The New Yorker drops a lengthy and sobering piece this week that looks at the depressing state of the world's food-supply system as detailed in four "second-wave" food-politics books.
Where "first wave" books (such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation) leave off at the ill effects of junk food, the new crop of books looks at how "the entire system of Western food production is in need of radical change."
I love cornbread. When I'm out for lunch or dinner somewhere and it on the menu or—better yet—on the plate as an unexpected side, my meal's pretty much made. My only problem then is, do I greedily eat it right away or wait till I'm done with everything else so as to hold on to the anticipation of the thick, crumbly, savory golden square?
I've tried to make it at home, but it never comes out as good as the versions made professionally. And, I've got a small confession to make, too: All the super from-scratch versions I've made at home have never lived up to that damn light-blue-and-white Jiffy box mix. Why is that? What am I doing wrong?
I'm hoping this week's Cook the Book can answer that. The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon has more than 200 cornbread recipes in it, so I've got faith that I'll find cornbread religion in this good book. So, in a little bit, we'll bring you the first of this week's daily featured recipes. But first, as is always the case with Cook the Book, we've got a number of Cornbread Gospels to give away to Serious Eats readers.
All you have to do is tell us in the comments section of this post where you get your favorite cornbread, whether its homemade, from a relative's kitchen, or from some hole-in-the-wall down-home-cookin' joint.
Five (5) people will be chosen at random from among eligble comments below. Comments will close Monday, April 14 at noon ET. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Those of you interested in the book biz may have read about a new venture that aims to rejigger how authors are paid, creating a system that may ultimately benefit both authors and publishers.
Authors typically get advances, or money up front from the publisher. Often times, that's all the money an author sees from a book. That's because a book has to "earn out" the advance before an author can start sharing in the royalties. So if a writer gets, say, a $60,000 advance and the sale of each book counts toward, oh, $3 of that $60,000, the book has to sell 20,000 copies before the publisher recoups the advance and starts paying out royalties. Sadly, a lot of good books don't ever hit that mark.
What's this have to do with food? Well, Michael Ruhlman connects some dots on his blog, citing a similar approach that Chicago restaurateur Nick Kokonas is taking. Kokonas, along with chef Grant Achatz, created famed restaurant Alinea, and they're crafting a book along these lines. As Ruhlman says: "The new model created by Kokonas and perhaps soon a similar one by HarperCollins is exciting because it stands to enable chefs who can finance their own projects to do exactly the kind of books they want to do—which means we’re likely to see more risk taking and more innovative books."
This week's Cook the Book featured cookbook is The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy. Murphy's desserts are well known among New Yorkers, but even if you don't live in the Big Apple, you may have caught her on the Food Network, where she won the "Edible Ornaments" challenge toward the end of last year.
We'll be excerpting a recipe a day this week as part of our ongoing Cook the Book feature. The first of those will be up shortly, but for now it's time to let you in on how you can enter to win a copy of this book. Simply tell us your favorite dessert in the Comments section below.
Five (5) winners will be chosen at random from among eligible comments, and comments will be open until noon ET, Monday, April 7. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Occasionally on weekends, we give away a food-related book. This week, we've got a few copies of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles to give away. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee's obsessive look into all things having to do with Chinese food—from packaging to labor to human trafficking to, of course, the origin of the wise little cookie that comes at the end of a meal at most Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
It's an entertaining read, full of great tidbits that will stick with you and bubble to the top of your brain each time you feast on Chinese food. (For a more in-depth take on it, you can check out what I wrote here).
We've got five (5) copies to give away. All you have to do is comment in the Comments section of this post and tell us what your most memorable fortune cookie was and whether it came true.
The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply. Comments will close on Monday, March 10 at noon ET.
I never gave much thought to Chinese food before moving away from the Midwest. Hot and sour soup, chop suey, sweet, sweet General Tso's chicken—all followed by a fortune cookie—well, isn't that just what folks ate in China? After landing on the East Coast, I was shocked to discover my beloved crab rangoon missing from the menus of Chinese restaurants here.
"You do know those aren't authentically Chinese, don't you?" my girlfriend said after I had complained about the subject once too often. "Come on: cream cheese? Deep-fried in wonton skins? That's clearly American Chinese food."
After the scales had fallen from my eyes, I wondered what else on the menus of typical U.S. Chinese restaurants was invented for American tastes—and what, exactly, the story was behind crab rangoon. So when I learned in late 2005 that New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee had just signed a book deal to write The Fortune Cookie Chronicles—an account of Chinese food in America—I knew all I had to do was sit back and wait for it to come out.
The featured tome in this week's Cook the Book is one I've been looking forward to trying out since we got it in the office a few weeks ago. Panini Express: 70 Delicious Recipes Hot Off the Press, by Daniel Leader and Lauren Chattman gave me an excuse to do something I've been thinking about for a while now—buy a panini press for the office and get to town making sandwiches for lunch. So for today and the rest of the week, we'll be excerpting one recipe from the book daily and bringing it to you as an overview of the book.
Among the 70 sandwich recipes are some familiar panini and some unexpected ones. And they range from vegetarian options to the range of meats and cheeses. Daniel Leader was one of the earliest proponents of artisanal bread-baking in the U.S. and is the owner of Bread Alone in upstate New York, so the book includes not only panini recipes but a handful of instructions for breads as well.
As is always the case with our weekly Cook the Book feature, we've got five (5) copies of this book to give away to our readers. Simply name your favorite panini sandwich in the Comments section below.
Winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and comments will be open until noon ET, Monday, March 10. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week's Cook the Book is one we've mentioned before on the site—Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson. If you haven't heard of Hopkinson, chances are you aren't English; in Britain, this book was voted the most useful cookbook ever by a group of chefs, food writers, and readers. We've already featured Roast Chicken's namesake Roast Chicken recipe, so this week we'll be highlighting additional dishes each day. Monday's will be along shortly, but first ...
And as is always the case with our weekly Cook the Book volume, we've got five (5) copies of this book to give away to our readers. Simply tell us your chicken story in the comments section below. We leave it up to you to interpret what a "chicken story" is and what it consists of. Good luck!
Winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and comments will be open until noon ET, Monday, March 3. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
If you read the New York Times this past week, you probably saw the lengthy feature on Trail of Crumbs
Well, it is a good book—a really good book in fact, and we've got five (5) copies to give away this weekend. What is Trail of Crumbs about? The subtitle says it all: "Hunger, Love, and the Search For Home."
Sunée was abandoned on the street by her mother in South Korea. She was adopted by a family in New Orleans and ends up falling in love with a famous, successful French businessman while visiting Europe after graduating from college. The writing is graceful if overwrought at times, her story is alternately heartbreaking and harrowing, and the recipes that follow each chapter are appealing and refreshingly off-center.
Want a chance to win a copy of Trail of Crumbs? Just answer the following question in the comments: What food do you crave in times of stress?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments below. Comments will remain open until 6 p.m. ET, Monday, February 25. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week's Cook the Book volume is Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie. I've admired Oliver's work over the years; I mean, what's not to like? Not only is he a good cook, he places education and betterment at the heart of his mission, whether it's through his Fifteen foundation and restaurant or his attempt to bring better school lunches to Britain's kids.
Cook with Jamie carries on that tradition. And even though it's Oliver's seventh book, it's the one he says he feels he should have written first, since it's a "basics" book. It's textbooklike in size and heft, with beautiful photographs and handsome type design—so much so that you'd almost feel bad about staining the pages as you cook from it.
We'll be featuring excerpted recipes adapted from Cook with Jamie over the course of the week. The first one will be along shortly. Until then ...
Anyway, as is always the case with our Cook the Book feature, we've got five (5) copies to give away. All you have to do to have a chance to win one is answer the following in the comments section below:
Who taught you to cook?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and comments will be open until noon ET, Monday, February 25. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
The Serious Eats Weekend Book Giveaway is back with a vengeance this holiday weekend with a really cool book, Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink
Thanks to the generous folks at Random House, we've got seven copies of this book to give away. Just answer the following question in the comments:
Who is your favorite food writer?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments below. Comments will remain open until 6 p.m. ET, Monday, February 18. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so with the next two Cook the Book selections we will concern ourselves with sweets appropriate for the occasion. The first of our cookbooks for exploration is Alice Medrich's Chocolate Holidays: Unforgettable Desserts for Every Season
The first of these will be along in a few minutes, but first, we'd like to let you know you can win a copy of this book. All you have to do is answer in the comments below: How do you indulge in chocolate? Hot cocoa? Chocolate cake? A rich and creamy pudding? Chocolate bars?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and comments will be open until noon ET, Monday, February 11. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week's Cook the Book is one we chose with the Super Bowl in mind. You see, chili, nachos, and bean dips are Super Bowl parties, and Robb Walsh's The Tex-Mex Cookbook
Along with the recipes, though, what really makes this book is all the great historical information that Walsh packs into it. From the history of chili joints and "chili queens" to the birth of the nacho, The Tex-Mex Cookbook will give you fodder for small talk during time outs and dud commercials.
And, as always, we're giving away five (5) copies of Tex-Mex this week. All you have to do is answer in the comments: What is your favorite Super Bowl snack?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and comments will be open until noon ET, Monday, February 4. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week's Cook the Book again mines the healthy theme that's in keeping with the month of January (resolutions, diets, better eating) with Lorna Sass's Whole Grains: Every Day, Every Way
With this book, Sass won the healthy-focus cookbook category in the 2007 James Beard Awards. And with good reason—Whole Grains aims to help readers put its namesake foodstuff into everyday dishes in ways that are not only good for us but that are actually healthy and delicious.
As is the case with our weekly Cook the Book feature, we've five (5) copies to give away. All you have to do is tell us in the comments: What whole grain do you find easiest to incorporate into your diet?
Five winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters. Comments will close at 3 p.m. ET, January 28. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week's Cook the Book continues in a healthy vein for the month of January with The Culinary Institute of America's Techniques of Healthy Cooking
Besides recipes, five of which we'll be excerpting this week, Techniques of Healthy Cooking includes chapters on healthy diets and ingredients, and one on developing your own healthy recipes and menus. If you're keeping true to your resolution to lose weight or eat better, this book could serve as your primer.
As is the case with our weekly Cook the Book feature, we've five (5) copies to give away. All you have to do is tell us in the comments: What's your go-to healthy meal?
Five winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters. Comments will close at 3 p.m. ET, January 21. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
From the New York Daily News: "Sneaky Chef author Missy Chase Lapine slapped Jerry Seinfeld with a defamation lawsuit Monday, accusing the funnyman of maliciously casting her as a mentally unstable 'wacko' and an 'assassin' after she accused his wife of ripping off her book idea."
This week's Cook the Book is an enabler for those of you who have made resolutions about eating healthy this year. It's Mollie Katzen's The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without
Katzen is renown for having made vegetarian cooking mainstream through her work at The Moosewood Café in Ithaca, New York, and via The Moosewood Cookbook, which was inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame last year.
Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without is at once whimsical and serious. The whimsical, courtesy of sketches by Katzen and a typeface that looks handwritten.* And the serious, courtesy of Katzen's vegetable side dish recipes, of which there are just about 100—the first of which will be along shortly. Until then, amuse yourself with this ...
We've got 5 copies of Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without to give away this week. To win a copy of this book, simply tell us here in the comments on this entry: What vegetable dish can't you live without?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments, and comments will close at 3 p.m. ET, Monday, January 14. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
* Normally I scoff at kitschy script typefaces, but this one makes the book feel like you're reading a book chockfull of downhome DIY goodness.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the film adaptation by Julian Schnabel of the namesake memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby, former editor of the French Elle. (The film has been winning awards left and right, but please note that the overly sentimental trailer somewhat misrepresents the film.)
After suffering a massive stroke in 1995 leaving Bauby completely paralyzed with a condition called "locked-in syndrome," he writes the entire book by blinking his left eyelid.
To escape what he calls his "diving bell," he writes: "... [M]y mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas's court." Bauby, the gourmand, in his paralysis, daydreams of decadent, indulgent meals:
By means of tube threaded into my stomach, two or three bags of a brownish fluid provide my daily caloric needs. For pleasure, I have to turn to the vivid memory of tastes and smells, an inexhaustible reservoir of sensations. Once, I was a master at recycling leftovers. Now I cultivate the art of simmering memories. You can sit down to a meal at any hour, with no fuss or ceremony. If it's a restaurant, no need to call ahead. If I do the cooking, it is always a success. The boeuf bourguignon is tender, the boeuf en gelee is translucent, the apricot pie possesses just the requisite tartness. Depending on my mood, I treat myself to a dozen snails, a plate of Alsatian sausage with sauerkraut, and a bottle of late-vintage golden Gewürztraminer; or else I savor a simple soft-boiled egg with fingers of toast and lightly salted butter. What a banquet!...
That's why we were thrilled when we received a copy of The Food You Crave, by the Food Network's Ellie Krieger, in the mail. Unlike many other healthy, light cookbooks, Krieger's book actually has lots of dishes that sound great and normal. You don't find too many healthy cookbooks with recipes for a meatball and pepper hero. So we figured a great way to start the new year's Cook the Book columns is with The Food You Crave.
We have five copies of the timely book to give away. Just comment on this post telling us what healthy food you crave. You have until next Monday, January 7, at 3 p.m. ET to enter. Standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Last week's Cook the Book was The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics
As always, we'll be giving away five (5) copies of the book. All you have to do is tell us, in the comments here, if you've ever cooked from a Martha recipe and, if so, what.
Five winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and the comments will remain open until Monday, December 31 at noon. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
After reflecting on the vast universe of cookbooks out there for just a few minutes, my head began to hurt. How do you whittle down even the basics to a manageable list when there are three versions of The Joy of Cooking alone to consider?
So instead of a general gift guide, I'm listing the some of the best cookbooks of 2007 with an eye toward what from this year's crop would make a jolly, useful, tasty present.
Prices don't include shipping unless otherwise noted.
This week's Cook the Book is The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics
And, as always, we'll be giving away five (5) copies of the book. All you have to do is tell us, in the comments here, if you've ever cooked from a Martha recipe and, if so, what.
Five winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and the comments will remain open until Monday, December 24 at noon. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week's Cook the Book has a title that almost guarantees it success with a certain large and very vocal subsection of the population: The Bacon Cookbook
It's by James Villas and features 150 recipes inspired by bacon dishes from around the world. We've picked our five favorites from the book and will be featuring them all these week.
Monday's recipe will be up in a bit, but first we'd like to give you a chance to win one of five (5) copies of this cookbook. All you have to do is tell us:
What is your favorite bacon dish?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters here. Comments will be open until noon Saturday, December 15. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
In 2000 he wrote what was then a groundbreaking cookbook-manifesto, Think Like a Chef
Now Think Like a Chef has been reissued in a gorgeous trade paperback edition, and we are giving away five copies in this week's Cook the Book.
To enter, just tell us what your favorite cooking technique is.
The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
We've got eight copies of Crescent City Cooking to give away.
To enter: Tell us what your favorite New Orleans dish is when you comment on this post. Spicer's beautiful, picture-filled book has 170 recipes, everything from a Classic N'Awlins Remoulade to Elegant Oyster and Artichoke Soup to Bayona Extra-Cheesy Spoon Bread. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? Standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
While the Wednesday food section long ago cemented its role as a staple of big-city dailies, regular columns devoted to the bibulous side of gastronomy—especially to things spirituous (let's forget wine for now; those guys get all the press)—lag much further behind. While drinks are largely an afterthought in many papers, there are a few notable exceptions: the San Francisco Chronicle has long been home to cocktail columns by Gary Regan, and more recently spirits writer Camper English has taken the reins for Friday features on drinks; the Los Angeles Times has occasional, but often noteworthy, features on drink as part of its food section; and the infrequent Wednesdays when Eric Asimov steps into the spirit world over at the New York Times, the result is always something that ranks near the top of the Times’ “Top E-Mailed” stories list for the day (and while the paper’s Sunday “Shaken and Stirred” column was once the place to find unforgettable cocktail coverage by William Grimes and William Hamilton, recently it’s … well, don’t get me started.)
It's that time of year again—casks of Beaujolais Nouveau are wending their way towards eager drinkers. Fans of the youthful French vintage might want to check out a new book on the subject, I'll Drink to That: Beaujolais and the French Peasant Who Made It the World's Most Popular Wine.
Author Rudolph Chelminski will be in Bay Area today and tomorrow, signing copies and discussing the upcoming release.
Monday, November 12, 7 p.m.
What: Talk and wine-tasting
Where: Rakestraw, 409 Railroad Avenue, Danville CA 94526 (map)
Tuesday, November 13th, 7:30 pm
What: Reading and book signing
Where: Books Inc., 2215 Chestnut Street, San Francisco CA 94123 (map)
You've probably seen Michael Ruhlman on The Next Iron Chef, serving as a judge, with his uniquely passionate and analytical perspective. You probably have a copy of The French Laundry Cookbook, the book he co-wrote with Thomas Keller that may be the ultimate in food-porn cookbooks. Or maybe you're a regular reader of his entertaining, opinionated blog. So it shouldn't surprise you that Ruhlman has now written The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen. Modeled on Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, this book attempts to do nothing less than pare the essentials of good cooking down to fewer than 250 concise pages. What's really in this book? Here's what Anthony Bourdain says in his introduction:
Eight essays on vital, primary concepts like stock, sauce, salt, eggs, heat, and tools...and an absolutely rock-solid definition of every term professional chefs should know as a matter of course after years of working in professional kitchens; now you will learn them easily and concisely--without burning yourself, cutting yourself, or having your ass kicked in the process.
This weekend, we're giving away five (5) copies of The Elements of Cooking. To enter to win one of these bad boys, just tell us what you consider to be the the most important element of cooking. If you happen to disagree with Mr. Ruhlman, we'll never tell. Leave your comment by 6 p.m. ET Monday to be eligible to win. Regular Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Last night, the National Press Club hosted what it calls one of its “biggest events of the year”: Book Fair. Crammed into the club's ballroom were about 80 authors, about ten of whom were of the food-writing persuasion. Conveniently, the organizers placed them all side-by-side, which meant a steady stream of people sampling their bite-sized creations. Must have made the guy who wrote Money Golf: 600 Years of Bettin' on Birdies across the room wish he brought bite-sized samples of cheese, too.
Here's a look at three of our favorite bookish bakers in attendance:
Washington Post culinary blogger Kim O'Donnel, known for her week-daily "A Mighty Appetite" column and "What's Cooking" web chat. Her secular cookbook A Mighty Appetite for the Holidays (hello, Chrismukkah) offers recipes ranging from tofu pumpkin pie (yes, she was equally skeptical) to the Dark and Stormy pear cobbler (which she had samples of ready at Book Fair). The book is a cute size, no bigger than a half-page. Very Metro ride-friendly, she agreed. On the cover, O'Donnel is laying joyously over an Autumn-happy pile of leaves, which she admitted were actually purchased at Michaels. Apparently, photo shoots for holiday books happen before the actual holidays themselves.
Bottom Line: A small, non-denominational holiday cookbook that packs in a lot of attention-grabber recipes.
NPR has an interesting piece on civil engineering professor and author Henry Petroski and his new book The Toothpick, which chronicles the history of the device. Fun facts: Neanderthals used them; in ancient Rome, Nero showed up at a banquet sucking on a silver one; at least one Japanese manufacturer is so guarded with its trade secrets that it does not allow visitors to its factory. [via Boing Boing]
Their books, which teach parents to disguise veggies in brownies, mac and cheese, and pudding, are wrong on so many levels, Mimi Sheraton writes. "First, children get the wrong message that sweets and starches are good for them." Second is "the invisibility of vegetables in their own recognizable forms. As a result, children are not afforded the opportunity to get used to the idea of trying and learning about them. Nor will they consider them necessary for good health."
Update: Cookbook Author Sues Jerry Seinfeld for Defamation [1/8/2007]
I've been reading new kid-related cookbooks so you don't have to. First, the good news.
Nicola Graimes's Top 100 Recipes for a Healthy Lunchbox
Like that of wine, the world of cheese can be very intimidating to the newcomer. So many varieties to choose from, representing a host of different regional specialties, milk types, pasteurization methods, etc. It helps to have a good book to guide you on your cheese explorations, and to that end there are two new books that ought to provide some clarity.
Janet Fletcher writes a weekly column on cheese for the San Francisco Chronicle. In her column, called The Cheese Course, she introduces a new cheese variety every week, complete with tasting notes, historical info, and beverage pairing tips. Her new book, Cheese & Wine: A Guide to Selecting, Pairing and Enjoying, is an encyclopedic guide to pairing cheese with wine, and includes a section that details general guidelines for doing so.
In My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals
As promised, here's the place where you can throw your hat in the ring to win a copy of Fergus Henderson's Beyond Nose to Tail
The first recipe from the book will be up in a few minutes, but for now, if you'd like to win a copy, just tell us what your favorite offal dish is.
We'll be giving away ten (10) copies, choosing the winners at random from among the comments below. Commenting will close at noon ET Saturday, October 27. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Editor's note: Our friend and Serious Eater Cathy dropped by recently with praise for Fergus Henderson's new book, Beyond Nose to Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook. Henderson's book is our featured Cook the Book entry this week, but first we'll give you Cathy's take before we begin the usual giveaway contest and recipes.
There are two kinds of carnivores: those who think meat means steak, and those who consider almost every bit of the animal edible. Count me in the latter camp. Tongues, brains, lungs, balls, eyeballs, liver, spleen—I never met a part I didn't like. OK, the eyeball was a little disconcerting, but I'm glad I tried it.
For omnivores like me, the publication of Beyond Nose to Tail
We've had these books sitting around the office for some time now, but we were waiting for apple season before featuring John T. Edge's Apple Pie: An American Story
Apple Pie is both a history, a guide, and a "little black book" that will lead you to the best examples the nation has to offer. Of course, no apple pie book would be complete without recipes, and Edge has plenty—five of which we'll be bringing you over the course of the week. The first one will be along shortly, but now's the time that I mention our obligatory win-this-book contest.
We've got five (5) copies to give away. To enter to win, all you have to do is answer the following in the comments here:
Where do you go for the best apple pie? Could be a restaurant, a diner, grandma's house, your own kitchen, or wherever. Just share it with us, and you're good to go.
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments, and commenting will close on Saturday, October 21 at 3 p.m. ET. The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
After I left Per Se, a former colleague passed along a story that the chef told the staff. If you want to understand commitment, he explained, all you have to do is look at the American breakfast of bacon and eggs. The chicken was involved, but the pig was committed.
This is a book about commitment: to food, service, love, perfection, and to being the bacon.
If you want to have a chance of bringing home the bacon (I mean the book) just tell us the funniest thing you've overheard at a restaurant.
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments, and the contest will close Monday at 6 p.m. ET. The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Ed recently wrote about the best cheesecakes in New York, and while I completely agree with his classic picks (I've been known to visit both Monteleone's–Cammereri's and Monte's Venetian Room in one go), I think it's also important to acknowledge the more innovative, unconventional takes on the city's signature dessert. After all, while they may defy tradition, who can resist versions like pumpkin mousse, Black Forest, and banana fudge?
Those are just three of the 50 recipes that can be found in the Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook
I've actually never met Anissa Helou, the author of Savory Baking From the Mediterranean
Savory Baking From the Mediterranean is filled with simple recipes that don't require the reader to be an expert bread baker. If you've ever wanted to make focaccia, pita bread, or even your own French milk rolls, stay tuned, because we'll be featuring recipes for the above-mentioned breads all week here.
And, as always, we're giving away this week's book. We have five copies this week. To enter, just tell us what your favorite kind of flatbread is.
Five winners will be chosen at random from the comments below, and commenting will be open until Saturday (October 13) at noon ET. The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Eateries display photos of their food to help the customer decide what to order, but what happens when those photos decay into sickly, off-colored ghosts of their former selves? Despite the lack of any enticing qualities, these photos continue to grace restaurant menus and walls, as documented in the photography book, Bad Food Gone Worse
Although these photographs don't get the stomach juices flowing, Rene explains, "...it doesn't matter how the pictures look. If people are hungry... they will eat!"
Other people gave your recipes, sometimes detailed (Julia Child), sometimes spare and functional (Craig Claiborne). James Beard gave you logic, emotion, history, and consideration. He gave you confidence, and he let you relax. In a time when serious cooking meant French cooking. Beard was quintessentially American, a westerner whose mother ran a boarding house, a man who grew up with hotcakes and salmon and meatloaf in his blood.
And this:
Beard's most valuable legacy is his recipe writing. His recipes worked, but he also had a way of letting you move within them that inspired creativity and learning....Beard didn't make a big deal out of anything, it seemed. He encouraged the use of good, often simple ingredients. He taught that a recipe could be tweaked an infinite number of ways, and that for the home cook, confidence, experience, and relaxation in the kitchen were far more important than training or detialed instructions. His passion, his knowledge, his easgoing erudition were instrumental in bringing good cuisine back to America.
We have ten copies of Beard on Food to give away. Just tell us who your greatest cooking inspiration is.
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments, which will close on Saturday, October 6, at noon ET. The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
In our never-ending efforts to liven up your weekend here at Serious Eats, we're giving away five copies of Marco Pierre White's memoir, The Devil in the Kitchen.
Londoner White is perhaps the world's first badboy chef, but unlike some badboy chefs, the man is a brilliant culinary talent who has inspired the likes of Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain. His book is an unflinchingly honest account of his tragedy and triumph-filled life, from losing his mother as a young boy, to his ultimate uber success as a 3-star Michelin chef; and finally his profound disillusionment with the whole star chef culture. This is no by-the-numbers chef memoir. David Kamp gave it a rave review in the New York Times Sunday book review.
The book makes it clear that, through it all, White could be a terror in the kitchen, so to enter to win a copy of Devil in the Kitchen, tell us who the devil in your kitchen is, that is, who do you find it hardest to cook with?
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments, and the contest will close Monday at 6 p.m. ET. The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week's Cook the Book feature highlights How to Pick a Peach
As with all weekly Cook the Book features, we've got a number of copies to give away. Ten (10) winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters below. All you have to do is answer the following:
What's your favorite fruit or vegetable for 1.) cooking and 2.) eating raw?
If you read Adam Roberts' terrific two part interview (Part 1 and Part 2) with The United States of Arugula author David Kamp, you know what an insightful writer and keen observer of the food scene Kamp is. We hope the interview whet your appetite for the book, and if haven't bought it yet we'd like to offer you an opportunity to win one of ten autographed copies of the book.
To enter just leave a comment telling us the first time you had arugula. Regular Serious Eats contest rules apply. You have until 8 a.m. ET Monday morning to enter.
Editor's note: We've long been fans of David Kamp's work (author of The United States of Arugula and, now, along with Marion Rosenfeld, The Food Snob's Dictionary), so we turned loose Adam Roberts on him for a chat. What follows is the second part of a lengthy but entertaining interview. Here's Part One, if you missed it.
One of the things I found most fascinating in the book was the idea of objectivity and subjectivity and Giorgio DeLuca's discovery that food can be objectively good. How do you feel about that subject? Do you feel that good food can be objectively good or is it always a matter of taste?
People obviously have different preferences. But the idea that some food is good and some food isn't good—I kind of agree with DeLuca. It is kind of objective. I don't begrudge people their taste if they don't like Szechuan food. But the idea, or what DeLuca was saying, is that in America we're taught to be populist in a really dumb way. That there's good populism and bad populism. But to be populist in a dumb way is to say that Kraft Singles are just as good as Humboldt Fog. No, sorry, certain cheeses are much better than others. A really good chicken is much better than that dried-out Perdue stuff. It's one thing people are catching on to now is that you can actually care more about your food. There was almost a stigma to that for a while—it was an act of sedition to care too much about your food. It seemed un-American and oddly Frenchlike.
One issue that raises for me is the idea of class. If you can afford to get the best of everything, you can eat well, but if you can't afford it can you eat well?
Julia Child was someone who basically said you can just go to the supermarket and make all her recipes. And she's absolutely right that you can. You can do her recipes with cheap chicken. But that said, I think the very fact that farmers' markets are going way up in number and that your average chain supermarket, whether it's an A & P or a Wegman's, is slowly starting to resemble a Whole Foods or Dean and DeLuca in their produce and the quality of meat. It's an indication that Americans are changing. When you talk about the best of everything, I'm not talking about high-end foods like caviar or truffles. I'm talking about paying a little more for a better-quality chicken or a Niman Ranch steak instead of an agribusiness steak pumped full of hormones. That's not the best of everything, that's simply better quality. And, yes, that costs a bit more, but it cuts across class lines that people are embracing that kind of eating. That's what Michael Pollan argues. In other areas of our lives we care about quality—if we're buying a new DVD set, we'll pay $50 more because it's better quality. So why should it be that when it comes to what we're putting into our mouths and into our bodies that we'll buy the cheapest thing possible?
It's been a while since we've done a strictly dessert Cook the Book, so this week we're featuring Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert
Medrich first came to fame in the 1970s as founder of Cocolat, her San Francisco Bay Area chocolate and dessert store. After selling the business, she went on to write three award-winning dessert cookbooks (Cocolat, Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts, and Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies).
Here, in Pure Dessert, chapters are arranged by flavor—among others, sections highlight the use of milk; grains, nuts, and seeds; chocolate; and herbs and spices. With beautiful photography and extensive notes, it look like just the book to cook from now that fall is upon us and thoughts turn to baking.
To win a copy (we have ten to give out), just tell us what dessert you like making most.
Winners will be chosen at random from among the comments, which will close on Saturday, September 22, at noon ET. The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Editor's note: We've long been fans of David Kamp's work (author of The United States of Arugula and, now, along with Marion Rosenfeld, The Food Snob's Dictionary), so we turned loose Adam Roberts on him for a chat. What follows is the first part of a lengthy but entertaining interview. Read Part Two here.
Let's start with The United States of Arugula. How did the book come about?
I'm not a food writer by vocation, I'm more of a generalist culture writer for Vanity Fair and GQ. Basically, I love food: I found that it was my off-duty passion. Either cooking or shopping for food at markets or thinking about food and reading about food. Particularly, I noticed that when I was really in the unwinding mode, the thing that I found the most relaxing after a long, taxing day was doing food prep with some nice music on—shelling beans or trimming some haricots verts. And the other thing that I found incredibly relaxing is that moment when, if you're lucky, 30 to 45 minutes before you pass out in bed after an exhausting day, when you're actually reading in bed, I always found I was reading A. J. Libeling or M. F. K. Fisher. I realized this is something I want to write about more—how did we get to this point where we've gotten more savvy, more sophisticated, more knowledgeable about food than Americans from 20, 30, 40, and 50 years ago.
Were you always interested in food? Or did that happen later in life?
I come from a middle class family, but we were always a little more aware of food than others. I grew up in New Jersey, and my mom was a very good cook, and some of my earliest memories are—I was the youngest of three, so when the older two were in school, I was still in my toddler days, she would have Julia Child and Graham Kerr on all the time. Do you know who Graham Kerr is? You're young, I know.
There are certain cookbooks th