I must admit I had never heard of The Breakaway Cook or its author Eric Gower before fellow Serious Eater Alaina Browne told me about them. And I must admit I was skeptical about any book that has the following subtitle: Recipes That Break Away from the Ordinary. But when I took the book home and read it, damn if there weren't recipes I wanted to cook on just about every page. Gower's recipes are simple, easy to follow, and incredibly appealing. As usual, thanks to the good folks at William Morrow Cookbooks, we are giving away ten (10) copies here on Serious Eats. To enter, just tell us what one ingredient you have discovered that's taken your cooking to... More

When you spend Memorial Day through Labor Day sitting in an air-conditioned office, it's easy to forget that it's summer. But as I break out the Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts for an upcoming trip to the Jersey Shore, I'm jolted into the reality of the season. It's a season for clam-digging, lobster-steaming, fried boardwalk fare, and grilled corn—just a handful of the many shore foods covered in Jasper White's Summer Shack Cookbook. White is proprietor of The Summer Shack mini-chain of restaurants, which serve his version of comfort food—the simple and fresh fare he was raised on as a boy growing up on that same Jersey Shore I'll be visiting soon. More than just recipes, the book offers how-tos... More

For some reason, sherbet was something I only sparingly ate as a kid, usually in the flavor "rainbow" (a random mixture of artificial flavors that somewhat resembles real fruit, but not too closely or else kids wouldn't like it) and colored with fluorescent pink, green, and orange. I'm going to attempt to make David Lebovitz's simple Lemon Sherbet recipe from The Perfect Scoop to see if the homemade stuff tastes anything like the frosty treat of my childhood. I hope David's tastes a lot better. Speaking of sherbet, who here says sherbert instead of sherbet? I grew up with the added "r", which I only realized now is the loser of the GoogleBattle against sherbet. Eliminating the final "r"... More

When the weather is unbearably hot and sticky and all you feel capable of doing is melting into a human puddle, the best thing to eat for temporary relief is a member of the frozen dessert family: ice cream, sorbet, or granita. This week we're giving away three copies of dessert master David Lebovitz's latest book, The Perfect Scoop. The Perfect Scoop starts with the basics of ice cream making followed by over one hundred recipes for ice creams, sorbets, sherbets, granitas, and accompanying sauces, toppings, mix-ins and vessels. Many of the recipes are prefaced by tips or personal anecdotes, such as the one where David reveals that the worst summer of his life was when his neighborhood's Good... More

With all the talk today in the nation's various food sections about grilling and steak, I thought it would be fitting to feature a steak-related tip from What's a Cook to Do?, James Patterson's extremely useful book of kitchen tips that explains almost everything. After the jump, Steaks, by Cut. And, thanks to the good folks at Artisan Books, we're giving away five (5) copies of this enormously helpful book.... More

The combination of my own lack of knowledge and the inadequate explanations in cookbooks often drives me to distraction when I'm cooking. That's why I find James Peterson's What's a Cook to Do? to be so damned helpful. It explains (often with photos) everything, from how to deglaze a plan to how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Peterson really knows his stuff (his book Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award in 1992 ), and, more important, he knows how to impart his knowledge easily and succinctly with relatively few words and photos. Each day this week, we'll excerpt a tip from the book; the first tip will post shortly.... More

This week's featured volume for our ongoing Cook the Book series is Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen. (The first recipe will appear on-site shortly.) Richard recently won a 2007 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef for his work at Michel Richard Citronelle in Washington, D.C. Happy in the Kitchen itself was nominated for Cookbook of the Year. We have five copies to give away this week. We'll choose five winners at random from among the commenters on this entry. Just tell us what makes you most happy in your kitchen, whether it's a favorite tool, aroma, recipe, or simply chatting over coffee with friends and family. Serious Eats's contest policy »... More

Unable to get a reservation at Thomas Keller's French Laundry, Carol decided to make her way through his French Laundry Cookbook instead, one recipe at a time. She's blogging it, of course—complete with photos of the process from mise en place to finished product—so you can follow her escapades at French Laundry at Home. The project is a lovely idea, but the thing that really makes it work is that Carol is a fantastic writer with a great sense of humor and is unafraid of sharing her frustrations when things go awry. Last week she made the candied apple dessert from the book, which turned out to be a success taste-wise, but found the experience of making it so... More

Michael Procopio received Liberace's cookbook as a gag gift from friends but ended up actually liking it so much that he made sticky buns from his recipe: "It's still pretty amusing (you should see the photos of him with starlets mooning and drooling over his, um, cooking), but this feels like a real, personal cookbook. This man was in the kitchen a lot. These are dishes he actually made. These are recipes passed down from his mother, and we all know how much he loved his mother." Liberace, not exactly known for his restraint, had seven dining areas in his house, each with a different theme—I wonder if he served his sticky buns in all of them? The Liberace... More