From Pumpkin to Pie

The essential history of bread baking and sourdough’s rise to a global phenomenon.

Sourdough bread fueled the labor that built the Egyptian pyramids. The Roman Empire distributed free sourdough loaves to its citizens to maintain political stability. More recently, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, sourdough bread baking became a global phenomenon as people contended with being confined to their homes and sought distractions from their fear, uncertainty, and grief. In Sourdough Culture, environmental science professor Eric Pallant shows how throughout history, sourdough bread baking has always been about survival.

Sourdough Culture presents the history and rudimentary science of sourdough bread baking from its discovery more than six thousand years ago to its still-recent displacement by the innovation of dough-mixing machines and fast-acting yeast. Pallant traces the tradition of sourdough across continents, from its origins in the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent to Europe and then around the world. Pallant also explains how sourdough fed some of history’s most significant figures, such as Plato, Pliny the Elder, Louis Pasteur, Marie Antoinette, Martin Luther, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, and introduces the lesser-known—but equally important—individuals who relied on sourdough bread for sustenance: ancient Roman bakers, medieval housewives, Gold Rush miners, and the many, many others who have produced daily sourdough bread in anonymity.

Each chapter of Sourdough Culture is accompanied by a selection from Pallant’s own favorite recipes, which span millennia and traverse continents, and highlight an array of approaches, traditions, and methods to sourdough bread baking. Sourdough Culture is a rich, informative, and engaging read, especially for bakers—whether skilled or just beginners. More importantly, it tells the important and dynamic story of the bread that has fed the world.

Learn the secrets of sugar floristry with Petalsweet Cakes founder Jacqueline Butler. In her exquisite and accessible book, you'll learn in step-by-step detail how to create modern and sophisticated, stylized sugar flowers, and how to use them to create beautiful arrangements on wedding and celebration cakes.

Inside you'll find instructions and step-by-step photographs for 18 stunning sugar flowers in various stages of bloom, as well as flower buds and leaves, using the clean and contemporary color palette that Jacqueline's work is known for. Through six diverse projects you'll then learn how to use these foundation flowers in combination with filler flowers to create elegant cake designs, including working directly on single-tier cakes and multi-tiered cakes, as well as working on pre-made styrofoam cake toppers and separators.

Lavishly illustrated with over 600 photos, this inspirational and practical step-by-step cake decorating book will be your go-to reference on sugar flowers for years to come.

In the introduction to Soul Food Odyssey, Chef Stephanie Tyson describes her early feelings when people assumed her Sweet Potatoes restaurant was a “soul food” establishment. “Soul food was like the boxer George Foreman,” she says. “He would stand there and go toe-to-toe. It wasn’t pretty, but he got the job done, and you’d be on your butt. Southern food, on the other hand, was like Muhammad Ali—a little prettier, and you’d still be on your butt! I wanted Ali. I missed the connection that they were both great fighters. Once I got off my high horse, I wanted to know, from a culinary point of view, how do you make what is essentially castaway food into a ‘cuisine’?” In Soul Food Odyssey, Tyson takes readers along on her journey back to find the food her grandmother called “sumntaeat.” The recipes she shares include how to cook various parts of the pig from “the router to the tooter”; other meat dishes, including everything from stewed turkey wings and pot roast to a Low Country boil; what Tyson calls “stone soul sides,” including crackling cornbread, hoecakes, and, of course, different kinds of greens; soups and stews including oxtail and fish head stew and “Everything in It Vegetable Soup”; and desserts “to sell your soul for.” Along with the recipes come Tyson’s comments, which reflect her biting wit as well as her deep appreciation of the food she has come to embrace.

Stephanie L. Tyson is a creative chef who has turned growing up in the South into the soul of her restaurant, Sweet Potatoes. Born in North Carolina, Tyson spent countless hours dreaming of the bright lights of anywhere else. But once she left to travel and cook around the world, she could not believe what a relief it was to come home again. Trained in culinary arts at Baltimore International College, Chef Tyson opened her award-winning restaurant with her partner, Vivián Joiner, in 2003 in the downtown Arts District of Winston-Salem, where they live.

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.

“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

Native American cuisine comes of age in this elegant, contemporary collection that reinterprets and updates traditional Native recipes with modern, healthy twists. Andrew George Jr. was head chef for aboriginal foods at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver; his imaginative menus reflect the diverse new culinary landscape while being mindful of an ages-old reverence for the land and sea, reflecting the growing interest in a niche cuisine that is rapidly moving into the mainstream to become the "next big thing" among food trends. Andrew also works actively at making Native foods healthier and more nutritious, given that Native peoples suffer from diabetes at twice the rates of non-Natives; his recipes are lighter, less caloric, and include Asian touches, such as bison ribs with Thai spices, and a sushi roll with various cooked fish wrapped in nori. Other dishes include venison barley soup, wild berry crumble, seas asparagus salad, and buffalo tourtière.

Full of healthy, delicious, and thoroughly North American fare, Modern Native Feasts is the first Native American foods cookbook to go beyond the traditional and take a step into the twenty-first century.

Andrew George Jr. is a member of the Wet'suwet'en Nation in British Columbia. He participated on the first all-Native team at the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany, and in 2012 was part of a group of chefs from twenty-five countries on a US State Department initiative called "Culinary Diplomacy: Promoting Cultural Understanding Through Food." His first book, A Feast for All Seasons, was published in 2010.

Cooking outside one's comfort zone is now easier than ever: ingredients once considered exotic are now available at supermarkets across the country, and we're now more open to exploring the far reaches of the world through food. This tantalizing cookbook takes readers on a global tour through food, from the steamy noodle shops of Seoul to the wood-fired grills of Istanbul and funky dives of San Francisco. Randy and Darcy Shore explore how food informs our ideas around community and identity ("home"), and how it shapes our experience of and appreciation for other cultures ("away").

Their recipes are based on their years of travel as well as their intrinsic interest in the foods of other cultures; they make once complicated dishes a little easier for North American cooks while still respecting centuries-old food traditions. Their book includes such dishes as Braised Pork Belly with Crunchy Rice, Volcanic Soba Noodle Salad, Moroccan Lamb with Lemon Couscous, and Jerk Chicken with Grilled Romaine. There's also interviews with chefs Mario Batali, Edward Lee, Anita Lo, Vikram Vij, and others on the ways their cultures influence their cooking.

Home and Away takes home cooks on a delicious trip around the world, no passport required. 140 recipes.

Randy Shore strapped on a backpack at the age of twenty-one and immersed himself in budget travel and global cuisine. He writes a food column for the Vancouver Sun. He continues his travels with wife Darcy Shore, who has been working around food since she was a teenager.

Learn over 150 cake decorating techniques with The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible, the international bestseller from renowned sugarcraft expert Lindy Smith.

This is the ultimate guide to contemporary cake designs – you will learn how to make decorated cakes, starting with basic sugarcraft tools, baking recipes and ingredients, and finishing with advanced modelling techniques, including royal icing stencilling, brush embroidery, buttercream piping, using sugar cutters and moulds, making cake jewellery, and so much more!

Get creative straight away with simple, step-by-step instructions for more than 80 celebration cake, mini cake, cupcake, and cookie designs. Essential tips and advice are included for all skill levels, from complete beginners to the most confident of cake decorators, and you can even learn how to make Lindy Smith’s signature ‘wonky cakes’.

Inside The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible:

The Basics – delicious cake and cupcake recipes, and recipes for making your own sugarpaste (rolled fondant), royal icing, sugar glue, buttercream, and more! This section of the book also includes instructions for making round, square and ball cakes, assembling tiered cakes, and carving and assembling wonky cake designs.

Cake Decorating Techniques – here you will find 11 chapters each covering a huge range of essential cake decorating techniques, all explained with easy-to-follow step instructions and clear photography. Topics covered include:

• Carving
• Colour
• Painting
• Stencilling
• Cutters
• Flowers
• Embossing
• Tools
• Piping
• Moulds
• Cake Jewellery

Contemporary Cake Designs – step by step instructions teach you how to make each of the 80 amazing cake designs featured in the book, from tiered cakes to cute cupcake and cookies.

With this comprehensive guide you will discover everything you need to know to create celebration cakes that are beautiful, unique and truly contemporary.