Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

An irresistible review! It's definitely going on our lunch wish list for when we next find ourselves in the West Village.

My mom makes these every year too. It's such a nice tradition, sitting around the kitchen table all day assembling all the parts into one delicious cake. Bánh Tét is what they call it in the south, and it's round. In the north it's called Bánh Chưng and square.

The Conspirator's Cookbook by Century Downing, published in 1967. Similar in vein to Steingarten, Century Downing writes opinionatedly about diverse food related matters. The book also has one of the best (and easiest) poached egg, garlic and beef broth soups ever.

I like those foods very much,but I am in China Beijing,and there is no raw material to make them.
Who can HELP ME?
I can cook delicious food after my working day~By the way.

Wow, brings back memories of Tet in our household when I was a wee small ladette.

John Lanchester's THE DEBT TO PLEASURE - part cookbook, part novel, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. (Thanks Amazon)

As I posted above, my top books are Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, and Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef.

I forgot to explain why.....

I like Garlic and Sapphires because it is every food-junkies fantasy to be a restaurant reviewer. What could possibly be better? Reichl provides great insight and access into a world most of us only dream of.

I like Kitchen Confidential because of Bourdain's unique "voice." He uncovers the behind-the-scene stuff as well as his personal demons. It is one of the first non-cookbook food books I read.

Ruhlman paints a nice picture of what it is like to attend the CIA. I found the book very engaging and would read it for hours at a time.

I've read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking approximately 154,453 times apiece. Some of the recipes are pretty good, but it's the wit, depth, and immediacy of her writing that get me every time. I've enjoyed most of the books mentioned here, especially Tender at the Bone and Mr. Latte. Colette Rossant's three memoirs of growing up in Paris and Egypt were quite engaging.