef committed suicide 2 years ago, so I doubt he worked on (supervised?) and finished this book

 

Daniel Humm + Will Guidara - "Eleven Madison Park: The Next Chapter"
restaurant from New York, USA, good timing to capitalize on the nr 1 spot on the San Pellegrino list

 

Stuart Brioza + Nicole Krasinski - "State Bird Provisions: A Cookbook"
restaurant from San Francisco, USA

 

Paul Kahan - "Cheers to the Publican, Repast and Present: Recipes and Ramblings from an American Beer Hall"
restaurant from Chicago, USA

 

 

 

Teo

 

[blue_dolphin]

Has anyone purchased My Master Recipes: 165 Recipes to Inspire Confidence in the Kitchen *With Dozens of Variations* by Patricia Wells?  It came out in March.

 

It is due into my library this week and I've placed a hold request on it so I should get a look at it soon.

 

From the Amazon "Look Inside" feature, it seems to be organized by technique.

[blue_dolphin]

Is anyone looking at Josef Centeno's Bäco: Vivid Recipes from the Heart of Los Angeles?

Bäco rhymes with taco, in case you were wondering .  A look at the table of contents, via Amazon's Look Inside feature, intrigues me.  It's also been indexed on Eat Your Books.  The first chapter, "spicy | salty | pickled | preserved" is full of condiments that sound interesting.  Further chapters are similarly titled by taste, flavor or mouthfeel descriptions so 

The author was interviewed on the last episode of KCRW's Good Food.  He said he never used recipes for cooking until he started working on the book.  That didn't seem so encouraging but on the other hand,  it's co-authored by his wife, Betty Hallock, who was deputy food editor for the LA Times for 13 years so presumably she brought a bit more recipe/writing experience to the project.  I liked the sound of the recipe for ‘Caesar’ Brussels Sprouts that was mentioned in the interview. A closer look a the recipe shows that it requires sub-recipes for "mint and rose pickled red onions" and caraway croutons.  That's fairly reasonable but it makes me wonder if all the recipes will include ingredients like dried rosebuds.  He does say the recipe is fine without the rosebuds and  I read the introduction and he sounded reasonable about using parts of recipes.  I wish that Amazon preview showed at least one full recipe so I could get a better idea of how the recipes are written.  

There are only a few reviews on Amazon.  They're all good and most are by people who actually used the book.

Is this on anyone else's radar screen?  

 

Speaking of reasonable-sounding introductions, Jeremy Fox came off as quite reasonable in the introduction to On Vegetables (book discussed by others above) sounding as if he had left the extreme fussiness of Ubuntu behind and presenting us with more basic recipes.  I got the book from the library and very much enjoyed the intro but got frustrated with the recipes.  Maybe it was just my mood, but every recipe I wanted to try seemed to have some odd ingredient or elaborate preparation scheme that was difficult to scale down.  It is a lovely book so I'll borrow it again someday and see if my mood changes  or I need to pick other recipes.   I also checked out Six Seasons and decided to purchase that one although I haven't cooked from it yet.  

@FrogPrincesse and @Honkman, have you done much cooking from On Vegetables yet?

 

On 7/30/2017 at 12:25 PM, blue_dolphin said:

Has anyone purchased My Master Recipes: 165 Recipes to Inspire Confidence in the Kitchen *With Dozens of Variations* by Patricia Wells?  It came out in March.

It is due into my library this week and I've placed a hold request on it so I should get a look at it soon.

From the Amazon "Look Inside" feature, it seems to be organized by technique.

 

Reporting back on the Patricia Wells book that I mentioned above.  I see the value of a technique-based book that encourages the reader to start with a "master recipe" and then build skill and confidence by branching out into the many variations offered.  That said, nothing really piqued my interest enough to make me want to cook from it.  

[Anna N]

 I am convinced I dodged a bullet on the Jeremy Fox book.  Everything I read about it made me think I would eventually buy it but it had two things against it: price and unavailability as a Kindle book. I thank whatever gods there be for these fortuitous things.  The more I read about it, the more I know it is not my kind of book. 

 

Six Seasons on the other hand is definitely my kind of book.  Not that I have made a great deal from it (OK let's be honest, I've made nothing yet).  But there are a lot of bookmarks. 

 

 As for the Patricia Wells book. Nah.  It's a book I would have enjoyed 10 or 15 years ago. 

 

 Edited to add that I see the Paula Wolfert book Unforgettable is available for pre-order on Amazon.ca.   This is the cookbook/biography written by  Emily Kaiser Thelin.  This will definitely go on my wish list. 

 

Edited September 18, 2017 by Anna N (log)

[Anna N]

So of course I had to find out what Bäco it's all about. Joseph Centeno seems to have many recipes on the Internet though not necessarily from the book.  They are exciting and imaginative. Some of them certainly rely on sub recipes, sometimes many sub recipes!   Still it is calling out to me even though I know how limited I am as far as ingredients go. But I no longer feel compelled to believe I would cook from a recipe book.  It is often enough if it just inspires me to get back into the kitchen.  I am thinking you are an enabler!  

[blue_dolphin]

Well, @Anna N, I think that in writing up my inquiry post, I managed to enable myself as well!  I haven't clicked to complete the order yet, but Bäco is in my cart.

Is self-enabling a thing? 

[Anna N]

57 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Well, @Anna N, I think that in writing up my inquiry post, I managed to enable myself as well!  I haven't clicked to complete the order yet, but Bäco is in my cart.

Is self-enabling a thing? 

 But of course it is.  Anyway it serves you right for attempting to enable me!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

After months of waiting my copy of The Japanese Culinary Academy's Mukoita I Cutting Techniques Fish arrived today.  Like previous volumes in Complete Japanese Cuisine, beautifully illustrated with exemplary typography.  Many pages on knives and knife maintenance, posture and grip*, and hygiene for raw foods.

 

Followed by fish anatomy and sections on each type of fourteen fish (including, I'm sure for some reason, soft shelled turtles).  Each section concludes with a recipe.  Though I may skip the pufferfish.

 

Generous appendices.  Mukoita II, due out next year, covers cutting techniques for seafood and smaller fish.

 

 

*After years of retraining muscle memory to break my youthful habits, this and the few other books I have on knife technique call for the index finger on the spine as a guide for slicing.

 

[FrogPrincesse]

On ‎9‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 12:15 PM, blue_dolphin said:

Speaking of reasonable-sounding introductions, Jeremy Fox came off as quite reasonable in the introduction to On Vegetables (book discussed by others above) sounding as if he had left the extreme fussiness of Ubuntu behind and presenting us with more basic recipes.  I got the book from the library and very much enjoyed the intro but got frustrated with the recipes.  Maybe it was just my mood, but every recipe I wanted to try seemed to have some odd ingredient or elaborate preparation scheme that was difficult to scale down.  It is a lovely book so I'll borrow it again someday and see if my mood changes  or I need to pick other recipes.   I also checked out Six Seasons and decided to purchase that one although I haven't cooked from it yet.  

@FrogPrincesse and @Honkman, have you done much cooking from On Vegetables yet?

 

I've done some browsing/reading, but no actual cooking yet! The recipes seem involved but I am also interested in trying the sub-recipes (condiments etc) on their own.

[Cyberider]

I've been good and haven't bought any new cookbooks yet this year.  I did win a nice Greek cookbook from Eat Your Books, though.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On ‎9‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 5:05 PM, Anna N said:

So of course I had to find out what Bäco it's all about. Joseph Centeno seems to have many recipes on the Internet though not necessarily from the book.  They are exciting and imaginative. Some of them certainly rely on sub recipes, sometimes many sub recipes!   Still it is calling out to me even though I know how limited I am as far as ingredients go. But I no longer feel compelled to believe I would cook from a recipe book.  It is often enough if it just inspires me to get back into the kitchen.  I am thinking you are an enabler!  

 

I got my copy today.  I like his writing.  Too soon to say about the recipes.

 

[Kerry Beal]

While I was still in Belgium I entered a contest on the blog eat, live, travel, write to try and win a copy of Orange Appeal. You know that feeling you get when you know you are going to win? So I wasn't surprised when I got the e-mail from Mardi Michels to inform me of my good fortune.

 

Today it arrived! Looking forward to giving it a good once over.

[ElsieD]

Anyone else buy Bravetart by Stella Parks?

[cakewalk]

5 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Anyone else buy Bravetart by Stella Parks?

I'm not buying any books right now (no room), but I'd love to hear what you think of that one as you start to use it. I loved her blog and was very sorry when it ended. I'm less than thrilled with her on Serious Eats, but it looks like the book is more connected to her blog. 

[blue_dolphin]

26 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Anyone else buy Bravetart by Stella Parks?

I haven't bought it yet.  When I looked at the list of recipes, it seemed like a lot of the book was devoted to "homemade" versions of things that I'm not terribly interested in making - animal crackers, Twinkies, Oreos, Reese's PB cups, McDonald's apple turnovers, various Girl Scout cookies, etc.  

It was the chosen book in a Facebook cookbook group that I follow and a lot of people really liked it.  The triple-chocolate chocolate chip cookies, the honey-roasted peanut cookies (I like the way this one has you grind some of the peanuts into a "flour" to increase the flavor), the no-stress pie crust (if you try it - use regular supermarket butter, not a premium Euro-style) and the Oreos got a lot of good reviews. Stella participated regularly in the discussion and regularly offered suggestions to help troubleshoot issues.

Several people were impressed at how many of the recipes were gluten-free or offered gluten-free options.  I believe Stella said 80% of the recipes fit that description.

I don't bake much but often enjoy reading baking books so I could cave one of these days......

[ElsieD]

I bought the book based on the fact that anything I have made that she has posted on Serious Eats works.  Well, maybe except for the toasted sugar which in my opinion was more trouble than it was worth.  I have only made the Vanilla Bean Shortbread (page 223) which my husband and I found way too sweet.  And we both have a bit of a sweet tooth. Whenever I bake, i always bring some to my next door neighbour.  She dropped in today and allowed that she thought they were way too sweet and she too has a sweet tooth.  Other than that, I haven't yet made anything else as we are rationing our sweets as we are trying to shed some extra pounds.  But, there are a lot of good looking recipes to be made a number of pounds from now.