Cooking

“I want you to look at the recipes presented here and be as excited as a kid with a new toy. I want your heart to race, your mouth to water, and your pots and pans to sing to you as they bring together the elements of a good dining experience....” –From the Introduction

Tofu, seitan, tempeh, tofu, seitan, tempeh.… it seems like so many vegans rely on these products as meat substitutes. Isn’t it time to break out of the mold? Taking a fresh, bold, and alternative approach to vegan cooking without the substitutes, this cookbook showcases more than 100 fully vegan recipes, many of which have South Asian influences. With a jazz-style approach to cooking, it also discusses how to improvise cooking with simple ingredients and how to stock a kitchen to prepare simple and delicious vegan meals quickly. The recipes for mouth-watering dishes include one-pot meals--such as South-Indian Uppama and Chipotle Garlic Risotto along with Pakoras, Flautas, Bajji, Kashmiri Biriyani, Hummus Canapes, and No-Cheese Pizza. With new, improved recipes this updated edition also shows how to cook simply to let the flavor of fresh ingredients shine through.

Explore your inner chef and get cooking with Dino!

Whether we find ourselves living large or small, everyday or exotic, there are countless opportunities to come to the table. —From the introduction

In Cook, Eat, Thrive, Joy Tienzo encourages you to savor the cooking process while crafting distinctive meals from fresh, flavorful ingredients. Enjoy comfortable favorites. Broaden your culinary horizons with internationally-inspired dishes. Share with friends and family, and create cuisine that allows people, animals, and the environment to fully thrive.

Cook, Eat, Thrive features dishes from both the everyday and the exotic, including:

• Buttermilk Biscuits with Southern Style Gravy
• Earl Grey Carrot Muffins
• Orange Cream Green Smoothie
• Palm Heart Ceviche
• Barbecue Ranch Salad
• Riz et Pois Rouges
• Raspberry Chèvre Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette
• Samosa Soup
• Tarte aux Poireaux et Pommes de Terre
• Mofongo with Cilantro Lime Gremolata
• Ras el Hanout Roasted Beets
• Italian Cornmeal Cake with Roasted Apricots and Coriander Crème Anglaise
• Lavender Rice Pudding Brulee with Blueberries
• Peanut Butter Shortbread with Concord Grape Sorbet

Inside, you’ll also find:

• An extensive equipment and ingredients listing
• Basics like seitan, non-dairy milks, grains, frozen desserts, and salad dressing
• Menus for occasions, from Caribbean-inspired garden parties to vegan weddings
• Practical symbols to let you know if recipes are raw, low fat, soy-free, wheat-free, approachable for non-vegans, and quick fix

More than just a rousing food manifesto and a nifty set of tools, Cook Food makes preparing tasty, wholesome meals simple and accessible for those hungry for both change and scrumptious fare. If you’re used to getting your meals from a package—or the delivery guy—or if you think you don’t know how to cook, this is the book for you.

If you want to eat healthier but aren’t sure where to start, or if you’ve been reading about food politics but don’t know how to bring sustainable eating practices into your everyday life, Cook Food will give you the scoop on how, while keeping your taste buds satisfied. With a conversational, do-it-yourself vibe, a practical approach to everyday cooking on a budget, and a whole bunch of animal-free recipes, Cook Food will have you cooking up a storm, tasting the difference, thinking globally, and eating locally.

The beaters go on—in Lickin’ the Beaters 2: Vegan Chocolate and Candy, the second of Siue Moffat’s fun vegan dessert cookbooks.

Themed around the duality of dessert—an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other—Siue takes chocolate, candy and even ice creem (vegan alternative to ice cream) head-on with quirky illustrations, useful hints and a handy “Quick Recipe” indicator to make using this book simple and amusing. With an understanding that dessert should be an indulgence, Moffat provides vegan renditions of tantalizing delicacies both traditional and original.

Recipes include old favorites such as Carmel Corn, Salt Water Taffy, Pralines, Cookies, Cakes, and Fudge as well as some brave new recipes like Fabulous Flourless Chocolate Torte and Toll-Free Chocolate Chip cookies.

Don’t pass up dessert! Even if you are vegan or trying to eat healthy there’s no reason to deny yourself sweet treats. Lickin’ the Beaters brings you over 80 fabulous low fat, dairy free desserts where even the second helping is guilt free. Breads, cakes, donuts, candies, cookies and bars, pies, ice creams, puddings, toppings, fruity stuff, drinks, and a whole lot more. Illustrated with beautiful linocuts and zany cartoons, you’ll find the recipes fun, easy to follow and so good you’ll eat half the batter.

Written by Siue Moffat with Illustrations by Allyson Mitchell, Daryl Vocat, Missy Kulik, Five Seventeen, Brenda Goldstein, Jonathan Culp, Joe Ollman, and Zoe Dodd.

All across North America, people are looking to make better choices, but also eat healthier, more environmentally friendly and, most of all, great-tasting food. New American Vegan breaks from a steady stream of cookbooks inspired by fusion and California cuisines that put catchy titles and esoteric ingredients first in their efforts to cater to a cosmopolitan taste. Instead, Vincent goes back to his midwestern roots to play a humble but important role in the reinvention of American cuisine while bringing the table back to the center of American life.

Weaving together small town values, personal stories, and 120 great recipes, New American Vegan delivers authentically American food that simply has to be tasted to be believed. Recipes range from very basic to the modestly complicated, but always with an eye on creating something that is both beautiful and delicious while keeping it simple. Clear instructions provide step-by-steps, but also help new cooks find their feet in the kitchen, with a whole chapter devoted just to terms, tools, and techniques. With an eye towards improvisation, the book provides a detailed basic recipe that’s good as-is, but also provides additional notes that explain how to take each recipe further, increase flavor, add drama to the presentation, or add a little extra flourish for new cooks and seasoned kitchen veterans alike.

The World of Niagara Wine is a transdisciplinary exploration of the Niagara wine industry that celebrates and critiques the local wine industry and situates it in a complex web of Old World traditions and New World reliance on technology, science, and taste as well as global processes and local sociocultural reactions.
In the first section, contributors explore the history and regulation of wine production as well as its contemporary economic significance. The second section focuses on the entrepreneurship behind and the promotion and marketing of Niagara wines. The third introduces readers to the science of grape growing, wine tasting, and wine production, and the final section examines the social and cultural ramifications of Niagara’s increasing reliance on grapes and wine as an economic motor for the region. Preface by Konrad Ejbich.

The Food Allergy Baking Book is a one-stop guide to delicious, everyday baked goods free of dairy, eggs, and nuts—the most common food allergens. 

The Food Allergy Baking Book offers more than 90 timeless, foolproof recipes that are easy to prepare, even for kitchen novices. It is an invaluable resource for home bakers (and their families) who love sweets and treats. 

These recipes are more than delicious enough to be enjoyed by everyone who craves great baked treats, whether they have food allergies or not, but they fill a particular need for families who find baking at home to be the smartest and safest option to avoid exposure to allergens. All the traditional baking favorites are included, with chapters devoted to the best and tastiest muffins and quick breads, cookies and bars, and all manner of cakes, pies, crisps, and cobblers. The book also provides practical advice about dealing with classroom and birthday parties, as well as easy ingredient substitution ideas. 

The Food Allergy Baking Book is the go-to guide for food-allergy conscious bakers everywhere.

An updated edition of a bestselling book in the food writing genre from award-winning author and journalist Edna Staebler. In the 1960s, Edna Staebler moved in with an Old Order Mennonite family to absorb their oral history and learn about Mennonite culture and cooking. From this fieldwork came the cookbook Food That Really Schmecks.
Originally published in 1968, Food That Really Schmecks instantly became a classic, selling tens of thousands of copies. Interspersed with practical and memorable recipes are Staebler’s stories and anecdotes about cooking, life with the Mennonites, family, and the Waterloo Region. Described by Edith Fowke as folklore literature, Staebler’s cookbooks have earned her national acclaim. Back in print as part of Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s Life Writing series, a series devoted celebrating life writing as both genre and critical practice, the updated edition of this groundbreaking book includes a foreword by award-winning author Wayson Choy and a new introduction by well-known food writer Rose Murray.

"This cookbook grew out of a series of dinners that the women law faculty members and administrators at Fordham Law School used to have several times a year. The dinners would be hosted at different women’s homes and contributions would be made by nearly all attending (reminiscent of the old potluck supper). On each occasion, spectacular dishes would arrive and recipes would be exchanged on whatever scraps of paper happened to be lying around.

Ronne Kaplan, Director of Continuing Legal Education at the School, came up with the idea of putting together a cookbook of these and additional recipes which we would collect from the Fordham Law School and others in the greater Fordham community to raise money for the Law School. Professor Constantine Katsoris, who used to give the women’s law group a hard time about the separatists nature of the parties, contributed his own secret recipe for spinach pie and also suggested that the proceeds of the sale of the book by donated to the Fordham Student Sponsored Fellowship, a group that supports the public-interest legal work of Fordham Law School students.

The recipes were collected by Marilyn Force and typed onto disk by Lisa Gurley of the Law School administrative staff. We hope that you will enjoy the recipes set forth in this book and that it will become one of the staple resources of your kitchen."

-Preface, by Janet Tracy, Professor of Research and Library Services

To some, food allergies seem like fabricated cries for attention. To others, they pose a dangerous health threat. Food allergies are bound up with so many personal and ideological concerns that it is difficult to determine what is medical and what is myth.

Another Person's Poison parses the political, economic, cultural, and genuine health factors of a phenomenon that dominates our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. For most of the twentieth century, food allergies were considered a fad or junk science. While many physicians and clinicians argued that certain foods could cause a range of chronic problems, from asthma and eczema to migraines and hyperactivity, others believed that allergies were psychosomatic.

This book traces the trajectory of this debate and its effect on public-health policy and the production, manufacture, and consumption of food. Are rising allergy rates purely the result of effective lobbying and a booming industry built on self-diagnosis and expensive remedies? Or should physicians become more flexible in their approach to food allergies and more careful in their diagnoses? Exploring the issue from scientific, political, economic, social, and patient-centered perspectives, this book is the first to engage fully with the history of a major modern affliction, illuminating society's troubled relationship with food, disease, nature, and the creation of medical knowledge.

In his new history of food, acclaimed historian Massimo Montanari traces the development of medieval tastes—both culinary and cultural—from raw materials to market and captures their reflections in today's food trends. Tying the ingredients of our diet evolution to the growth of human civilization, he immerses readers in the passionate debates and bold inventions that transformed food from a simple staple to a potent factor in health and a symbol of social and ideological standing.

Montanari returns to the prestigious Salerno school of medicine, the "mother of all medical schools," to plot the theory of food that took shape in the twelfth century. He reviews the influence of the Near Eastern spice routes, which introduced new flavors and cooking techniques to European kitchens, and reads Europe's earliest cookbooks, which took cues from old Roman practices that valued artifice and mixed flavors. Dishes were largely low-fat, and meats and fish were seasoned with vinegar, citrus juices, and wine. He highlights other dishes, habits, and battles that mirror contemporary culinary identity, including the refinement of pasta, polenta, bread, and other flour-based foods; the transition to more advanced cooking tools and formal dining implements; the controversy over cooking with oil, lard, or butter; dietary regimens; and the consumption and cultural meaning of water and wine. As people became more cognizant of their physicality, individuality, and place in the cosmos, Montanari shows, they adopted a new attitude toward food, investing as much in its pleasure and possibilities as in its acquisition.

Why is chocolate melting on the tongue such a decadent sensation? Why do we love crunching on bacon? Why is fizz-less soda such a disappointment to drink, and why is flat beer so unappealing to the palate? Our sense of taste produces physical and emotional reactions that cannot be explained by chemical components alone. Eating triggers our imagination, draws on our powers of recall, and activates our critical judgment, creating a unique impression in our mouths and our minds. How exactly does this alchemy work, and what are the larger cultural and environmental implications?

Collaborating in the laboratory and the kitchen, Ole G. Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbæk investigate the multiple ways in which food texture influences taste. Combining scientific analysis with creative intuition and a sophisticated knowledge of food preparation, they write a one-of-a-kind book for food lovers and food science scholars. By mapping the mechanics of mouthfeel, Mouritsen and Styrbæk advance a greater awareness of its link to our culinary preferences. Gaining insight into the textural properties of raw vegetables, puffed rice, bouillon, or ice cream can help us make healthier and more sustainable food choices. Through mouthfeel, we can recreate the physical feelings of foods we love with other ingredients or learn to latch onto smarter food options. Mastering texture also leads to more adventurous gastronomic experiments in the kitchen, allowing us to reach even greater heights of taste sensation.

The Definitive Guide to Insects as a Sustainable Food Source

In The Insect Cookbook, two entomologists and a chef make the case for insects as a sustainable source of protein for humans and a necessary part of our future diet. They provide consumers and chefs with the essential facts about insects for culinary use, with recipes simple enough to make at home yet boasting the international flair of the world's most chic dishes.

"Invite politicians to dinner and let them tell the world how delicious it is.... They will proudly go around and say, 'I ate crickets, I ate locusts, and they were delicious.'"—Kofi Annan

The Insect Cookbook features delicious recipes and interviews with top chefs, insect farmers, political figures, and nutrition experts, including chef René Redzepi, whose establishment was elected three times as "best restaurant of the world"; Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations; and Daniella Martin of Girl Meets Bug. The book contains all you need to know about cooking with insects, where to buy them, which ones are edible, and how to store and prepare them at home and in commercial spaces.

In the West, we have identified only four basic tastes—sour, sweet, salty, and bitter—that, through skillful combination and technique, create delicious foods. Yet in many parts of East Asia over the past century, an additional flavor has entered the culinary lexicon: umami, a fifth taste impression that is savory, complex, and wholly distinct.

Combining culinary history with recent research into the chemistry, preparation, nutrition, and culture of food, Mouritsen and Styrbæk encapsulate what we know to date about the concept of umami, from ancient times to today. Umami can be found in soup stocks, meat dishes, air-dried ham, shellfish, aged cheeses, mushrooms, and ripe tomatoes, and it can enhance other taste substances to produce a transformative gustatory experience. Researchers have also discovered which substances in foodstuffs bring out umami, a breakthrough that allows any casual cook to prepare delicious and more nutritious meals with less fat, salt, and sugar. The implications of harnessing umami are both sensuous and social, enabling us to become more intimate with the subtleties of human taste while making better food choices for ourselves and our families.

This volume, the product of an ongoing collaboration between a chef and a scientist, won the Danish national Mad+Medier-Prisen (Food and Media Award) in the category of academic food communication.

Known for his entertaining investigations into culinary practice, Massimo Montanari turns his hungry eye to the phenomenon of food culture, food lore, cooking methods, and eating habits throughout history. An irresistible buffet of one hundred concise and engaging essays, this collection provides stimulating food for thought for those curious about one of life's most fundamental pleasures.

Focusing on the selection, preparation, and mythology of food, Montanari traverses such subjects as the status of the pantry over the centuries, the various strategies of cooking over time, the gastronomy of famine, the science of flavors, the changing characteristics of convivial rituals, the customs of the table, and the ever-evolving identity of food. He shows that cooking not only is a decisive part of our cultural heritage but also communicates essential information about our material and intellectual well-being.

From the invention of basic bread making to chocolate's reputation for decadence, Montanari positions food culture as a lens through which we can plot changes in historical values and social and economic trends. Even the biblical tale of Jacob buying Esau's birthright for a bowl of lentils is a text full of essential meaning, representing civilization's important shift from a hunting to an agrarian society. Readers of all backgrounds will enjoy these delectable insights and their easy consumption in one companionable volume.

Popularized by Michael Pollan in his best-selling In Defense of Food, Gyorgy Scrinis's concept of nutritionism refers to the reductive understanding of nutrients as the key indicators of healthy food—an approach that has dominated nutrition science, dietary advice, and food marketing. Scrinis argues this ideology has narrowed and in some cases distorted our appreciation of food quality, such that even highly processed foods may be perceived as healthful depending on their content of "good" or "bad" nutrients. Investigating the butter versus margarine debate, the battle between low-fat, low-carb, and other weight-loss diets, and the food industry's strategic promotion of nutritionally enhanced foods, Scrinis reveals the scientific, social, and economic factors driving our modern fascination with nutrition.

Scrinis develops an original framework and terminology for analyzing the characteristics and consequences of nutritionism since the late nineteenth century. He begins with the era of quantification, in which the idea of protective nutrients, caloric reductionism, and vitamins' curative effects took shape. He follows with the era of good and bad nutritionism, which set nutricentric dietary guidelines and defined the parameters of unhealthy nutrients; and concludes with our current era of functional nutritionism, in which the focus has shifted to targeted nutrients, superfoods, and optimal diets. Scrinis's research underscores the critical role of nutrition science and dietary advice in shaping our relationship to food and our bodies and in heightening our nutritional anxieties. He ultimately shows how nutritionism has aligned the demands and perceived needs of consumers with the commercial interests of food manufacturers and corporations. Scrinis also offers an alternative paradigm for assessing the healthfulness of foods—the food quality paradigm—that privileges food production and processing quality, cultural-traditional knowledge, and sensual-practical experience, and promotes less reductive forms of nutrition research and dietary advice.

One morning while reading Barron's, Kara Newman took note of a casual bit of advice offered by famed commodities trader Jim Rogers. "Buy breakfast," he told investors, referring to the increasing value of pork belly and frozen orange juice futures. The statement inspired Newman to take a closer look at agricultural commodities, from the iconic pork belly to the obscure peppercorn and nutmeg. The results of her investigation, recorded in this fascinating history, show how contracts listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange can read like a menu and how market behavior can dictate global economic and culinary practice.

The Secret Financial Life of Food reveals the economic pathways that connect food to consumer, unlocking the mysteries behind culinary trends, grocery pricing, and restaurant dining. Newman travels back to the markets of ancient Rome and medieval Europe, where vendors first distinguished between "spot sales" and "sales for delivery." She retraces the storied spice routes of Asia and recounts the spice craze that prompted Christopher Columbus's journey to North America, linking these developments to modern-day India's bustling peppercorn market.

Newman centers her history on the transformation of corn into a ubiquitous commodity and uses oats, wheat, and rye to recast America's westward expansion and the Industrial Revolution. She discusses the effects of such mega-corporations as Starbucks and McDonalds on futures markets and considers burgeoning markets, particularly "super soybeans," which could scramble the landscape of food finance. The ingredients of American power and culture, and the making of the modern world, can be found in the history of food commodities exchange, and Newman connects this unconventional story to the how and why of what we eat.

More than Mom's apple pie, peanut butter is the all-American food. With its rich, roasted-peanut aroma and flavor; caramel hue; and gooey, consoling texture, peanut butter is an enduring favorite, found in the pantries of at least 75 percent of American kitchens. Americans eat more than a billion pounds a year. According to the Southern Peanut Growers, a trade group, that's enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon (although the association doesn't say to what height).

Americans spoon it out of the jar, eat it in sandwiches by itself or with its bread-fellow jelly, and devour it with foods ranging from celery and raisins ("ants on a log") to a grilled sandwich with bacon and bananas (the classic "Elvis"). Peanut butter is used to flavor candy, ice cream, cookies, cereal, and other foods. It is a deeply ingrained staple of American childhood. Along with cheeseburgers, fried chicken, chocolate chip cookies (and apple pie), peanut butter is a consummate comfort food.

In Creamy and Crunchy are the stories of Jif, Skippy, Peter Pan; the plight of black peanut farmers; the resurgence of natural or old-fashioned peanut butter; the reasons why Americans like peanut butter better than (almost) anyone else; the five ways that today's product is different from the original; the role of peanut butter in fighting Third World hunger; and the Salmonella outbreaks of 2007 and 2009, which threatened peanut butter's sacred place in the American cupboard. To a surprising extent, the story of peanut butter is the story of twentieth-century America, and Jon Krampner writes its first popular history, rich with anecdotes and facts culled from interviews, research, travels in the peanut-growing regions of the South, personal stories, and recipes.

A companion to Andrew F. Smith's critically acclaimed and popular Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, this volume recounts the individuals, ingredients, corporations, controversies, and myriad events responsible for America's diverse and complex beverage scene. Smith revisits the country's major historical moments—colonization, the American Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion, the temperance movement, Prohibition, and its repeal—and he tracks the growth of the American beverage industry throughout the world. The result is an intoxicating encounter with an often overlooked aspect of American culture and global influence.

Americans have invented, adopted, modified, and commercialized tens of thousands of beverages—whether alcoholic or nonalcoholic, carbonated or caffeinated, warm or frozen, watery or thick, spicy or sweet. These include uncommon cocktails, varieties of coffee and milk, and such iconic creations as Welch's Grape Juice, Coca-Cola, root beer, and Kool-Aid. Involved in their creation and promotion were entrepreneurs and environmentalists, bartenders and bottlers, politicians and lobbyists, organized and unorganized criminals, teetotalers and drunks, German and Italian immigrants, savvy advertisers and gullible consumers, prohibitionists and medical professionals, and everyday Americans in love with their brew.

Smith weaves a wild history full of surprising stories and explanations for such classic slogans as "taxation with and without representation;" "the lips that touch wine will never touch mine;" and "rum, Romanism, and rebellion." He reintroduces readers to Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and the colorful John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), and he rediscovers America's vast literary and cultural engagement with beverages and their relationship to politics, identity, and health.

When did we first serve meals at regular hours? Why did we begin using individual plates and utensils to eat? When did "cuisine" become a concept and how did we come to judge food by its method of preparation, manner of consumption, and gastronomic merit?

Food: A Culinary History explores culinary evolution and eating habits from prehistoric times to the present, offering surprising insights into our social and agricultural practices, religious beliefs, and most unreflected habits. The volume dispels myths such as the tale that Marco Polo brought pasta to Europe from China, that the original recipe for chocolate contained chili instead of sugar, and more. As it builds its history, the text also reveals the dietary rules of the ancient Hebrews, the contributions of Arabic cookery to European cuisine, the table etiquette of the Middle Ages, and the evolution of beverage styles in early America. It concludes with a discussion on the McDonaldization of food and growing popularity of foreign foods today.

Eating is a multisensory experience, yet chefs and scientists have only recently begun to deconstruct food's components, setting the stage for science-based cooking. In this global collaboration of essays, chefs and scientists advance culinary knowledge by testing hypotheses rooted in the physical and chemical properties of food. Using traditional and cutting-edge tools, ingredients, and techniques, these pioneers create, and sometimes revamp, dishes that respond to specific desires and serve up an original encounter with gastronomic practice.

From the seemingly mundane to the food fantastic—from grilled cheese sandwiches, pizzas, and soft-boiled eggs to Turkish ice cream, sugar glasses, and jellified beads—the essays in The Kitchen as Laboratory cover a range of creations and their history and culture. They consider the significance of an eater's background and dining atmosphere and the importance of a chef's methods, as well as the strategies used to create a great diversity of foods and dishes. This collection will delight experts and amateurs alike, especially as restaurants rely more on science-based cooking and recreational cooks increasingly explore the physics and chemistry behind their art. Contributors end each essay with their personal thoughts on food, cooking, and science, offering rare insight into a professional's passion for playing with food.

Mayonnaise "takes" when a series of liquids form a semisolid consistency. Eggs, a liquid, become solid as they are heated, whereas, under the same conditions, solids melt. When meat is roasted, its surface browns and it acquires taste and texture. What accounts for these extraordinary transformations?

The answer: chemistry and physics. With his trademark eloquence and wit, Hervé This launches a wry investigation into the chemical art of cooking. Unraveling the science behind common culinary technique and practice, Hervé This breaks food down to its molecular components and matches them to cooking's chemical reactions. He translates the complex processes of the oven into everyday knowledge for professional chefs and casual cooks, and he demystifies the meaning of taste and the making of flavor. He describes the properties of liquids, salts, sugars, oils, and fats and defines the principles of culinary practice, which endow food with sensual as well as nutritional value.

For fans of Hervé This's popular volumes and for those new to his celebrated approach, The Science of the Oven expertly expands the possibilities of the kitchen, fusing the physiology of taste with the molecular structure of bodies and food.

Without a uniform dietary code, Christians around the world used food in strikingly different ways, developing widely divergent practices that spread, nurtured, and strengthened their religious beliefs and communities. Featuring never-before published essays, this anthology follows the intersection of food and faith from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, charting the complex relationship among religious eating habits and politics, culture, and social structure.

Theoretically rich and full of engaging portraits, essays consider the rise of food buying and consumerism in the fourteenth century, the Reformation ideology of fasting and its resulting sanctions against sumptuous eating, the gender and racial politics of sacramental food production in colonial America, and the struggle to define "enlightened" Lenten dietary restrictions in early modern France. Essays on the nineteenth century explore the religious implications of wheat growing and breadmaking among New Zealand's Maori population and the revival of the Agape meal, or love feast, among American brethren in Christ Church. Twentieth-century topics include the metaphysical significance of vegetarianism, the function of diet in Greek Orthodoxy, American Christian weight loss programs, and the practice of silent eating rituals among English Benedictine monks. Two introductory essays detail the key themes tying these essays together and survey food's role in developing and disseminating the teachings of Christianity, not to mention providing a tangible experience of faith.

An internationally renowned chemist, popular television personality, and bestselling author, Hervé This heads the first laboratory devoted to molecular gastronomy—the scientific exploration of cooking and eating. By testing recipes that have guided cooks for centuries, and the various dictums and maxims on which they depend, Hervé This unites the head with the hand in order to defend and transform culinary practice.

With this new book, Hervé This's scientific project enters an exciting new phase. Considering the preparation of six bistro favorites—hard-boiled egg with mayonnaise, simple consommé, leg of lamb with green beans, steak with French fries, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate mousse—he isolates the exact chemical properties that tickle our senses and stimulate our appetites. More important, he connects the mind and the stomach, identifying methods of culinary construction that appeal to our memories, intelligence, and creativity. By showing that the creation of a meal is as satisfying as its consumption, Herve This recalibrates the balance between food and our imaginations. The result is a revolutionary perspective that will tempt even the most casual cooks to greater flights of experimentation.

Food expert and celebrated food historian Andrew F. Smith recounts—in delicious detail—the creation of contemporary American cuisine. The diet of the modern American wasn't always as corporate, conglomerated, and corn-rich as it is today, and the style of American cooking, along with the ingredients that compose it, has never been fixed. With a cast of characters including bold inventors, savvy restaurateurs, ruthless advertisers, mad scientists, adventurous entrepreneurs, celebrity chefs, and relentless health nuts, Smith pins down the truly crackerjack history behind the way America eats.

Smith's story opens with early America, an agriculturally independent nation where most citizens grew and consumed their own food. Over the next two hundred years, however, Americans would cultivate an entirely different approach to crops and consumption. Advances in food processing, transportation, regulation, nutrition, and science introduced highly complex and mechanized methods of production. The proliferation of cookbooks, cooking shows, and professionally designed kitchens made meals more commercially, politically, and culturally potent. To better understand these trends, Smith delves deeply and humorously into their creation. Ultimately he shows how, by revisiting this history, we can reclaim the independent, locally sustainable roots of American food.

An international celebrity and founder of molecular gastronomy, or the scientific investigation of culinary practice, Hervé This is known for his ground-breaking research into the chemistry and physics behind everyday cooking. His work is consulted widely by amateur cooks and professional chefs and has changed the way food is approached and prepared all over the world.

In Kitchen Mysteries, Hervé This offers a second helping of his world-renowned insight into the science of cooking, answering such fundamental questions as what causes vegetables to change color when cooked and how to keep a soufflé from falling. He illuminates abstract concepts with practical advice and concrete examples—for instance, how sautéing in butter chemically alters the molecules of mushrooms—so that cooks of every stripe can thoroughly comprehend the scientific principles of food.

Kitchen Mysteries begins with a brief overview of molecular gastronomy and the importance of understanding the physiology of taste. A successful meal depends as much on a cook's skilled orchestration of taste, odors, colors, consistencies, and other sensations as on the delicate balance of ingredients. Hervé then dives into the main course, discussing the science behind many meals' basic components: eggs, milk, bread, sugar, fruit, yogurt, alcohol, and cheese, among other items. He also unravels the mystery of tenderizing enzymes and gelatins and the preparation of soups and stews, salads and sauces, sorbet, cakes, and pastries. Hervé explores the effects of boiling, steaming, braising, roasting, deep-frying, sautéing, grilling, salting, and microwaving, and devotes a chapter to kitchen utensils, recommending the best way to refurbish silverware and use copper.

By sharing the empirical principles chefs have valued for generations, Hervé This adds another dimension to the suggestions of cookbook authors. He shows how to adapt recipes to available ingredients and how to modify proposed methods to the utensils at hand. His revelations make difficult recipes easier to attempt and allow for even more creativity and experimentation. Promising to answer your most compelling kitchen questions, Hervé This continues to make the complex science of food digestible to the cook.

Frederick Douglass Opie deconstructs and compares the foodways of people of African descent throughout the Americas, interprets the health legacies of black culinary traditions, and explains the concept of soul itself, revealing soul food to be an amalgamation of West and Central African social and cultural influences as well as the adaptations blacks made to the conditions of slavery and freedom in the Americas.

Sampling from travel accounts, periodicals, government reports on food and diet, and interviews with more than thirty people born before 1945, Opie reconstructs an interrelated history of Moorish influence on the Iberian Peninsula, the African slave trade, slavery in the Americas, the emergence of Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. His grassroots approach reveals the global origins of soul food, the forces that shaped its development, and the distinctive cultural collaborations that occurred among Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Americans throughout history. Opie shows how food can be an indicator of social position, a site of community building and cultural identity, and a juncture at which different cultural traditions can develop and impact the collective health of a community.

Whether you're digging into a slice of cherry cheesecake, burning your tongue on a piece of fiery Jamaican jerk chicken, or slurping the broth from a juicy soup dumpling, eating in New York City is a culinary adventure unlike any other in the world.

An irresistible sampling of the city's rich food heritage, Gastropolis explores the personal and historical relationship between New Yorkers and food. Beginning with the origins of cuisine combinations, such as Mt. Olympus bagels and Puerto Rican lasagna, the book describes the nature of food and drink before the arrival of Europeans in 1624 and offers a history of early farming practices. Essays trace the function of place and memory in Asian cuisine, the rise of Jewish food icons, the evolution of food enterprises in Harlem, the relationship between restaurant dining and identity, and the role of peddlers and markets in guiding the ingredients of our meals. They share spice-scented recollections of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, and colorful vignettes of the avant-garde chefs, entrepreneurs, and patrons who continue to influence the way New Yorkers eat.

Touching on everything from religion, nutrition, and agriculture to economics, politics, and psychology, Gastropolis tells a story of immigration, amalgamation, and assimilation. This rich interplay between tradition and change, individual and society, and identity and community could happen only in New York.

Hervé This (pronounced "Teess") is an internationally renowned chemist, a popular French television personality, a bestselling cookbook author, a longtime collaborator with the famed French chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the only person to hold a doctorate in molecular gastronomy, a cutting-edge field he pioneered. Bringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, This uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating. What he discovers will entertain, instruct, and intrigue cooks, gourmets, and scientists alike.

Molecular Gastronomy, This's first work to appear in English, is filled with practical tips, provocative suggestions, and penetrating insights. This begins by reexamining and debunking a variety of time-honored rules and dictums about cooking and presents new and improved ways of preparing a variety of dishes from quiches and quenelles to steak and hard-boiled eggs. He goes on to discuss the physiology of flavor and explores how the brain perceives tastes, how chewing affects food, and how the tongue reacts to various stimuli. Examining the molecular properties of bread, ham, foie gras, and champagne, the book analyzes what happens as they are baked, cured, cooked, and chilled.

Looking to the future, Hervé This imagines new cooking methods and proposes novel dishes. A chocolate mousse without eggs? A flourless chocolate cake baked in the microwave? Molecular Gastronomy explains how to make them. This also shows us how to cook perfect French fries, why a soufflé rises and falls, how long to cool champagne, when to season a steak, the right way to cook pasta, how the shape of a wine glass affects the taste of wine, why chocolate turns white, and how salt modifies tastes.

Take a breath.... Read slowly.

How often in the course and crush of our daily lives do we afford ourselves moments to truly relish-to truly be present in-the act of preparing and eating food? For most of us, our enjoyment of food has fallen victim to the frenetic pace of our lives and to our increasing estrangement, in a complex commercial economy, from the natural processes by which food is grown and produced. Packaged, artificial, and unhealthful, fast food is only the most dramatic example of the degradation of food in our lives, and of the deeper threats to our cultural, political, and environmental well-being.

In 1986, Carlo Petrini decided to resist the steady march of fast food and all that it represents when he organized a protest against the building of a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Armed with bowls of penne, Petrini and his supporters spawned a phenomenon. Three years later Petrini founded the International Slow Food Movement, renouncing not only fast food but also the overall pace of the "fast life." Issuing a manifesto, the Movement called for the safeguarding of local economies, the preservation of indigenous gastronomic traditions, and the creation of a new kind of ecologically aware consumerism committed to sustainability. On a practical level, it advocates a return to traditional recipes, locally grown foods and wines, and eating as a social event. Today, with a magazine, Web site, and over 75,000 followers organized into local "convivia," or chapters, Slow Food is poised to revolutionize the way Americans shop for groceries, prepare and consume their meals, and think about food.

Slow Food not only recalls the origins, first steps, and international expansion of the movement from the perspective of its founder, it is also a powerful expression of the organization's goal of engendering social reform through the transformation of our attitudes about food and eating. As Newsweek described it, the Slow Food movement has now become the basis for an alternative to the American rat race, the inspiration for "a kinder and gentler capitalism."

Linger a while then, with the story of what Alice Waters in her Foreword calls "this Delicious Revolution," and rediscover the pleasures of the good life.

Cooking food is one of the activities that makes humanity unique. It’s not just about what tastes good: advances in cooking technology have been a constant part of our progress, from the ability to control fire to the emergence of agriculture to modern science’s understanding of what happens at a molecular level when we apply heat to food. Mastering new ways of feeding ourselves has resulted in leaps in longevity and explosions in population—and the potential of cooking science is still largely untapped.

In Cook, Taste, Learn, the food scientist and best-selling author Guy Crosby offers a lively tour of the history and science behind the art of cooking, with a focus on achieving a healthy daily diet. He traces the evolution of cooking from its earliest origins, recounting the innovations that have unraveled the mysteries of health and taste. Crosby explains why both home cooks and professional chefs should learn how to apply cooking science, arguing that we can improve the nutritional quality and gastronomic delight of everyday eating. Science-driven changes in the way we cook can help reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases and enhance our quality of life. The book features accessible explanations of complex topics as well as a selection of recipes that illustrate scientific principles. Cook, Taste, Learn reveals the possibilities for transforming cooking from a craft into the perfect blend of art and science.

Look at the back label of a bottle of wine and you may well see a reference to its terroir, the total local environment of the vineyard that grew the grapes, from its soil to the climate. Winemakers universally accept that where a grape is grown influences its chemistry, which in turn changes the flavor of the wine. A detailed system has codified the idea that place matters to wine. So why don’t we feel the same way about whiskey?

In this book, the master distiller Rob Arnold reveals how innovative whiskey producers are recapturing a sense of place to create distinctive, nuanced flavors. He takes readers on a world tour of whiskey and the science of flavor, stopping along the way at distilleries in Kentucky, New York, Texas, Ireland, and Scotland. Arnold puts the spotlight on a new generation of distillers, plant breeders, and local farmers who are bringing back long-forgotten grain flavors and creating new ones in pursuit of terroir. In the twentieth century, we inadvertently bred distinctive tastes out of grains in favor of high yields—but today’s artisans have teamed up to remove themselves from the commodity grain system, resurrect heirloom cereals, bring new varieties to life, and recapture the flavors of specific local ingredients. The Terroir of Whiskey makes the scientific and cultural cases that terroir is as important in whiskey as it is in wine.

Winner, Gourmand World Cookbook Awards - Food - Food Heritage - USA

Nominee, Book Award in Food Issues and Advocacy, James Beard Foundation

The Italian political right is outraged by halal tortellini and a pork-free lasagna served at the Vatican. In India, Hindu fundamentalists organize attacks on Muslims who sell beef. European anti-immigrant politicians denounce couscous and kebabs. In an era of nationalist and exclusionary movements, food has become a potent symbol of identity. Why has eating become so politically charged—and can the emotions surrounding food be redirected in a healthier direction?

Fabio Parasecoli identifies and defines the phenomenon of “gastronativism,” the ideological use of food to advance ideas about who belongs to a community and who does not. As globalization and neoliberalism have transformed food systems, people have responded by seeking to return to their roots. Many have embraced local ingredients and notions of cultural heritage, but this impulse can play into the hands of nationalist and xenophobic political projects. Such movements draw on the strong emotions connected with eating to stoke resentment and contempt for other people and cultures.

Parasecoli emphasizes that gastronativism is a worldwide phenomenon, even as it often purports to oppose local aspects and consequences of globalization. He also explores how to channel pride in culinary traditions toward resisting transnational corporations, uplifting marginalized and oppressed groups, and assisting people left behind by globalization. Featuring a wide array of examples from all over the world, Gastronativism is a timely, incisive, and lively analysis of how and why food has become a powerful political tool.

Slow Down and Savor Life's Moments

The tea lovers book. Tea-spiration aims to create a quiet movement where one can experience devotions, comfort, inspiration and the simple joys of life. Tea drinkers know that tea, the wonderful drink, can help them slow down and savor life's moments.

Unique gift for women. In her debut book, Lu Ann Pannunzio uplifts and inspires readers in a way that does more than just telling them a story about tea and its history. As in life, tea is about the little things we need to experience (devotions, inspiration, reflection, comfort). Each page of Tea-spiration is filled with feelings and moments (big or small) that tea enhances; simple joys that not everyone may notice or take the time to savor. Sometimes all you really need is a cup, water and some leaves to create your own wonderful cup of tea experience.

So, take pleasure in this tea lovers book, along with that special cup of tea, and stop and appreciate the simple joys of life!

Reach Your Ideal Body Weight and Stay There

“Her powerful 8-step process offers a path for readers to not only release weight, but to follow their passion and discover their personal greatness.” —Dr. Francois Sauer, MD, author of Relearn, Evolve and Adapt

Heal the root cause of overeating and reshape your body, restore your energy, and reboot your life. The 8 to Your IdealWeight diet-free program is a tried-and-true sugar-free diet, based on an eight-step program that helps you reach your ideal body weight goal—and, most importantly, stay there.

Why do most diets fail? Because mental preparation is the most important first step—and most diets neglect this essential mind-body aspect. Because of this, MK Mueller’s journey to her ideal weight was forty years in the making with a trail of unsuccessful attempts in her wake.

The mind body connection. MK Mueller is a former binge eater and domestic violence survivor who at the age of 34 put together a program for her own recovery and began a support group in her home called “Taking Care of Me.” Almost overnight the group outgrew her living room, and she became an international trainer and TEDx speaker, working with schools, health care organizations, and Fortune 500 companies.

Find your ideal body weight and stay there. With her encouragement and gentle guidance, you can let go of the burden of living life as a weight number and reclaim your self-esteem and personal power. Her program is not about losing weight but “releasing” pounds that no longer serve you, that hold you back and drag you down, make you feel bad about yourself and leave you vulnerable to health risks. Adjust your attitude first, then adjust the way you eat.

Also read MJ Mueller's award-winning Taking Care of Me: The Habits of Happiness, and 8 to Great: The Powerful Process for Positive Change, which are the foundation for the acclaimed 8 to Great curriculum for schools as well as the life-changing 8 to Your IdealWeight program.

An Insider's Guide to Craft Beer─the World's Greatest Drink

"Brad and Jonny make understanding beer easy and nearly as fun as drinking it." ―James Watt, founder of Brewdog.

#1 Best Seller in Beer

Beer has come a long way in the 6,000 years since the first taste. The legends of the craft beer industry have made sure everyone’s within reach of the perfect pint. But how do you get the right brew for you? And can you learn to make a beer that adds to the lager legacy?

Beers of the world. Welcome to Beer School, brought to you by the heroes of YouTube sensation the Craft Beer Channel, a guide to everything you need to know about the wide and wonderful beers of the world. In Beer School, Jonny and Brad explain the intricacies of the finest artisan craft brews including: ales, lagers, porters, stouts, IPSs, and bitters.

How to make beer. The lads have the inside scoop on everything from hop varieties and barrel aging, to serving temperatures and glassware. Beer School helps you learn how to make beer and how to get the most out of every sip. Learn about grain, mash, water, hops, boil, yeast, fermentation, serving, storing, pouring, and tasting.

If you have read books such as The Complete Beer Course by Joshua M. Bernstein or The Beer Bible by Jeff Alworth, you’ll love Beer School by Jonny Garrett and Brad Evans.

How Can a Plant-Based Diet Impact My Life?

Plant-Based living is a lifestyle: It awakens your awareness to understanding that every choice you make has a greater impact. It's a choice that can transcend the collective mind with the idea of respecting every form of life. Are you ready for the benefits of an eating clean diet? Are you seeking a happy, health-filled life?

Welcome to nourishment through plant based eating: Nourished, the debut book by plant-based chef and holistic nutrition expert Pamela Wasabi, invites you to discover a new love for and understanding of your body, and the importance of nourishment through plant based eating. Pamela shows readers how learning to cook helped her overcome medical challenges and put her on the path to health through clean eating diet recipes and plant based nutrition.

Nourishment for the body and nourishment for the spirit: This eat-clean diet book is a delicious trip through the plant based eating experience from start to finish. The book is organized to mirror the life-cycle of a plant, from when the seed is sewn to when the flower blooms. Using this delightful convention for her eat-clean diet book, Wasabi prescribes what it takes for true body nourishment, and nourishment of the mind and spirit.

Life-enhancing insights that you will gain from reading Nourished include:

• How to invite nourishment into your life to relax
• How to find peace within and let go of strict forms of dieting, perfection, and restrictions
• Understand that every symptom or food issue we deal with is an invitation to get to know ourselves better
• Inspiration to be softer, more loving, and have unconditional acceptance for who we are
• An appreciation for the joys of a plant based nutrition lifestyle
• How to be mindful and present about our choices when it comes to food and health
• How to embark on a path of health and happiness
• Some favorite clean eating diet recipes

ENJOY!

Great Wines and Great Writers are a Wonderful Blend

“Guides to the wide world of wine are many but this is the first book on the market to pair books with wine by an author who is a preeminent expert on both.” —Thriftbooks.com

#1 Best Seller in Wine & Spirits Buying Guides

A fact-filled, jargon free guide to wine, bursting with entertaining anecdotes, literary quotes and compelling humor that teaches you everything you always wanted to learn about wine but were too scared to ask.

The pleasures of great wine and great writers. Under the careful guidance of his father, Patrick Alexander began drinking wine with his meals at the age of five. At the same age, encouraged by his mother, he began a lifelong love-affair with books. The twin pleasures of wine and writing remained his passion up to this day. He has raised his own children in many of the world’s great wine growing regions, from Bordeaux and Piedmont in Europe to the Santa Cruz mountains of California while researching and writing his definitive guide to the novels of Marcel Proust.

History of wine and some of the best wines. For several years, Patrick has been teaching a sold-out wine appreciation class at the nation’s No.1 independent bookstore, Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida. The Booklovers' Guide to Wine is based on this very successful class and blends Patrick’s passion for the culture and history of wine and his love of literature for the world's great writers. A literary twist on traditional food and wine pairings, this book explores how great wines and great writers can be combined to enhance the enjoyment of both. The book describes the history of wine from the time of Noah to the birth of two-buck Chuck.

If you are a fan of wine books such as Cork Dork, Wine Folly, Wine Simple, or The Wine Bible, and appreciate great literature, you will love The Booklovers’ Guide to Wine.

#1 Amazon New Release! ─ Cooking, Baking and Making ─ DIY recipes and DIY ideas for all seasons

DIY Ideas ─ DIY Recipes: From the creative mind of the Harried Housewife blog, comes a beautifully packaged one-stop-shop book bursting with DIY recipes and DIY ideas for the entire year! Cooking, Baking and Making - 100 Holiday Recipes and DIY Ideas for All Seasons and Reasons includes 60 DIY recipes with bonus designs and 40 DIY ideas that tie your home together for all 365 days. For example:

• Spring: Serve Herbed Cucumber Tea Sandwiches and a make a Spring Centerpiece
• Summer: Delight your guests with Fresh Berries and Cannoli Cream and make your own decorative coasters
• Autumn: Bake Dilled Beer and Cheddar Bread and make Autumn Harvest Potpourri
• Winter: Enjoy Creamy Eggnog Cupcakes and make Festive Votives

Ideas and Recipes for all seasons and a simpler time: Cynthia O’Hara presents incredibly user-friendly projects and dishes that make replicating her flavors and designs as natural as the changing of the seasons. The Harried Housewife has written articles and developed a wide variety of recipes that reflect a simpler time and are ideal for budget-conscious families. The "Harried Housewife's Recipe Box" column is syndicated nationally in regional newspapers.

Much More Than Just a Pot Cookbook

Andrea definitely knows the secret to preparing amazing meals. It's hard for anyone not to be a fan.”  ─Ruben Honig, Executive Director, Los Angeles Cannabis Task Force

#1 New Release in Herbs, Spices & Condiments

Cannabis Cuisine Elevates Marijuana to a Fine Dining Experience

Chef Andrea Drummer is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu and co-owner of Elevation VIP Co-op, a Los Angeles–based company that caters high-end, intimate dinner parties ─ AND, she is a world class marijuana chef.

Cooking with marijuana. In her cookbook, chef and author Andrea Drummer guides home cooks through an adventure of the palette. She is a firm believer that the food always comes first. Her book is about the art of marijuana as an ingredient. Like a fine wine, cannabis is meant to be paired according to its unique profile. With every dish, she looks to the textures, flavors, and scents of the bud before masterfully pairing it with ingredients that transcend the dish. Every item she prepares incorporates the flavor profile of the strain that she is using with what is being prepared, thus the cannabis is just as important as any other ingredient.

Filled with recipes, but more than a marijuana cookbook. Cannabis Cuisine elevates marijuana to the highest levels of cuisine. Never before have recipes been presented like this. From the comforts of southern kitchens to the upscale stoves of Michelin star restaurants, each recipe is carefully crafted to elevate both the dish and the cook.

Inside learn:

• The basics of pairing buds
• How to create unique butters and oils to incorporate in every meal
• Tips for elevating breakfast, lunch and dinner
• The secret of marijuana as a flavor powerhouse
• How to properly dose cannabis infused cuisine

If you are a fan of cannabis books such as Edibles, The 420 Gourmet, Bong Appétit, or Kief Preston's Time-Tested Edibles Cookbook, you will love Andrea Drummer's Cannabis Cuisine.

Celebrate With Cookies!

"The perfect gift for someone who enjoys making fancy treats and entertaining." ―Meredith Spidel, author of Mom of the Year.

#1 New Release in Cooking with Kids, Cookies, Sweets, and Curiosities & Wonders

A Cookie to Celebrate is full of cookie baking tips, recipes, presentation ideas, and photograph-filled instructions

Desserts made to impress at your next party. What sets A Cookie to Celebrate apart is its step-by-step instructions for gorgeously personalized cookies for all kinds of occasions, from birthdays to anniversaries to the changing of the seasons. These cookies are ornamental edibles that are perfect for the holidays, and because the recipes are easy to scale up or down, they’re great for cookie exchanges, gift-giving, kids’ parties, and potlucks.

Perfect cookie for every occasion. Jana Douglass is the founder of Jana Lee's Bake Shop, an artisan bake shop specializing in custom decorated cut-out cookies for special events and celebrations. In A Cookie to Celebrate, Jana shares her baking expertise and recipes as a veteran baker, inspiring you to create your own new classics. Each cookie in this collection is guaranteed to be a stand-out.

Reimagined recipes and exciting new treats. A Cookie to Celebrate is filled with new twists on cookie concepts, like Engagement Ring Cookies and Baby Onesie Cookies―confections decorated for every season and reason. Try something new with ice cream cone cookies with sprinkles in summer, conversation heart cookies for Valentine’s Day, or even decorating a birthday cake with cookies!

Discover:

• How to expertly roll, cut, and bake your cookie dough
• Helpful tools and techniques for coloring and piping icing
• Creative ways to spice up classics―or try something new

If you have enjoyed cookie baking books such as The Perfect Cookie, Fabulous Modern Cookies, The Cookie Companion, Creative Cookie Decorating, or Baker Betties Better Baking Book, you’ll love A Cookie to Celebrate.

A Spirited Look at Drinks in Pop Culture

"...celebrates drinking lore across a wide range of comic book and video game universes..." ─WineMag.com

#1 New Release in Alcoholic Drinks & Beer

Sci-fi and fantasy worlds are full of characters who know that sometimes magic happens at the bar. In addition to being a mixed drinks and alcoholic drinks book, Drink Like a Geek is a look at iconic drinks and the roles they play in our pop culture─our favorite movies, shows, books, and comics. It’s also a toast to the geeks, nerds, and gamers who keep this pop culture alive.

Flights of fantasy. Drink Like a Geek is a fan encyclopedia and cocktail book. Because we strongly encourage audience participation, dozens of recipes for otherworldly cocktails, brews, and booze are included.

A great 21st birthday idea. If you’re looking for nerd gifts, Drink Like a Geek raises the bar. Homebrewers and mixology geeks who are fans of superheroes, wizards, or intergalactic adventure will also enjoy this book’s celebration of real-world bar-arcades, geeky Tiki culture, and the surprising connections between space and modern booze.

In Drink Like a Geek, you’ll find entertainment and drinks for fans who love:

• Sci-fi
• Comic books
• Wizards
• Genre TV
•  B-movies
• Videogames
• Cosplay and conventions
• And space!

You'll love this book if you enjoy pun-filled cocktail recipe books and cookbooks like Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist; Gone with the Gin: Cocktails with a Hollywood Twist; The Bob’s Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers; Heroes’ Feast (Dungeons & Dragons); The Geeky Bartender Drinks; or The Geeky Chef Drinks.

Not Your Typical Betty Crocker Cookbook

Feminism meets cooking in this addition to the Wild Woman series, pairing recipes by famous female chefs Lynett Rohrer and Nicole Alper with food trivia, stories, and quotes by women.

So you think a woman’s place is in the kitchen. With Betty Drapers and “make me a sandwich” mantras, it’s easy to forget that women have been cooking up a storm for quite some time. Catherine de’Medici was the Johnny Appleseed of Italian food. Nancy Hart shot a Royalist soldier for barging in and interrupting dinner. Turns out, these women really can take the heat. Maybe it’s best to stay out of their kitchen.

Unconventional females and unconditionally good food. Part cookbook, and part women’s history, Wild Women in the Kitchen features 101 recipes to complement the culinary contributions of famous females. With starter recipes curated specifically to these tough cookies, this book replaces female stereotypes with empowering, historical context. Inside, learn about Cleopatra's orgiastic oysters and:

• Break bread with Golda Meir
• Serve cucumber sandwiches in Natalie Barney’s Parisian salon
• Bring over Canard a l’orange like Catherine de’Medici

If you’re in need of a feminist cookbook, and enjoyed reads like The Little House Cookbook, Women's Libation!, The Little Women Cookbook, or A Woman's Place; then you’ll savor Wild Women in the Kitchen.

Tap into your inner party girl

No more boring parties.  Whether you're entertaining three people or three hundred, The Party Girl Cookbook can turn you into a party girl and every occasion into a memorable event. Most entertaining books are overly ambitious and complex, or assume you have limitless resources and a catering staff at your disposal. The average woman who wants to give a party without breaking the bank or her back is out of luck. Not any more. The Party Girls' number one rule is, Have fun , even and especially if you're the hostess. No deep frying or stuffing miniature mushrooms for hours on end. Each of the twenty four themed fetes, from the familiar Halloween and Valentine's Day, to the exotic Come As You Were: Reincarnation Party. It includes ideas for invitations, party favors, decorations, music, games, costumes, and tons of food and drink.

Whether you use The Party Girl Cookbook as a step-by-step guide to throwing the most talked-about party ever, or as a personal manifesto to living life like a party girl, it will entertain and enlighten you with its humor, energy, and originality.

One of the best ways to enhance the quality of our lives is to treat ourselves to the foods we lovethe more often, the better Kitchen Goddess Margie Lapanja interviewed hundreds of men to compile this culinary collection of their favorite meals for a oneofakind cookbook filled with recipes, fascinating food trivia, and fun stories from the kitchen.

Whether a seasoned chef, a barbecuehappy bachelor, or a loving husband, men are taking up the tongs and giving the salad spinner a whirl in increasing numbers. Among the signature recipes of esteemed chefs and kitchen wizards, there are favorite feelgood feasts of superstars, sports heroes, luminaries, grill gurus, starving artists, burger kings, and every man in between. Included in Food Men Love is Tom Cruise's favorite Linguini dish, quarterback John Elway's Hamburger Soup, star chef Mario Batali's Bucatini all 'amatriciana, basketball legend Michael Jordan's 23 Peekytoe Crab Sandwich, and former Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir's Peanut Satay Sauce. Dishes are organized by course in chapters including: Warming Up His Appetite/ Playing with Fire: Seeking Thrills with the Grrrill/ Fowl Play/ and How Sweet It Is: Treat Him to His Just Desserts.

Food Men Love provides the recipes for some alltime favorites that are sure to warm the heart of anyone.

A lively and delectable tribute to the sensuous arts of cooking, loving, and living, Romancing the Stove is sure to stir the senses, and tickle the taste buds Combining crowdpleasing original recipes, mythology, and failsafe trade secrets, chef and culinary courtesan Margie Lapanja (famous for her Cowboy Cookie reciperevealed for the first time in this book) has concocted the most unique, engaging collection of mouthwatering menus and fun stories.

Romancing the Stove is a delicious read, filled with goddess tales, practical tips, fascinating food facts, divine dishes, and a fine seasoning of quotes. Lapanja reveals the pleasure of the table for everyone from skilled gourmets to the ultimate kitchen klutz. Recipes include dishes as diverse as classic Pain Perdu (known to the French as "Lost Bread")a resourceful resolution for those unloved loaves that were destined to go staleto Love Apple Linguine and Deepest, Darkest Devil's Food Cake.

Everybody loves food. Everybody loves music. Put the two together and you have a sumptuous, one-of-a kind cookbook guaranteed to stir the senses and tickle the taste buds. 'Kitchen Goddess' Margie Lapanja and rocker Cindy Coverdale have cooked up sheer delight where everybody gets a front row seat, a backstage pass, and dinner (actual interviews) with the band.

Cleverly organized like a concert, Lapanja and Coverdale start with 'Opening Acts.' Taste Patti LaBelle's 'Potato Salad' and David Coverdale's 'Soulful Shrimp Soup' before trying the 'Amped-up Appetizers.' 'Electrifying Entrees' zing the page with Ted Nugent's 'Bubble Bean Piranha' la Colorado Moose.' Desserts worthy of a standing ovation -- such as Sarah McLachlan's 'Current Cake' -- also belt out from these pages.

Guaranteed to satisfy every taste, Food That Rocks also spotlights musician-owned restaurants, musical cookbooks, and songs about food, writers who rock, and chefs who jam. Meet the real Rolling Stone's Ben Fong Torres of Almost Famous, and Rock Bottom Remainders literary band of Amy Tan and Stephen King, led by Kathy Goldmark. Food That Rocks heats up the kitchen with red-hot rock, outstanding food, and recipes you will not find anywhere else.

Foodie-author Margie Lapanja and Cindy Coverdale, wife of David Coverdale, bring backstage access right up to the kitchen table with a smorgasbord of music stars and their favorite recipes: Patti LaBelle, Shania Twain, Sarah McLachlan, Ted Nugent, Bob Weir, Joe Satriani, Aerosmith, Jennifer Lopez, and more. More than just a cookbook, these stories about the stars and their recipes pepper the pages and keep reading red hot.

Experience the World of Japanese Pop Culture Through a Whole New Medium—Japanese Food!

#1 New Release in Animated Humor & Entertainment

With dishes inspired by otaku culture, this cookbook brings Japanese anime and manga to chefs of all levels.

Experience Japanese culture like never before. Japan fever has taken the West by storm. Praised for its attention to detail, it’s no wonder that some of the most appealing images are colorfully culinary. From beautifully animated bowls of ramen and curry to cakes and confectionery, Japanese food culture never looked so good. If only you could reach out and take a bite…and now you can!

For the anime and manga reader. With our increasing hunger for Japanese pop culture, comes an appetite to match. And with dishes from pop culture icons like One Piece and Naruto, manga and anime can finally be enjoyed in the comfort of your very own kitchen. Whether you’re enjoying Japanese ramen from Naruto or fried rice from Food Wars, readers and foodies can learn about Japanese cooking basics and some new series to enjoy, featuring recipes like:

• Mitarashi Dango from Samurai Champloo
• Onigiri from Fruits Basket
• Yakiniku from Rurouni Ken shin

If you enjoy Asian food, or books like Cook Anime, Japanese Soul Cooking, or The Just Bento Cookbook, then Otaku Food is your next cookbook!

Discover the Best Craft Beer in Northern California

Searching for the best beer in the sunny skies of NorCal? This definitive beer guide will have you looking in all the right places for the exceptional taste of craft beer produced by California’s finest Breweries.

Delve into the world of forty of the most exciting and respected Northern California craft breweries. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes peek at the culture and the creativity of this inventive industry. These distinctive breweries―chosen with the help of the California Craft Brewery Association―are turning out excellent, award-winning brew and have created fantastic spaces for beer lovers like you to pull up a chair, sample, sip, snack, and play.

A tasting flight of breweries featured for sampling. Breweries visited include Sierra Nevada and Lost Coast on the larger side―to mid-size operations such as Faction and Heretic―to intimate barrel houses such as Cleophus Quealy and Sante Adairius―and everything in between. Each entry gives the low down on details such as:

• The Brewery’s claim to fame
• Whether they serve food or have growlers on hand for take-away
• Terms to ramp up your brewery knowledge

Hundreds of photographs will help you decide where you want to while away your sipping hours. And, this field guide even has a blank page for your personal tasting notes, which will help you keep track of which brews you’ve tasted and especially loved.

If you enjoyed books like Wine Folly, The Drunken Botanist, or Cocktail Codex then you’ll want to have your own copy of Hoppy Trails.

FlavCity Five Ingredient Meals For Easy Weeknight Dinners and More!

#1 Bestseller in Slow Cooker Recipes, Heart Healthy Cooking, Diets & Weight Loss, Gluten-Free Diets, Budget Cooking, Green Housekeeping, and Allergies, Special Conditions, Cooking Methods, Regional & International, Soul Food, and Quick & Easy

You don’t have to be a chef to create delicious food. In fact, it only takes a handful of ingredients to make mouthwatering and easy weeknight dinners. This cookbook by Bobby and Dessi Parrish is packed full of simple, healthy dinner ideas that even newbie cooks find easy to make.

An introduction to easy meals and cooking. Cooking doesn’t have to be complicated. Food Network champion Bobby Parrish shares the ins and outs of their 5-ingredient meals and assures us his quick and easy dinner recipes are doable for all. By keeping the recipes to five ingredients, Bobby demonstrates just how easy cooking can be. From savory snacks to easy weeknight dinners packed with flavor, this easy (and healthy!) recipe book is just what your kitchen needs. But Bobby and Dessi’s tips don’t stop there―they know that a key aspect of these simple healthy recipes is the prep work at the grocery store beforehand.

Hacks for smarter grocery shopping. Going to the grocery store can be a bit overwhelming, especially if your list is long! Fortunately, these five-ingredient recipes make grocery shopping and picking the right ingredients for easy weeknight dinners far less daunting. But smarter grocery shopping is about more than what’s on your list. It’s about knowing how to pick the “best in class” products. 

Inside find:

• 50 easy healthy meals that only take five ingredients
• Advice for cooking with a combination of store-bought and fresh items
• Essential insight into smarter grocery shopping

If you enjoyed books like Keto Meal Prep by FlavCity, 5 Ingredients, The Well Plated Cookbook, or The Easy 5-Ingredient Healthy Cookbook, you’ll love FlavCity’s 5 Ingredient Meals.

Whet Your Appetites for A Fascinating History of American Food

"Terrific food journalism. Page uncovers the untold backstories of American food. A great read." —George Stephanopoulos, Good Morning America, This Week and ABC News’ Chief Anchor

2021 International Book Awards finalist in History: United States
Living Now Book Award, Silver - Cookbooks, Ethnic Holiday
#1 New Release in History Humor, Food & Cooking, and Media Tie-In Cooking

David Page changed the world of food television by creating, developing, and executive-producing the groundbreaking show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Now from this two-time Emmy winner comes Food Americana, an entertaining mix of food culture, pop culture, nostalgia, and everything new on the American plate.

The remarkable history of American food. What is American cuisine, what national menu do we share, what dishes have we chosen, how did they become “American,” and how are they likely to evolve from here? David Page answers all these questions and more.

Engaging, insightful, and often humorous. The inside story of how Americans have formed a national cuisine from a world of flavors. Sushi, pizza, tacos, bagels, barbecue, dim sum―even fried chicken, burgers, ice cream, and many more―were born elsewhere and transformed into a unique American cuisine.

Food Americana is a riveting ride into everything we eat and why. From a lobster boat off the coast of Maine to the Memphis in May barbecue competition. From the century-old Russ & Daughters lox and bagels shop in lower Manhattan to the Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival. From a thousand-dollar Chinese meal in San Francisco to birria tacos from a food truck in South Philly.

Meet engaging characters and legends including:

• Alice Waters
• Daniel Boulud
• Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s
• Mel Brooks  

If you enjoyed captivating food history books like A History of the World in 6 Glasses, On Food and Cooking, or the classic Salt by Mark Kurlansky, you’ll love Food Americana.

“An essential book, which shows that women are taking an increasingly important place in the world of rum, that they can be very talented producers, but that there is still a lot to do in terms of gender equality.” —Rum Porter

Once known as a sailor’s drink, rum has matured into a refined spirit. In some Caribbean countries, rum is offered as a libation to the gods. In others, it is aged and savored on the rocks. But in the most magical places, rum is distilled by women. Inside Rum Rebels, you’ll find personal anecdotes from master blenders, fabulous recipes for artisan rum cocktails, and the inside scoop on the magic behind Appleton, Zacapa, Cachaça Maria Izabel, Brugal, and more.

The art of cocktails, rum, and women. A pirate staple, rum has been the drink of rebels since the Old World. Now, there’s a new generation of rebels—the business women curating the taste of today’s best rum companies.  Part rum cocktail book, part ode to feminism, Rum Rebels is a story of female empowerment in a traditionally male-dominated industry. Looking at more than a dozen rum distilleries, each chapter of Rum Rebels profiles women in leadership, their rum, and the perfect cocktail pairing.

Learn how rum is made. Alongside women leaders and pioneers, this worldwide master class explores everything from palates to aging, providing first-hand stories from today’s leading rum distilleries. Whether a beginner or a seasoned rum enthusiast, Rum Rebels is the perfect read for anyone curious about the craft of rum distilling, artisan cocktails, or female leaders in history.

Grab a copy to learn how:

• At Appleton, Joy Spence becomes the first female master blender
• At Zacapa, Lorena Vasquez adorns her bottles with hand crafted palm leaves by Guatemalan women
• And more

If you’re looking for rum cocktail books, women leadership books, women entrepreneur books, or women of color gifts—like the Smugglers Cove cocktail book, Women’s Libation cocktail book, And a Bottle of Rum book, or Drinking Like Ladies—you’ll love Rum Rebels.

Make the Perfect Loaf with this Bread Baking Guide

#1 New Release in Rice & Grains and Breakfast Cooking

Bread Baking Basics by Gregory Berger explores the art of getting started and trying something new through making your first loaf of bread. With quotes, essays, photographs, illustrations, and recipes, this bread cookbook helps you feed your stomach—and your soul—through home baked bread.

The best—and easiest—way to make the perfect loaf. Baking new things can be intimidating. But if you never try, you’ll never get to taste the flavors of hard work and success. Practice the art of making bread through new skills that mirror life in surprising ways. Learn confidence while discovering the science of food. Find abundance while trying new and tasty recipes. Explore healthy living with healthy foods, all in Bread Baking Basics.

From making sourdough bread to pizza dough, learn new, simple, and classic recipes for bread. Author Gregory Berger knows what it’s like to try something new. He started making bread as a personal hobby on a whim. Now, he’s an award-winning baker who has learned to make the perfect loaf—and has created recipes for some of Sacramento’s top restaurants while at it.

In Bread Baking Basics, Gregory shares the skills and life lessons he’s learned from his journey, including:

• The do's and don’ts of making Sourdough bread starters and sour moments
• Healthy toast recipes and healthy, local eating
• Creative salad and pizza ideas alongside lessons on moderation and enjoyment

If you found bread baking cookbooks like Bread Baking for Beginners by Bonnie Ohara, Mastering Bread by Marc Vetri, or Bread Bakers Apprentice by Peter Reinheart helpful, you’ll love Bread Baking Basics.

Gourmet Grazing for the Great Outdoors—Picnic Ideas For Your Picnic Basket

“Full of fun tips to bring gatherings outside; the recipes, practical tips, and styling inspiration makes me want to make every meal a picnic.” —Elizabeth Minchilli, author of The Italian Table

#1 New Release in Salads

What could be the hidden key to health and happiness? It may just be tucked away in your picnic basket. The Art of Picnics encourages you to take a break from your fast-paced life to pick up a picnic basket, and reconnect with nature.

Find perfect picnic ideas for seasonal eating.There’s nothing more satisfying than yummy picnic foods and fun outdoor activities. If you’re yearning for tranquility and the charm of nature, make your backyard your own special retreat! With a bounty of family-style food recipes for foodies of all skill levels, The Art of Picnics offers a new perspective on traditional picnics.

Easy to follow recipes for outdoor entertaining. The Art of Picnics is a beautiful accessible guide to create a fun outdoor gathering. Whether it’s cooking during the day for an upcountry lunch or preparing for a twilight gathering, you’ll capture a spark of outdoor adventure with these seasonal picnic ideas. 

Inside you’ll find:

• Décor ideas with woven rugs, crate tables, mismatched china, plush pillows
• Planning recommendations like fresh-cut blooms, wine, and artisanal bread
• An outdoor cookbook full of one-of-a-kind recipes for sandwiches, grazing boards, and more!

If you’re looking for charcuterie books, a picnic snacks cookbook, or recipes for food on the go—or enjoyed Platters and Boards, The Camp Cookout, or Paris Picnic Club—then you’ll love The Art of Picnics.

“Move over, Martha! (and Snoop), these women can cook! This truly one-of-a-kind cookbook features a delicious helping of women's history along with delightful recipes.”—Becca Anderson, author of The Book of Awesome Women

#1 Bestseller in Media Tie-In

Feminism meets cooking in this updated addition to the Wild Woman series. With over 100,000 copies sold of the original, pair recipes by famous female chef Lynett Rohrer and food writer Nicole Alper with food-related stories, trivia, and quotes for women by women.

A funny cookbook with stories for the wild woman who loves real food. When stereotypes abound, it can be easy to forget that women have been cooking up a storm for quite some time. Catherine de’Medici was the Johnny Appleseed of Italian food. Nancy Hart shot a Royalist soldier for barging in and interrupting dinner. Women who risk it all really can take the heat. Maybe it’s best to stay out of their kitchen.

Unconventional ladies and unconditionally good food. Part food recipe book, and part women’s history, Wild Women in the Kitchen features 101 recipes to complement the culinary contributions of famous women in history. With starter recipes curated specifically to each featured wild woman, this feminist recipe book replaces stereotypes with empowering context while also providing a felicitous food fix. Famous cooks Lynett Rohrer and Nicole Alper take you on a delicious journey through history in this easy to understand recipe book.

Inside, learn how to cook like a wild woman and:

• Fix Haschich Fudge with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tokas 
• Serve cucumber sandwiches in Natalie Barney’s Parisian salon
• Create Canard a l’orange like Catherine de’Medici

If you enjoyed funny cookbooks and empowering cook books for women like Black Food, Trejo's Tacos, or Taste Makers, then you’ll savor Wild Women in the Kitchen.

Make artisanal cheese at home with simple techniques that produce professional-quality results. Step-by-step guide to creating fresh and aged cheeses using basic equipment and natural ingredients, with troubleshooting for perfect results every time.

Why Homemade Cheese Beats Store-Bought:

Artisanal cheeses cost $15-25 per pound retail but can be made at home for $3-5 per pound using the same traditional techniques, with fresher ingredients and no preservatives.

What You'll Master:

• Essential techniques for fresh cheeses like mozzarella, ricotta, and farmer's cheese
• Aging processes for hard cheeses including cheddar, gouda, and parmesan styles
• Troubleshooting guides for texture, flavor, and aging problems
• Equipment recommendations from basic starter setups to advanced aging caves
• Recipe scaling for family consumption or small-scale commercial production

Cost Savings and Quality:

Home cheesemakers report saving $500-1,500 annually on cheese purchases while enjoying fresher, more flavorful results than commercial alternatives.

Create gourmet cheese in your own kitchen. Perfect for cooking enthusiasts, homesteaders, and anyone wanting to master this ancient food preservation art.

“Clear and instructive, its recipes [are] delicious . . . Along with all those wonderful fruits and vegetables, this book belongs in your market tote.”—Adam Rapoport, Editor in Chief, Bon Appétit

Farmers’ markets and CSAs are among the best places to find high-quality, diverse, and exciting vegetables and fruits. But the rich array of unusual varieties can be confusing and overwhelming. From detailed produce descriptions to storage tips, preparation techniques, and over two hundred flavorful recipes, The Farmers’ Market Cookbook has the answer to every prospective locavore’s perennial question, “What do I do with this?”

Featuring a range of traditional favorites alongside innovative creations showcasing the stunning flavors of heirloom fruits and vegetables, this guide to seasonal eating will help you engage your powers of creativity, learning, and experimentation. Recipes include:

• Garlic scape vichyssoise
• Potato fennel “risotto”
• Beef roulade with cilantro mojo
• Cantaloupe salsa

Eating locally cultivates appreciation for those who grow our food. Full of practical insights from field to fork, The Farmers’ Market Cookbook celebrates the small farmer’s labor of love with recipes that showcase every crop at its best—essential reading for anyone who wants to appreciate fresh food at its best.

“[Shanks and Grohsgal’s] collective wisdom on culinary techniques and fresh produce has helped to create a highly targeted guide with dozens of seasonal recipes that maximize freshness and flavor.”—T. W. Barritt, author of Long Island Food: A History from Family Farms & Oysters to Craft Spirits

“In this handy guide/cookbook, Shanks and Grohsgal offer practical tips on how to store and prepare your farmers market and CSA veggies.”—Boston Herald

Hollyhock center chefs celebrate thirty years of exquisite meals on Canada’s Cortes Island with more than two hundred sustainable, garden-fresh recipes.

World renowned as an unparalleled center of learning and connection, Hollyhock exists to inspire, nourish and support people who are making the world better. At the heart of this unique institution, located on beautiful Cortes Island, is Hollyhock's spectacular organic garden, just steps away from the ocean view kitchen. Following their popular Hollyhock Cooks, Moreka Jolar and Heidi Scheifley offer more than 200 new garden-inspired recipes.

Hollyhock: Garden to Table invites you to enjoy the beauty of fresh, local food. The book is filled with imaginative ideas, global inspiration, and invaluable growing tips from Hollyhock's own Master Gardener, Nori Fletcher. The versatility of whole grains, healthy oils and natural sweeteners is showcased in mouthwatering creations such as:

• Thin-Crust Pizza with Nettle Pesto and Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Asparagus and Chevre
• Black Sesame Crusted Albacore Tuna with Ponzu Sauce
• Soft Polenta with Roasted Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onions, Peas and Smoked Cheddar
• Honey Roasted Pears with Balsamic & Mascarpone

Garden-fresh recipes from an island retreat.

Imagine a educational retreat center nestled in the tall forest of an island paradise where the sea laps at the beach below. Now add the most delicious food imaginable, created by a host of talented artist-cooks using vegetables and flowers gathered from the center's lush gardens, and presented with delicate care. Then think of the most well-known names from the body, mind, and soul circuit who frequently teach here, and the guests who hail from the furthest reaches of the continent.

This is Hollyhock. Located on Cortes Island in British Columbia's Georgia Strait, Hollyhock is about nourishing those who work to make the world a better place. It has been attracting visitors like bees to honey for the past twenty-five years-partly because of its delicious food.

Now, for the first time, Hollyhock Cooks showcases the best of its globally influenced cuisine, with over 200 recipes including everything from soups and salads to entrées, sauces and spreads, desserts, and drinks. Special chapters focus on how to combine garden with kitchen, and on secrets for cooking for a crowd. And interspersed throughout are comments from the famous Hollyhock presenters-Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Robert Bly, Joan Borysenko and more-on their very favorite dishes.

"Maharaji said that we should eat only food cooked with love. The food at Hollyhock is tasty, cooked with care and love. I take away a soft sweetness and a fat stomach!"-Ram Dass

"Combines the worlds of ethical meat production with innovative ingredients and techniques . . . a must-own for amateur and professional butchers alike."—Chef Clark Barlowe, Heirloom Restaurant, Charlotte, NC

Cured meat products arose from the need for preservation, in a time when cooking and refrigeration were not always available. Today, charcuterie is an embodiment of art in the kitchen, combining precision, balance, patience, and creativity; an economy of ingredients, as poetry is an economy of words. The confluence of these elements, along with the purest of ingredients, can enable anyone to craft cured meats in their home.

Pure Charcuterie is a practical and artistic look at the techniques for curing meat at home both as a creative hands-on craft and as a fantastic and sustainable way to preserve highly valuable food. This accessible, beautiful, visual guide walks the reader through the process of making charcuterie, including:

• Sourcing ingredients
• Clear explanations of charcuterie technique
• Creative recipes balancing tradition and invention
• Smoking meats and building your own smoker

The analogies drawn between art and food, along with creative and accessible photographic discussions of charcuterie technique, make this book an essential primer on the basics of charcuterie: the mystery, the science, the art, and the technique. Ideal for home cooks working in small spaces, Pure Charcuterie is a must-have for experienced and new cooks alike—and any home artisan.

"I don't know of anyone that can make a description of making mortadella sound poetic, funny, emotionally engaging and most importantly, to the point."—Rey Tagle, home charcuterie master

"Takes the reader on a meaty, and yet artistic journey into the wonderful world of curing meats."—Hank Will, editorial director, Mother Earth News

“Cleverly combines science, history, and personal touches to make homemade bread accessible for everyone, no matter his or her level of experience.” —Meredith Leigh, author of Pure Charcuterie

Is there any food that evokes pleasant memories and warm feelings more than bread? It’s the most basic of foods, yet many of us are intimidated by the prospect of making our own. “Artisan” bread, craft bakeries, and wood-fired pizza are gaining popularity—imagine creating these fabulous breads at home.

With From No-Knead to Sourdough, author Victoria Redhed Miller blends her own journey toward self-reliance with her fascination for traditional homesteading skills and love of good food. From making simple yeast breads, to learning how to bake a wide variety of sourdough-based breads, the author’s curiosity and fearlessness come together to share with readers a simpler approach to the pleasures of bread-baking.

Topics include:

• Fitting bread-baking into your schedule
• Low- and no-gluten baking, including GF sourdough breads
• Using a wood-fired oven
• Recipes for every comfort zone, from flatbread to sourdough
• “Sexy science talk” sidebars for those interested in the science of baking.

From No-Knead to Sourdough will inspire the beginner and the accomplished baker alike to find their own comfort zone and move on to new skills when they are ready. Pizza and bagels, flatbreads and loaf breads, even gluten-free breads—you become the artisan when you make your own bread.

“There are few things more soul-satisfying than the taste of homemade sourdough, and even fewer things as healthful to keep your mind and body tuned and balanced. Victoria’s detailed but uncluttered recipes make that argument, delectably.” —Stephen Yafa, author of Grain of Truth

Create refreshing, healthier drinks, from kombucha to herbal sodas and more, in your own kitchen.

Since the relatively recent introduction of kombucha onto North American supermarket shelves, this healthy sparkling beverage has exploded in popularity. But can it be brewed at home, with the same tasty, healthy results?

With this straightforward, accessible, and highly visual how-to guide, author Andrea Potter does away with specialist jargon and expensive or hard-to-find equipment, showing how sparkling homebrews from kombucha to water kefir are definitely possible for just about anyone to make, and have fun doing it. Coverage includes:

• Basic fermentation science
• Controlling fizz, acidity, and alcohol content
• Secondary fermentation and adding flavours to the brew
• Wild-fermented sodas, using a ginger bug (a wild yeast culture)
• Recipes for kombucha's honey-fed relative, Jun, as well as for water kefir.

Answering key questions including "where does all that sugar go?", "do I need to get a sitter for it when I go on holiday?", and "does this SCOBY look normal?", and including a comprehensive troubleshooting guide to help you keep brewing confidently and consistently, DIY Kombucha is ideal for foodies, urban and rural homesteaders, and health-motivated people - it's an essential addition to your DIY toolkit!

“Enjoy delicious, nutritious sourdough family favorites such as English muffins and cinnamon raisin bread right in the comfort of your own home.” —Hannah Crum, coauthor of The Big Book of Kombucha

Real life is busy enough without having social media-worthy sourdough on your to-do list. But if your goal is to make simple, nourishing, and delicious whole grain sourdough for your whole family, then DIY Sourdough is your one-stop beginner’s guide. Coverage includes:

• Simple sourdough recipes for breads, snacks, and more
• The secrets to consistent results
• Tips and tricks for homemade sourdough, including flour buying, home milling, and sourdough starter
• Homemade bread scheduling options, including split-day sourdough recipes for making sourdough an easy part of your weekly routine.

DIY Sourdough is your personal guide to getting started with sourdough. It gives you a helping hand to succeed and offers a simple time-saving approach to make nourishing and delicious sourdough that fits into a hectic lifestyle.

“People have been fermenting grains, baking bread, and keeping sourdough starters alive for millennia using very simple, basic techniques. John and Jessica Moody bring back the simplicity by demonstrating in clear terms how a busy homesteading family, be they rural or urban, can bake a wide range of sourdough-based baked products with ease. To boot, DIY Sourdough will provide you with myriad recipes for feeding your family healthy, digestible baked products for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in-between.” —Jereme Zimmerman, award-winning author of Brew Beer Like a Yeti

“Leigh will teach you how to raise animals, butcher them, and cook and cure their meat. Even better, she explains what it means and why it matters.” —Mark Essig, author of Lesser Beasts

Nutrition, environmental impact, ethics, sustainability—it seems like there’s no end to the food factors we must consider. At the center of the dietary storm is animal-based agriculture. Was your beef factory farmed or pasture-raised? Did your chicken free range, or was it raised in a battery cage? Have you, in short, met your meat?

Most efforts to unravel the complexities of the production and consumption of animals tend to pit meat eaters and vegetarians against each other.

In this second edition of The Ethical Meat Handbook, Meredith Leigh argues that by assuming responsibility for the food on our fork and the route by which it gets there, animals can be an optimal source of food, fiber, and environmental management. This new edition covers:

• Integrating animals into your garden or homestead
• Step-by-step color photos for beef, pork, lamb, and poultry butchery
• 100+ recipes for whole-animal cooking
• Culinary highlights: preparing difficult cuts, sauces, and extras
• Charcuterie, including history, general science, principles, and tooling up
• The economics and parameters for responsible meat production

Eating diversely may be the most revolutionary action we can take to ensure the sustainability of our food system. The Ethical Meat Handbook, 2nd Edition challenges us to take a hard look at our dietary choices, increase self-reliance, and enjoy delicious food that benefits our health and our planet.

“A powerful, positive book about a powerful, positive alternative, engaging us in shaping a new food and agriculture narrative.” —Jean-Martin Fortier, author of The Market Gardener

AWARDS

• GOLD | 2021 IACP Cookbook Awards - Food Issues & Matters
• GOLD | 2020 The Spring Harvest: Gourmand World Cookbook Awards - Meat USA
• BRONZE | 2021 Living Now Book Awards - Cookbooks: Ethnic / Holiday

Press your own right at home – homemade oils for cooking and health.

The Complete Guide to Seed and Nut Oils is a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated and photographed, full-color guide to growing, foraging, and pressing nut and seed crops to produce high-quality oils for culinary and other uses. Coverage includes:

• A brief history of seed oil extraction
• Culinary and health benefits of home-pressed oils versus factory produced oils
• Presses and other equipment options for ease, cost, and convenience
• How-to for growing, harvesting, processing, and pressing nuts and seeds
• Profiles of over 40 nuts and seeds to grow, forage, or source including hempseed, flax, peanuts, sunflowers, walnuts, okra, and more.
• Oil processing, storage, and culinary and other uses
• Scaling up for community or small-scale commercial production.

Whether you want to produce oils for cooking, balms and salves, self-sufficiency and resiliency or for small-scale commercial or community production, The Complete Guide to Seed and Nut Oils is a one-stop shop to get you started.

"Wine Hack" offers a new way forward. Learn wine like we in the industry learn wine. Spoiler: lots of tasting! This interactive book asks you to taste along with everyday food, drinks, and widely available wines to learn the four attributes that describe all wines, and even learn a few tricks for pairing wine with food.

This is the first book on wine that starts with your mouth, not your head. Teach your mouth wine and you will learn to find wines you love on a regular basis, no matter how snooty that wine shop guy is.

An inspiring journal reveals what happens when a couple takes on a plant-based diet for three months.

Claudia Nicole brings you into her home and reveals in this memoir how she and her husband attempt a plant-based diet. Through her compelling personal journey, she shows how learning how to eat healthy can be confusing and challenging, yet rewarding. She shares 45 easy-to-follow recipes throughout this book, and builds an inspiring blueprint for keeping life simple while staying healthy. An advocate of keeping a journal, she provides journaling tips for those following a new diet.

26 Days is also a witty narrative that is not just the author's own story, but also features personal stories and wisdom of others, from Anthony Bourdain, CNN's host of Parts Unknown; Martin Lindstrom, a leading consultant to major corporations on marketing strategies; and Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., the scientist behind the documentary, Forks Over Knives and author of The China Study, also a compelling argument for a plant-based diet.

Impromptu Friday Nights shows the reader how to set up supper clubs, provides options for different club formats, from large and formal to small and informal, and includes sample menus with recipes.

Author Paul J. Kenny and his wife have been in many different types of supper clubs for most of their adult lives. They have been in large, formal clubs, small, informal ones and several others in between. Through these experiences, Paul has learned what works for a group and what doesn’t. As part of these clubs, he has been writing menus and recipes for years. He is a foodie and comes from a long line of foodies who love to entertain.

When Food is Your Frenemy helps those who are morbidly obese or who struggle with self-image make the necessary changes to live full and healthy lives. Jacob F. Bustos himself was morbidly obese and had to accept the harsh reality that he needed to make a change. He realized that the relationship he had with food was a love/hate relationship. While the bariatric process he underwent was a life-saving procedure, his battle with self-image continued. In 2015, Jacob also underwent a traumatic skin removal surgery that nearly ended his life. During this event, he had a very personal experience with his Maker that affirmed his mission to feed people with healthier options. When Food is Your Frenemy is a life story for those who are struggling to know the real battle that not only Jacob faces, but almost everyone does at some point with food being such a big part of all of our lives. When Food is Your Frenemy is also a cookbook to promote healthy eating with recipes that are not only healthy, but really transform ordinary foods into healthier versions.

The SEED To PANTRY Planner is a game changer. No more guessing how many tomato plants are needed to grow to feed a family. DIY farmers simply insert the number of people in their family and get the number of plants that they need to plant. The SEED To PANTRY Planner is an actual yearly planner which helps to keep everything in one place, including month-at-a-glance pages for readers to record appointments along with birthdays and week-at-a-glance pages to record daily to-do lists. Within The SEED To PANTRY Planner, there are:

Properly labeled and exquisitely made Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) is one of life’s greatest delights. With its great taste and health benefits, high quality olive oil empowers habitual consumers to have a higher-standard of culinary experience. Their newfound tasting expertise will allow them to find, procure, and enjoy many brands worldwide—like fine wine, an array of oils to suit their palate.

In Extra Virgin Olive Oil: The Truth In Your Kitchen, David Neuman documents his experiences with highly acclaimed olive oil producers who care about the oil they produce. Readers will be shocked at how egregiously certain producers behave with their oil production. Neuman’s writing sheds light on the true intentions behind many olive oil competitions and food-industry award shows, making money off olive oil producers who want to use their award for marketing. And who loses at the end? The consumer, who trusts a hangar on a bottle that says “#1 Olive Oil”.

Author and food connoisseur David Neuman has written Extra Virgin Olive Oil: The Truth In Your Kitchen to be a well-rounded, simplified, solution-based resource for the consumer. Neuman hopes to educate consumers in a food category that is greatly whitewashed, offering an alternative to the shopping fatigue of endless options and trendy alternatives. He claims that if the consumer focuses on bringing an exceptional bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) into their home, they will have all they need to cook, bake and live a healthy lifestyle.

Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door is Emmanuel Laroche’s collection of dialogues with award-winning chefs from various backgrounds and cultures, sharing their personal experiences of where and why food culture is where it is today.

Revisiting his childhood and life as a young adult in France, traveling throughout Europe, and eventually moving with his family to the United States, Emmanuel Laroche infuses his knowledge and curiosity of everything food-related within each page of Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door. His decades-long connection with StarChefs—a platform for culinary professionals that hosts the annual International Chef’s Congress—gave Emmanuel the opportunity to meet and interview preeminent culinary talent, where he built a network of trending chefs, pastry chefs, and mixologists. 

Emmanuel’s podcast Flavors Unknown, as well as his worldwide search for new foods and flavors, are at the core of Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door. Scores of chefs offer essential insights and entertaining observations about the food scene today—information that will be of interest to new and aspiring chefs, as well as foodies and home cooks who follow trends in restaurants and recipes. Readers will walk away from Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door with a deeper understanding of the minds and creative practices of famous chefs, as well as a map to begin to create sensational dishes of their own.