Cooking Food Wine Books

Lots of information that is germane to the era and no longer works in current society....but is was somewhat interesting.

This book makes me homesick for some great food and fun times at the county fair! Well written, with interesting old photos. Interesting to learn about traditions in food and fun around the country.

An entertaining and educational read, likely to spawn much culinary experimentation and perhaps regional exploration.

What a way to spend the summer! all of the good food, the bad and great philosophy of american food!

That's why I wrote the book. So I could find the recipes I use all the time when I need them, so I can improvise new versions. I've given copies to all my friends.

Tastefully yours,
Tom Fitzmorris

When I think of food from New Orleans, I think about hardy, mouth watering meals that taste like someone has been cooking all day just for you. In the past I have particularly enjoyed the fish and seafood recipes because I could never quite do justice to these dishes in my own kitchen.

Tom Fitzmorris's New Orleans Food to the rescue. This book contains over 225 traditional recipes including a good quantity of those traditional fish and seafood dishes that I had been trying to replicate without much success. However, after following these unexpectedly simple directions, I was pleasantly surprised that I could actually make the dishes I had been craving and make them taste as good as I had secretly hoped. I also learned a few great new recipes for beef, pork, chicken, and vegetables.

It is important to note that a portion of the proceeds of this book go to Habitat for Humanity. Great food and a good cause too.

Although I haven't had this cookbook very long, I love it! It is simply a great read! I know enough about cooking Creole and Cajun food to know that the recipes are authentic and will "work"...but at this stage I am so enjoying the 'notes' before each recipe!

Fitzmorris is a man that truly loves New Orleans food and can write about it! Its a very good read even if you didn't make a single recipe, as written, but used the book as an inspiration for your own concoctions.

The "whys and wherefores" that he made this or that substitution are very well explained. This makes it easy for the cook to make substitutions when they can't get certain ingredients in their particular neck of the woods!

I know it is kind of strange to review a cookbook without actually cooking anything in it...but I swear you'll just love reading it!

Tom Fitzmorris is the foremost expert on food in New Orleans. With his meaty three hour daily radio show that has been going for years, he has a tremeneous amount of experience under his belt along with the best of New Orleans cooking. What a pleasure it is to see him with a book about New Orleans food!
There is no one better to show the world how the best of New Orleans cooking can be done by anyone once they have this book.

-Lawrence Kennard

The best recipes to cook at home? I found them a bit complicated for 'home' recipes. And I had hoped for more of NOLA traditional fare knowing the authors roots & connections to the NOLA scene.

I grew up in NOLA as did my mother and her family going back generations, but my mom's home recipes were more in the american chop suey vain...she would have told you her best meals were eating out ;-)

Although more 'authentic' than my mom's recipes I just wasn't overwhelmed. Reading through the book, I didn't say - wow, I want to make this...

Books by Leah Chase or the Commander's Palace cookbooks inspired me more. Sorry, I went in with high expectations...

Flip through it at a book store before purchasing it online to ensure you really want to purchase it.

My grandson graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and I have several of their cookbooks.
This book is very good even for beginner cooks as it describes procedures for everyday cooking as well as providing excellent recipes.
I would recommend this book.

The price through Amazon was much cheaper than the bookstore at the CIA!!!

Don't be insulted or missled. This is the new age book for a cook begining to cook at home. It covers everything you need to know to prepare and serve delicious foods that almost anyone would enjoy. The emphasis is on 'how to' followed by what to cook.
It starts at the begining, what pots, tools, and techniques you must have on hand to start to enjoy cooking. It is first rate for that person!
I thouroughly enjoyed this book, but if you are an accomplished home chef, pass it by.
DOC

This book is most helpful, it does not assume you are an experienced cook, but starts with the basics, and leads you step by step in a most understandable fashion.. It's a geat source, that instills confidence and produces good results.

This cook book is just swell!

I like that this has a lot of pictures of the steps and finished product. I also like the recipes.

However, considering that I went to culinary school myself, I expected a just a tad more from the recipes. The only one I seem to be excited to try is their Lobster Bisque. I have been told mine is the best but this recipe is doing a few things I hadn't thought of.

I also bought the Cordon Bleu book but it doesn't have as many pictures and only the Advanced portion seems like what I'm looking for.

Maybe I'm too picky but there aren't a lot of ways to get additional training outside of formal culinary school.

good book, not great. I actually did enjoy the recipes though. Some were a bit oily, but very soft and moist cakes. this would be a great book for beginers. I didn't learn a whole lot.

I had never decorated a cake in my life, but my kids are getting to the age where we would need lots of birthday cakes. This book explains everything! I made my first cake last week and it came out great. The directions are simple and it is written in an easy to understand fashion. I think even if you know a thing or two, this book could help with tips and ideas you wouldn't have even thought of. A must-have for anyone who wants to decorate cakes!

This is the first "Dummies" book that I didn't find very helpful. Perhaps, it is the case of breadth versus depth. I wasn't interested in how to start a cake decorating business, but did want to learn how to decorate cakes.

all the basic and essential any baker and cake decorator needs to know. Very happy with book.

I have enjoyed the Dummies books for years. This is a concise and informative book that gives you a good idea of basic cake decorating. It contains good solid common sense advice on decorating and recipes. I have found it very helpful and easy to apply

This book is so helpful that I bought an additional one for my daughter in college. We are about 90% raw and this book is really helpful with real recipes we can use.

It is a good book just not what I wanted. Not the kind of recipes I was looking for.

Sproutman Publications is a specialty publisher with an impressive roster of health books to their credit. One of the best of these is the "Sproutman's Kitchen Garden Cookbook" by Steve Meyerowitz who began his interest in the relationship of foods to health in 1975 when he sought to deal with a lifetime condition of allergies and asthma. After the traditional medical establishment had failed him for some twenty years, he was able to restore his health through diet and fasting. he at 100% live foods for five years, practices 'fruitarianism -- a diet of fruit, nuts and sprouted seeds -- and fasted on raw juices for as long as 100 days. The resulting improvement to his personal health was amazing. In "Sproutman's Kitchen Garden Cookbook", Steve has amassed superb collection of recipes for sprout breads, cookies, soups, and salads, as well as 250 additional low-fat, dairy-free, vegetarian recipes. The recipes are presented after the reader benefits from an informational presentation on the pros-and-cons of dairy, dehydrating foods, nutrition charts, sprouting, food drying, low temperature cooking, how to be a healthy vegetarian, and so much more. From Cashew Cottage Cheese; Mighty Millet Bread; Sunflower Nut Milk; and Banana Chips; to Manhattan Sprout Chowder; Braised Tofu; Spinach Marinade; and Creamed Potato Mash, "Sproutman's Kitchen Garden Cookbook" will prove to be a popular and invaluable addition to the cookbook collection for anyone having to deal with the problems of food related allergies and illnesses, as well as the recipe collections for general vegetarians. Also very highly recommended for those concerned with food related health issues are the other titles from Sproutman Publications (available through their website at www.sproutman.com) including: "The Organic Food Guide"; "Power Juices, Super Drinks"; Juice Fasting & Detoxification"; Wheatgrass: Nature's Finest Medicine; "Water: The Ultimate Cure; and "Food Combing and Digestion".

I got this book because I wanted to make sprout bread. The book is very informative. But 95% of the sprout recipes are for wheat. That is great if you want to sprout wheat, but I don't. It does repeat the same info in many parts of the book. But I would say over all I still say it is a great book. I am on a special diet so a lot of what he has in his recipes I can't use. But I did learn a few things.

I guess I'm not the typical reviewer here - I am interested in healthy eating, but without the context of a major life change for myself and my family of five... I'd like to find new ways to eat well, without undermining our entire familiar (mostly vegetarian, mostly well-balanced) diet.

Let's start with what this book IS: an excellent guide to using all types of sprouts, and to which types are good for which occasions - baking, stir-frying, salads, etc. It's also a rather overt advertisement for "Sproutman's" own website and sprouting tools (sprout bag, greenhouse, seeds, etc); fair enough.

The book is full of interesting, simple recipes and ideas for using sprouts either raw or with low temp cooking to get the most nutrition out of every green, crunchy bite. He's also thrown in a bunch of related nutrition stuff - non-sprout items like vegan ice creams and helpful alternatives to salt and other seasonings.

Still, I found that most of the recipes were impractical for family cooking. If two cups of sprouted wheat make a single small loaf or several crackers or cookies, it doesn't take long to realize I'm going to need wheat berries bursting out of every corner of my tiny kitchen in order to create one meal for the five of us.

And that's just bread! To create enough sprouts for us to eat a single salad, a single stir-fry, a single helping of sprouted nuts... well, we're probably going to need to renovate other areas of the house to accomodate all the grow-bags or baskets.

Also, many of the recipes are just variants on previous recipes. Like, he'll take a page to describe how to make a cracker, and then ANOTHER page - this is just an example from memory - on how to make seasoned crackers, and it's obvious the ingredients and steps are identical, just with seasonings added.

Finally, having tasted sprouts and fermented products, I have some idea of what kinds of flavours to expect. Suggesting that his fermented "rejuvalac" beverage will taste similar to lemonade sounds way overblown. He actually hints that it may taste more "like sauerkraut" - to me, that's a BIG difference. Sorry, but I don't curl up on a summer's day with a tall, cool glass of sauerkraut.

Similarly, I realize our dependence on added sugars is overblown, but if I call something a "cookie", my kids (10 & 11) are going to know I'm lying if it's only sweetened with natural sprout maltose and a few raisins. Yes, sprouts give a nice malty sweetness to bread - but only the most idealistic parents would believe kids would accept it as a special-occasion treat.

I guess I was looking for a book that would help me incorporate sprouts into every aspect of our regular household dishes - stir fries, yes, but also to add flavour/nutrition to standard yeast breads, cakes, cookies, veg patties, etc.

Being almost totally vegan (he practically apologizes in the one section where he asks you to put a bit of butter into your rice cereal), there is too little range of dishes for our family's tastes and the dishes offered seem too monotonous for long-term enjoyment.

This book may be ideal for a single person or a couple who want to try an "extreme" veg or raw-foods or minimal-cooking lifestyle. For our family lifestyle, the overhaul required is too enormous to even begin imagining - and trust me, I have plenty of imagination!

We moved from a city in NC that had a Whole Foods Market (which used to be called Wellspring) to one in which there was none (Indianapolis). There were so many salads that I loved from Whole Foods that I had adapted into my own recipes that I thought I could get by without having the store nearby. When I lost my version of "smoked mozzarella pasta salad," I went to the Internet to see if I could find an approximation. Imagine my delight when I stumbled across this cookbook. Even better, the recipe in the book for smoked moz pasta salad was better than mine. I was so happy with it that I bought another cookbook for my Mom. She is also thrilled. There are many, many great recipes. If you are one who needs to have color pictures, this is not the book for you. I would rate the cooking skill needed for this book to be a novice+. However, you have to appreciate how important it is to have the freshest and best ingredients possible.

Ok, ok... so the cookbook might not be perfect. Everything I've tried in here has been fantastic. I also read a pretty negative review about the errors contained in the book. First off, most errors are in nutritional information, yet not in anything as important as caloric intake or fat content. They are minor glitches, nothing that most people would even read. Second, the errors in the recipes number about FIVE. That's it. I went through and made changes in my cookbook and was finished in about 3 minutes. Please, please... be fair already. It's a great cookbook with some fantastic recipes. You can go online and make the necessary changes to the ingredients as needed. There aren't many.

I have to say, this is my favorite cookbook!! I am a vegan living in a small town and i have been able to try any recipe i want as the ingredients are easy to find. Every recipe I have tried has been reliably good...good enough for me to invite friends before i have even taste tested it. My favorite recipes so far include the kung pao tofu, the javanese tofu, the oat burgers, and BBQ lentils. Yum!! Also, very useful references including wine pairings, cooking whole grains...etc.

Whole Foods makes so many great fresh foods that people will still go to the store for even if you put it in a cookbook. I would love the recipe for the Lemon White Chocolate Coconut cookies, Oatmeal Cookies and their delicious Turkey Lime salad. You need a better cookbook then this.

Exceptional gluten and dairy free recipes. Beautiful and nutritious food! I love The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook, and recommend it to my patients. Ali Segerstein has an extensive background as a personal chef and Tom Malterre is an extraordinary nutritionist. Their combined expertise has created one amazing cookbook that is a must do for your health.

I was disappointed in this book. I didn't realize that it was so small. We also ended up having to remove the picture pages so the rest of the pages would turn smoothly and not tear. It seems they have too many pages for the size of the spiral in the binding.

When I was 11 I received a Betty Crocker cooking set (tiny pots, pans, cake pans, cookie sheet, mixing bowls and utensils, and cake, cookie and brownie box mixes.) The set included this cookbook. When my children were growing up, my youngest son would come home from school and make brownies from the recipe in this cookbook. When my daughter was old enough, I gave her my cookbook. My daughter-in-law still has her copy of this cookbook that her mother gave her. I've missed just having this book around so I decided to find it and get a copy to keep.

I had this book as a child, and it is very easy to make all the food items in it. I bought a copy for my grandson and another copy for my friends' daughter who are both 9 years old. They love the books, they're a great way to get a young person into the kitchen and familiar with being able to make simple things and how to use kitchen tools with some adult nearby. The recipes are simple and as a child matures they will easily be able to make things themselves. It's good for anyone to be able to say, "it did it myself!" (I'd consider this book for any age cooking beginner, even bachelors, it makes cooking very easy.)

have been teaching my six year old grand-daughter kitchen skills since she was old enough to hold a spoon. wanted to pass on my first cookbook, but only God knows what corner of the house it's hiding in! was thrilled to discover the same cook book my grandmother gave me 50 years ago was still around... pix, text & color are just as i remember and paper is thick to stand up to rough page turning. nothing hard to create - easy for young kids to read and they'll love the fun presentation to what they make. if you want your little helper to feel like a big kid, create a memory as well as something to start their collection and go with this tried & true winner!

I have the original book from 1957, it was handed down to me when I was a kid (it was over 20 yrs old by then). My 4yr old loves to ask me what the items are in the pictures, such as the kitchen utensils; it is a good way to practice language skills and safety in the kitchen because it tells the child to "ask your mom" for help on a lot of things. I agree that it does advise you to use Bisquick and some boxed cake mixes, but in my opinion it's to make it easier for kids to learn how to cook without being too confusing and it also looks like a form of advertising (or the 1957 version of spam?). There are many fun and creative ideas for kids and when they help "cook" it does make them want to eat it too! If you are looking for a decent cookbook for kids to learn about the kitchen and have fun creating with food this is a good book. If you are trying to buy for the next Emeril this book isn't for you. I will be passing the book onto my daughter just as it was passed on to me.

I'm very disappointed in this cookbook. I purchased a second one to give as a gift, but cannot give it to anyone.

Really disappointing. Boiler plate in almost every recipe, almost all of which is way below the author's usual standard.

This cookbook does not deliver on its premise.

Often the only "larder" ingredient is a single box of pasta, can of tuna, or a jar of roasted peppers. The olive oil or mayonnaise may also come from a jar, but that's hardly revolutionary. I would have preferred the book to include classic larder cooking, old family secrets, and novel twists on larder cooking. If you are an experienced cook, and you already know that you can make a dinner out of tuna, capers, and some olives, and this book will provide you with little insight. As in many Nancy Silverton books (I have several), many recipes have a feeling of "I just slapped this together for dinner, and I thought it was good enough to publish."

The book also fails to include any Asian, or specifically Japanese dishes, which are renowned for springing to life from simple ingredients like noodles, miso, nori, etc. Dried ingredients, such as seaweeds, mushrooms, beans, or rice and mung bean noodles are not addressed. Frozen ingredients, a secret to many kitchens, are ignored. Coconut milk and peanut butter, staples of asian and african cooking are neglected.

Mostly, this cookbook provides a suite of FRESH food, with garnishes made from jars, cans, bags and boxes.

As a point of contrast ... An entire restaurant (Quimet i Quimet, a tapas bar) has been based on conserva, or preserved food. Silverton's book does NOT cover conserva, but if you are interested, see article "Canned Heat" by Amanda Hesser, in the New York Times (September 1, 2002).

Chef Nancy Silterson is the original dessert chef at Spago and founder of the La Brea Bakery, but here shifts her attention to compiling a list of favorite products that come in convenience jars, cans, and boxes, along with recipes which need less than 30 minutes to prepare. From a Cream Corn Soup with Bacon and Cheddar Crostini to Seared Lamb Chops with Ratatouille, mouth-watering color photos of finished products accompany tips on how to blend quick ingredients with fresh for optimum home cooking. A 'must' for any public lending library catering to busy - but gourmet - home cooks.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I'm very disappointed in this book. I enjoy the quick and tasty recipes of the Dinner Doctor and other cookbook authors like her, and I also like the more adventuresome cooking offered by chef-authored writers like Silverton herself in her earlier Campanile cookbook. This book is an annoying blend of the two. The recipes in Twist of the Wrist are complicated; the ingredient lists are long; the canned and jarred items featured are expensive, and for the most part, I cannot find them in the big city grocery stores of the major metropolitan area where I live. I'd rather cook from scratch than mail order ingredients or fruitlessly search for ingredients in stores all over town.

Mama Dip's cookbook offers the best collection of recipes since _Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine_. The country-style scrambled eggs are more than authentic and delicious, as are the breakfast chicken biscuits. One doesn't have to be toothless to enjoy Grandpa's chicken and people of all ages will make the cream cheese pound cake disappear. Try the roast turkey for a moist, tender, flavorful bird that won't last much past the meal - if that far! The rib roast is practically unspeakable - offer this succulent delight to guests and watch their reactions. While dishes prepared in a "traditional" soul food style are front and center, there are some tasty surprises, such as the stuffed mushrooms. It takes a long time to try every targeted recipe because there are so many, with nine of ten recipes bona fide hits. You won't be disappointed!

The best pecan pie recipe in this book that I have ever found, and I have looked for one for years! It can be doubled to fit my Watkin's 10" deep dish pie pan without burning the pecans or the filling! I love it!

I love to cook and as a cook, I love people who enjoy cooking as well. I feel like I know Mama Dip. I love this cookbook!!

If you like down home southern cookin this is the book for you!! I bought this and her other cookbook. Love Them!

The recipes in this cookbook are fantastic. They are simple to make and absolutely delicious. Mama Dips has changed our long standing Thanksgiving tradition...her roated turkey recipe is so delectable we use this recipe now instead of the one that's been in use for the last 50 years. You won't go wrong with this cookbook. Highly recommended!!!

Having lived in DC and now Seattle, Ethiopian restaurants are cheap, plentiful and delicious. I've had this book for a number of years without having cooked from it, but finally decided to give it a try.

The results were good in some places, not-so-good in others. I made Tibs Wet (spicy fried beef), Zigni Wet (spicy ground beef stew), Gomen Besiga (collard greens), and Nitir Qibe, the spiced butter that is the foundation of this cuisine. Injera made with teff was bought from the store, as was berbere (pepper-based spice mix).

The Tibs were excellent, just like I get in so many restaurants. But only because I was able to adjust from mistakes made following the Zigni (ground beef) Wet recipe. The ground beef recipe overstated the amount of berbere by about 15-20%, the butter at least 50-100% or more. The Gomen was pretty bad - even though I had cut the butter (from previous recipes) the recipe called for way too much red onion, which overpowered the collards and ruined the taste. If it weren't for all my experience eating Ethiopian and cooking Punjabi Indian cuisine (similar spices and methods), this meal would have been a lost cause.

I am grateful there is at least one Ethiopian cookbook out there, even if the recipes need some serious tweaking to be usable. There is considerable info on Ethiopian culture - both well researched and enjoyable to read. If you're going to cook from these recipes, add your berbere sparingly at first (50-60%) and adjust to taste. Use perhaps 20-25% of the spiced butter to start and work your way up if needed.

As for the lack of cooking instructions - if you've ever eaten in an Ethiopian restaurant you will understand this is a cook-by-feel cuisine, with little actual measuring, largely taught by domestic cooks (mostly women) to their children. Yes, this is hard to work with if you're used to recipes, but I think it proves the book's authenticity. It's hard enough to find the ingredients for this cuisine, let alone cookbooks. If the author would test the recipes more thoroughly, we could have real winner.

I've been looking for a great Ethiopian-only cookbook for a while. This isn't quite it. The recipes are tempting, but most require a lot of math to make them work for smaller kitchens. One example is the recipe for berere, a spice mix used in many of the foods. The quantities of ingredients this book calls for would leave a 4 person home with enough spice for a lifetime! One plus is the multiple recipes for Injera, the traditional flat bread used as "silverware" to eat stews, etc. There are several options depending on the flour you want to use. I'm still looking for an all-Ethiopian cookbook which is convenient for small gatherings and families.

Most good Ethiopian dishes are reliant on a subtle melange of spices and flavors. This is at times hard to master. This book offers a straight forward way of understanding this complex mix.

It is the most complete catalog of original Ethiopian recipes available today. The recipes are precise and give you the classic version of most Ethiopian dishes.

It may be a bit complex for beginner cooks, but with a little effort and lots of time :), you will be able to replicate most of the classic Ethiopian dishes.

I give this book 5 stars, because it has so much cultural history in it, because it is a genuine, truly sincere effort, and because it is so vast; it truly has *a lot* of recipes.
The injera recipe is difficult to recreate, as are many of the amts. of ingredients called for in recipes.
However, it is a total compendium of many, many dishes. The author clearly put his heart, life, and culture into this book and it shows. I used this book many times to recreate these classic dishes.
Thank you Jote Mesfin!
Ethiopian-inspired Cooking, Vegetarian Specialties

The instructions were not always clear. Some of the ingredients were omitted from recipes while others were not completely explained. Perhaps another editing job would be prudent. Otherwise, the food I prepared from this book was absolutely sumptuous and I appreciated the cultural background chapters.

Tami Swartz - Foodie