Friday, May 7, 2010

IACP Awards

Professional Kitchens

WINNER
Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft 2nd Ed.

Authors: The Culinary Institute of America
Editor: Pamela Chirls
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FINALISTS

How To Bake Bread: The Five Families of Bread
Author: Michael Kalanty
Editor: The Food Group
Publisher: Red Seal Books

International Cuisine
Author: The International Culinary Schools at The Art Institutes
Editor: Mary Cassells
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

IACP Awards

Book of the Year!

Baking: Savory or Sweet

WINNER
Rose's Heavenly Cakes

Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum
Editor: Pamela Chirls
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FINALISTS

All Cakes Considered
Author: Melissa Gray
Editor: Bill LeBlond
Publisher: Chronicle Books

My Bread
Authors: Jim Lahey and Rick Flaste
Editor: Maria Guarnaschelli
Publisher: W.W. Norton

sniff5final.mov

Here's our new promo video teaser for a mailing that goes out next week.


Video Todd Pierson and Melissa Hennessy

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Friday, May 1, 2009

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Monday, March 23, 2009

2009 IACP Cookbook Award Finalists

Culinary Institute America Cookbook Collection By Culinary Institute America


Culinary Institute America Cookbook Collection
By Culinary Institute America


Buy This Book


Jewish Home Cooking By Arthur Schwartzs


Jewish Home Cooking
By Arthur Schwartzs

2009 IACP Cookbook Award Finalists

And

2009 James Beard Foundation Awards Nominees



Buy This Book

Visit Arthur Schwartzs

Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited

Schwartz (Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food) breathes life into Yiddish cooking traditions now missing from most cities' main streets as well as many Jewish tables. His colorful stories are so distinctive and charming that even someone who has never heard Schwartz's radio show or seen him on TV will feel his warm personality and love for food radiating from the page. Oddly, even the shorter anecdotes often run longer than the actual recipes; anyone intending to cook from the book should have some kitchen experience or risk frustration at the often brief instructions. Dishes run the gamut from beloved appetizers like gefilte fish to classic meat and dairy main items (cholent, blintzes), plus less familiar items like onion cookies and Hungarian shlishkas (light potato dumplings). Schwartz intersperses engaging commentary on everything from farfel and matzo to Romanian steakhouses and why Jews like Chinese food. Those with Westernized palates may recoil at the thought of gelled calf's feet, but Schwartz shows how stereotypically heavy Ashkenazi food can be improved and made at least somewhat lighter when prepared properly. Cooks and readers from Schwartz's generation and earlier, who know firsthand what he's talking about, will appreciate this delightful new book for the world it evokes as much as for the recipes. (Apr.)

See



Techniques Of Healthy Cooking
The Culinary Institute of America (CIA)

2009 IACP Cookbook Award Finalists


Buy This Book

2009 James Beard Foundation Awards Nominees

2009 James Beard Foundation Awards Nominees.


Screen Doors and Sweet Tea By Martha Foose


Screen Doors and Sweet Tea By Martha Foose

Buy This Book

2009 James Beard Foundation Awards Nominees


Screen Doors & Sweet Tea, by Martha Hall Foose, hardcover, 256 pages

The 10 Best Cookbooks for Summer

After flitting from Mexico to India and other equatorial points, this year the summer's warm-climate cookbooks centered on the American South. The best of many contenders is Screen Doors & Sweet Tea, a wisecracking, storytelling treasury of Southern dishes, both the well-known (cornbread, lady peas, juleps) and the slightly less familiar. Some, like Apricot Rice Salad, have an elegant, dinner-on-the-porch feel. Others (All for Okra and Okra for All), are resolutely egalitarian.


Foose has a marvelous gift for the pithy turn of phrase, and all of her recipes carry intriguing subtitles: "Proper Fried Chicken: My Thoughts, at Least," "Lunch Counter Egg Salad Sandwich: Ode to Waxed Paper," "Baked Macaroni and Cheese: A Vegetable in Some States."

As I see it, there are two ideal ways to enjoy this book: 1) Pick out your favorites, cook your way through them one by one, and gorge yourself silly; or 2) sit on the porch and read it while somebody makes you a julep. Either will do just fine.

June 1, 2008


Thursday, April 17, 2008

Jewish Home Cooking By Arthur Schwartzs


Jewish Home Cooking
By Arthur Schwartzs

2009 IACP Cookbook Award Finalists

And

2009 James Beard Foundation Awards Nominees



Buy This Book

Visit Arthur Schwartzs

Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited

Schwartz (Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food) breathes life into Yiddish cooking traditions now missing from most cities' main streets as well as many Jewish tables. His colorful stories are so distinctive and charming that even someone who has never heard Schwartz's radio show or seen him on TV will feel his warm personality and love for food radiating from the page. Oddly, even the shorter anecdotes often run longer than the actual recipes; anyone intending to cook from the book should have some kitchen experience or risk frustration at the often brief instructions. Dishes run the gamut from beloved appetizers like gefilte fish to classic meat and dairy main items (cholent, blintzes), plus less familiar items like onion cookies and Hungarian shlishkas (light potato dumplings). Schwartz intersperses engaging commentary on everything from farfel and matzo to Romanian steakhouses and why Jews like Chinese food. Those with Westernized palates may recoil at the thought of gelled calf's feet, but Schwartz shows how stereotypically heavy Ashkenazi food can be improved and made at least somewhat lighter when prepared properly. Cooks and readers from Schwartz's generation and earlier, who know firsthand what he's talking about, will appreciate this delightful new book for the world it evokes as much as for the recipes. (Apr.)

See

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Friday, March 13, 2009

Salmon Teriyaki over green Salad w Sliced Green Apples






Chocolate Chip Cookies

Roasted Tomatoes





















8 ripe plum tomatoes sliced in half lengthwise,

3 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil,

2 table spoons of sugar,

preheat oven to 375 degrees,

place tomatoes cut side up on baking sheet,

drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sugar, sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Roast for one and one half hours, set aside to cool,

Can be refrigerated for up to two days and be put in your favorite recipes.

We will be using them in a chicken dish for dinner tonight.

Thanks to Sheila Lukin for these recipes from the book 10 Sheila Lukin by Workman Pub.




Thursday, January 15, 2009

Tillie Lays An Egg By Terry Golson and Ben Fink


Tillie Lays An Egg
By Terry Golson and Ben Fink

Buy This Book


See Terry's Hens live
Ben's Web Site


Scholastic’s Spring Chickens

By John A. Sellers, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 12/18/2008

Chickens and hens are familiar sights in picture books, going all the way back to Chicken Little. But fictitious fowl will need to make room for some real hens, with next month’s publication of Terry Golson’s Tillie Lays an Egg (Scholastic Press). Though Golson has written several cookbooks over the years, including 1,000 Lowfat Recipes (Wiley) and The Farmstead Egg Cookbook (St. Martin’s), this marks her first book for children.

In the book, Tillie, an adventurous bantam White Leghorn, hunts for the perfect place to lay her eggs in and around Golson’s Massachusetts property—out in the garden, atop the breakfast table and in the laundry room, among other spots. Readers are prompted to find where the egg is hidden on each page, as Tillie’s fellow hens look on.

Golson’s hens have already spent some time in the public eye, thanks to her Web site The HenCam, which she has operated since 2005. The Web cam on the site offers a peek into the lives of the chickens (and a rabbit) she and her family keep in their hen house at their home outside Boston. The HenCam also features Golson’s blog about her experiences keeping hens, and attracts more than 10,000 unique visitors each month. “A lot of people who work in cubicles watch the HenCam and tell me it saves their sanity,” says Golson.

The author had been involved with a writers’ group for several years before she thought about writing a children’s book (she had joined to try to get outside what she calls her “food voice,” which she uses in her cookbooks). Following a successful session with photographer Ben Fink for Golson’s The Farmstead Egg Cookbook,the author began to brainstorm other ways to work with the award-winning food photographer. “I wanted to do more with him, but a cookbook wasn’t in sight,” she says. “Then the proverbial light bulb went off over my head. I had this vision of posing my hens in tableaux filled with vintage chicken tchotchkes.”

One of Golson’s agents (she has another for her cookbooks), Carrie Hannigan of Russell & Volkening, submitted the proposal to Scholastic. “[Terry] had a vision,” recalls David Saylor, v-p and associate publisher at Scholastic. “This one hen of hers had great personality, and she wanted to create this book around this chicken.” Saylor and Scholastic editor Kara LaReau liked the concept—“everyone loves chickens,” Saylor notes—and LaReau acquired the book in summer 2006.

Adding to the concept’s appeal was Fink’s photography, which Saylor calls “beautiful and moody,” as well as Golson’s extensive collection of chicken-related ephemera. “Anyone who has chickens will tell you that they are always being given chicken-themed objects, like oven mitts and memo holders,” Golson says. “I’ve tried, over the years, not to be overrun with the stuff, although there’s always been room for the special object.” (She adds that her collection “grew exponentially,” once she began collecting with the book in mind.)

The book’s photographs are filled with these items—which include tins, glassware, fabrics and board games—giving readers numerous details to pore over as they search for Tillie’s eggs. “We were going for a vintage ’40s or ’50s feel, which is where a lot of this ephemera is from,” says Saylor. “We tried to give it a sweet, charming Americana look.”

Scholastic is hoping that the photographs will help distinguish the book from illustrated farm- and chicken-themed titles for children on the market. But getting the perfect shot was not always easy. “It’s difficult to capture the one moment that needs illustrating in a way that’s not static,” Golson says. “Birds don’t have smiling mouths, etc., to convey expression. So we had to get that one fleeting moment when Snowball had exactly the right “eye,” was turned exactly the right way, [and] the lighting was just right.”

But Golson says that Tillie—Snowball in real life—was a good sport during the photo shoots (Scholastic renamed her for the book, to avoid giving it a seasonal-sounding title). “I had spent months training her to pose, so she was comfortable in all of the unusual situations,” Golson says, adding that positive reinforcement helped, too. “She got a lot of treats. Chickens are very food-motivated!”

Although Snowball/Tillie died this past year, as have some of the other hens featured in Tillie Lays an Egg, Golson maintains a practical outlook, noting that hens are not bred for longevity. “It’s great to have Ben’s photos to remember them by,” says the author. “But I have new hens that fill the coop with a lot of personality and activity.” Those include three new bantam White Leghorns, who Golson calls “the actresses who play Tillie.”

Golson is currently working on a few picture book ideas, including a possible follow-up to Tillie Lays an Egg, and her agent is shopping an adult novel (a romantic comedy) as well. And next spring, HenCam viewers could get a glimpse of two planned additions to Golson’s home—a pair of mini-goats. Says Golson, “I’m sure they’ll have adventures that will need telling.”



Egg-static Librarians Get Behind Tillie

This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping. Sign up now!

By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 3/23/2009 2:05:00 PM

Librarians and teachers are in egg-stasy over Terry Golson’s new children’s book, Tillie Lays an Egg (Scholastic, 2009), and her hencam, which dovetails with the fanciful tale.

Educators are writing letters, logging on to see the “girls,” as Golson refers to her chickens, and even launching events, all meant to celebrate one chicken’s adventures as it literally flees the coop.

“There’s been a lot of spontaneity and fun around the book,” says Golson from her home in Carlisle, MA. “I think what they’re responding to is my sheer joy and love of my chickens.”

At the Chicago Ridge Public Library in Illinois, librarians are holding a month-long chicken fest they’ve tagged "Chick-It-Out," which ties into the book. There are crafts, contests, and the library is even planning to raise chicks (with its own webcam), which, if all goes well, should crack their way into the world around April 28th.

“I think this is the right book at the right time,” says Constance VanSwol, head of youth services at the library, who agrees that people are responding enthusiastically to the story. “I raised chickens when I was in high school in Minnesota. I think we all get nostalgic for what we did when we were young.”

Golson’s decision to write a book around her hens seemed only natural to her. As the author of The Farmstead Egg Cookbook (St. Martin's, 2006), she had an affinity for her feathered friends. Golson’s owned a brood of chickens, now numbered at 13, for the last 14 years. “I started with one lone, leftover 4-H project, a little white chicken,” says Golson. “But if you have only one chicken it gets lonely, so you have to get more.”

The hencam, which Golson says clocks between 10,000 to 15,000 unique visitors a month, actually outdates Tillie. Golson says her “nerd” husband started it four years ago when they moved to a bigger lot with electricity that ran to the barn.

Librarians are egg-static over Terry Golson’s new children’s book, Tillie Lays an Egg (Scholastic, 2009).

Golson will often hang a sign saying hello to students if she knows they’re logging on for a reading, and is even known for stepping into the frame to wave hello to librarians and patrons if she’s in the coop.

The Chicago Ridge Public Library’s event may be an elaborate celebration for one book—but VanSwol says it hasn’t proved expensive. By getting the eggs and incubator donated, VanSwol thinks they’re spending no more than about $100 for the remainder of the crafts and giveaways planned for the month. They’re also splurging for T-shirts that read, “Chick-It-Out,” which was a piece of fan love even Golson couldn’t pass up. For a T-shirt, she traded a signed copy of the book, which will go to a lucky patron.

Fans may have more to look forward to from Golson—although they might have to settle for a different farmland friend. New book ideas are already hatching, plus Golson plans to buy two goats, and her husband has promised a goatcam to follow.

But those wishing for another chicken fest may have to put that hope on simmer.

“Of the three children’s books that my agent is currently shopping around,” adds Golson, “two do not have chickens in them!”

Monday, January 5, 2009

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Ten All the Food We Love By Sheila Lukins


Ten All the Food We Love
By Sheila Lukins

Buy This Book

Book Review: Ten: All the Foods We Love and 10 Perfect Recipes for Each

Who hasn't found themselves in the pages of a well-used copy of Sheila Lukins's The Silver Palate Cookbook at some point in their cooking career? When I first moved to New York eleven years ago, it was this volume, found dog-eared and frayed on the shelves of my boyfriend's shoe-box kitchen, that got me feeling like a proper New York cook.

Sheila Lukins gets people to cook, and that's what I love about her. Her books are inviting and not intimidating. Most of them are thick, square paperbacks with brightly colored covers that you can flop open on your counter top and splatter with grease and not fret. They'll all places to go to find a great recipe for something classic, but knowing that it will have a little kick to bring it up to date.

In Ten: All the Foods We Love and 10 Perfect Recipes for Each (Workman Publishing), her latest of eight books, is no exception. Here, she presents ten recipes for each of thirty two foods "we love" from cocktails (a favorite "food" of just a few people I know) to chops to clams, tomatoes and grains. The recipes are the kinds of things people want to cook, they are the recipes for which we here at The Kitchn often get requests: Asian Orange-Scented Chicken (see below for recipe,) Creole Shrimp, Caesar Salad, Velvety Black Bean Soup, Black Chocolate Cake with Fudge Icing, and Green Apple Sorbet.

My only criticism is that the book ends at the thirty-two foods "we love." I wonder how something so seasonally specific as asparagus gets a chapter while other more widely available and versatile vegetables like broccoli, onions and beets don't get their time in the Lukins limelight? In an era where seasonality and variety are so coveted, it is a bold move to assume one vegetable is loved more than another. For the most part, her guesses are probably spot-on, but personally, I'd rather have ten recipes featuring beets, something I have in my kitchen from late summer until deep into winter, than ten for asparagus, a vegetable I eat for a few short weeks in spring and believe is best when it's barely cooked at all.

As a mostly-internet based food writer, my first urge is to turn this project into a website so that the library of foods "we love" can expand, more attention can be paid to seasonality and the conversation about what to do when a (fill in the blank ingredient) lands on your counter top or fridge shelf can continue. Just a thought, Sheila.

Ten: All the Foods We Love and 10 Perfect Recipes for Each (Amazon, $13.57)

Asian-Scented Orange Chicken
Serves 6 to 8
(reprinted with permission from Workman Publishing)

Here soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger blend beautifully with the juice and zest of fresh oranges to give the chicken a delightfully bright Asian flavor. Honey lacquers the skin to a rich golden brown. The Watercress and Mushroom Salad is just the right counterpoint to the sweet chicken.

2 chickens (each 2 1/2 to 3 pounds), each, cut into 8 pieces
Finely grated zest of 4 oranges
2/3 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 scallions (white bulbs and 3 inches green), thinly sliced on the diagonal, for garnish
Watercress and Mushroom Salad (page 254), for serving

1.The day before serving, rinse the chicken pieces well, removing all excess fat, and pat them dry. Place the chicken in a large bowl.
2.Combine the orange zest and juice with the honey, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl. Stir well, and coat the chicken pieces thoroughly with this mixture. Refrigerate, covered, overnight.
3.Thirty minutes before cooking time, preheat the oven to 375° F and remove the chicken from the refrigerator. Arrange the pieces in a large shallow roasting pan, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour 2/3 cup of the marinade into the pan.
4.Bake the chicken, basting it frequently, until it is golden brown and shiny, 1 hour.
5.Transfer the chicken pieces to a large serving platter. Strain the pan juices into a small saucepan and boil until thickened, about 10 minutes. Drizzle the sauce over the chicken, and sprinkle with the scallions. Serve immediately, with the Watercress and Mushroom Salad alongside.


Thursday, October 23, 2008

T.O.'S Finding Fitness By Terrell Owens


T.O.'S Finding Fitness
By Terrell Owens with Buddy Primm & Courtney Parker


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Wednesday, October 1, 2008


Confetti Cakes For Kids
By Elisa Strauss and Christie Matheson


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Monday, August 25, 2008

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Tuesday, April 29, 2008


Fish Without A Doubt
By Rick Moonen & Roy Finamore


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