Illustrated Kitchen Bible
Author: Brigitte Hafner
The Illustrated Kitchen Bible is all quality content-a tremendous resource of over 1,000 delicious, achievable, and international recipes, with sumptuous photography, precise text, and innovative ideas.
This book takes recipes and techniques and puts them under the microscope. How to get the best when shopping? What the preparation and cooking stages are? What to look for? What should it feel and smell like? How to save the day if something isn't right? What to serve with it? What to do with the leftovers (if there are any)? The result is home cooking at its most perfect.
Publishers Weekly
Veteran UK cookbook author and caterer Blashford-Snell (Diva Cooking, One Year at Books for Cooks) shares over a thousand recipes in this colossal "category-killer" dedicated to everyday food. Given the full-color, highly-informative DK treatment, each recipe is accompanied by a photo of the finished dish as well as at-a-glance information boxes with serving yields and approximate times. Those intimidated by the kitchen will find help in clear but detailed steps and straightforward, illustrated instructions for techniques like cutting up a whole chicken, prepping artichokes and making sauces. Blashford-Snell's catering experience is on display in the book's imaginative appetizer and "party bites" section; Wild Mushroom Tartlets, Chicken Liver Pate, Herbed Shrimp and Goat Cheese Wraps and multiple riffs on Croustades, a bite-sized bread cup filled with various savory creations, are easy to prepare and surefire hits. Every food group and cuisine is represented-from bread-making to burger-grilling to pad thai to Chocolate Bavarian Creams-and it's rounded out with tips on making grilled sandwiches and omelets, "cooking for a crowd" and working with leftovers, making it a fine choice for a first cookbook. Once they're comfortable, cooks should be tempted from their comfort zone with tasty variations, making this a go-to staple and a volume to grow with.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Judith Sutton - Library Journal
Blashford-Snell is an English cookbook author and caterer, and this huge recipe compendium was originally published in the United Kingdom. Along with hundreds of recipes, there is a separate section on techniques, as well as boxes on various ingredients, all illustrated with step-by-step photographs. Every recipe is shown in full color, and each major section opens with "Recipe Choosers," a handy feature with small photographs and one-line descriptions of each recipe. Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World includes a wider range of more exotic or unfamiliar ethnic dishes, but most libraries will want Blashford-Snell's accessible international collection as well.
Look this: Slow Cooker Recipes or The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook
Chef Jeff Cooks
Author: Jeff Henderson
The author of the New York Times bestselling Cooked, award-winning chef, and star of his own Food Network docu-reality show dishes up his first cookbook, Chef Jeff Cooks.
Jeff Henderson's story is familiar: Raised in South Central Los Angeles, he became a successful drug dealer. He made a lot of money. He got caught.
But what happened next wasn't the same old story: Jeff changed. He found a passion in prison kitchens and taught himself to cook. Once released, he talked his way into a series of professional kitchens -- almost always having to prove himself by starting as a dishwasher or line cook. His talent was obvious; his work ethic even more so. After rising to the top of the kitchen in some of Los Angeles's best restaurants, he became the first African American Chef de Cuisine in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace and then executive chef at Café Bellagio in the prestigious Bellagio Resort.
Now Jeff shows theworld his food and it is delicious. What inspires him? Foods he ate as a child -- Half-pound "Back-in-the-Day" Chili Cheeseburger, Turkey Smoked Collard Greens, Friendly Fried Chicken, Macaroni and Smoked Cheddar Cheese, Cakelike Cornbread with Maple Butter, and Chocolate S'more Bread Pudding -- are here as well as the more elegant, celebratory cuisine he developed as a chef -- Sweet Potato Soup, Barbecued Shrimp Scampi, and slow-cookedMolasses Braised Beef Short Ribs. Cooks will also find lots of great recipes for the grill and plenty of party foods, satisfying salads, quick breads, sides, soups, sweet endings, and more.
Featuring over 150 recipes, stunning full-color photographs, tips and techniques, as well as personalouttakes and anecdotes from Chef Jeff's life on the streets, the prison kitchen, and hiswork as a chef andmotivational speaker, this is much more than a cookbook -- it is a larger-than-life American success story and the recipe for how Chef Jeff fulfilled his dream.
Publishers Weekly
In his bestselling memoir Cooked, Henderson chronicled his improbable rise from drug dealer to professional chef; here, he returns to his favorite topic-himself-for a cookbook-paean to home cooking, fortunately filled out with family-pleasing recipes. Though happy to name-drop the great restaurants he's cooked for, Henderson shares virtually no fine dining recipes, instead focusing on classic home cooking: Big Mac's Meat Loaf, peanut butter cookies, pineapple upside down cake and a handful of simple but flavorful sandwiches and salads. When he lets the food do the talking, Henderson is a patient and insightful teacher, ideal for those new to the kitchen and complete with ideas for stretching budgets and pantries. A doting parent, Henderson frequently lightens up entrees by substituting, for instance, ground turkey for beef in his chili or soy yogurt for a parfait. Other kid-friendly favorites like Macaroni and Smoked Cheddar Cheese, grilled corn and a simple fruit salad should please. When he does stray from the standard, results are usually interesting, as in his Sweet Corn Vinaigrette dressing and a rich and velvety sweet potato soup (though readers should pause before drizzling ketchup atop his ground beef tacos). Those looking for an introductory cookbook or some simple family-pleasing meals will find them in these flavorful, to-the-point recipes; Henderson's self-aggrandizing shtick, however, remains tiresome.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Judith Sutton - Library Journal
Henderson's first book, Cooked, was a memoir about his early days as a drug dealer in Los Angeles; his years in prison, where he learned to cook; and, eventually, his successful career as a top restaurant chef, most recently at CafA© Bellagio in Las Vegas. He now runs a catering business and works with "at-risk" youth, and his new show, The Chef Jeff Project, debuts on the Food Network this fall. The recipes in his first cookbook are a mix of upscale restaurant dishes and the food he grew up with and now likes to cook for his family. There are also stories about his restaurant days and cooking adventures and "testimonials" from his mentors and other important figures in his new life. Recommended for most collections.
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