Books

Anthony Bourdain Cooks Up a Graphic Novel

by Jason Best, Posted Oct 11th 2010 @ 4:00PM

Anthony Bourdain Photo: Henry S. Dziekan III / Getty Images

WHAM! POW! SAUTÉ!? It's not often (if ever) that you see the likes of Superman or Wonder Woman standing over a six-burner Viking, simmering a port reduction. Apparently, saving the world on a regular basis doesn't leave much time for culinary creativity.

Unless that world was one where "food and the secrets of how to prepare it are the source of all power?"

That appears to be the premise behind "Get Jiro!",, a new graphic novel by none other than Anthony Bourdain, host of "No Reservations" and author of Kitchen Confidential.

Filed under: Books, Chefs

The World's First Twitter Cookbook

COMMENTS 6

by Jessie Cacciola, Posted Oct 6th 2010 @ 2:00PM

Photo Illustration: Getty Images

For foodies and off-work cooks, Twitter is a way to share recipes for the tactfully short-handed and poetically brief. (See: Eric Ripert, Ruth Reichl and Ian Knauer). Most recipes are simple or merely state the components of a dish for inspiration, but some people tweet full recipes within the allotted 140 characters. Amateur cook Maureen Evans got pretty good at it -- so good, in fact, that she developed the first-ever Twitter cookbook.

Released just last month, Eat Tweet (Artisan, $14.95) compiles more than 1,000 tweeted recipes from Evans' @cookbook account, which she still updates with new creations, like Whisky Apples, Roasted Tomato Sauce or Eggs Berlin: shallots, thyme, lemon, pumpernickel and poached eggs. Or should we say: "3c shallot/⅓c olvoil h@low; +6c zuke 20m@low to tender; +¼t thyme/lem&garlc/s+p. Top 4pce pumpernickel tst; +4poachedegg/basil."

For those who might be wary of translating what she calls Twitterese, Evans has posted eighteen decoded recipes on her Huffington Post blog, including Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon. Check out the condensed version of that one.

Filed under: Books, Recipes

Home Cooking, Ikea-Style

COMMENTS 5

by Naomi Shulman, Posted Sep 27th 2010 @ 2:00PM

Photo: Carl Kleiner Via Today and Tomorrow

Ikea, the Scandinavian home furnishings giant known for high design and low prices, has made an extremely successful foray into kitchen renovations in recent years. In some up-and-coming neighborhoods there's nary a non-Ikea cabinet to be found. Cunning, cheerful cookware, too, is a staple in youthful kitchens everywhere. Now the company has taken what seems like the obvious next step: They've created a cookbookwith the same spare, minimalist sensibility the brand is known for.

As with all Ikea products, the book has a distinctive Swedish name -- Hembakat är Bäst, or Homemade Is Best -- and it contains some thirty basic recipes for what one assumes are traditional Scandinavian treats, such as vanilijhorn (apparently similar to almond croissants) and pepperkakor (gingerbread cookies). Are the recipes any good? Who knows? The attention right now is focused on the styling and photography -- provided in this case by Carl Kleiner, a Stockholm-based photographer well known for his own minimalist, offbeat aesthetic.

Unfortunately for all of us stateside Swedish wannabes, Hembakat är Bäst isn't yet available in the U.S. If you've got Old World cousins -- or any pals doing their junior years abroad -- implore them to send a few copies across the Atlantic. Language barrier? No problem. Anyone who's ever figured out how to use one of those wordless Ikea instruction manuals will find this to be -- wait for it -- a piece of cake. (Oh yes we did!)

Filed under: Books

Brooklyn Eats its Words

COMMENTS 1

by Leslie Pariseau, Posted Sep 13th 2010 @ 4:00PM

Photo: Brooklyn Book Festival

This weekend, the fifth annual Brooklyn Book Festival brought together a smattering of food writers from across the boroughs, including the Franks of Frankies Spuntino and Prime Meats; Rachel Wharton of Edible Brooklyn; chef Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune restaurant; Francis Lam, senior writer at Salon.com; and the Lee Brothers of Southern cookbook and boiled peanut fame.

There were many lively discussions on a variety of topics throughout the festival, but we've collected the most delicious quotes here:

On writing about food:

Gabrielle Hamilton: "It's a lot easier to cross off items on a prep list as opposed to figuring out the human condition."

Francis Lam: "I eat food because I love food. I cook food because I love food. I write about food because I love people."

Filed under: Books, Events

50 Best Cookbooks of All Time

COMMENTS 8

by Nichol Nelson, Posted Aug 17th 2010 @ 5:00PM

cookbooks on kitchen shelf Photo: manthatcooks, Flickr

Choosing the best of anything is a subjective game, but newspaper and magazine editors love to make lists and then let their readers duke it out. The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, recently gathered a mix of Americans and Brits -- including Top Chef Master Chef judge Jay Rayner, "Heat" author Bill Buford, and chef Fergus Henderson -- to judge the 50 best cookbooks of all time.

Coming in at number one is Richard Olney's "The French Menu Cookbook." It's a pretty safe choice, considering Olney's revered status in the food world, but some of their other selections have people scratching their heads. Julia Child isn't in the top 10 (she pops up at 21). Much-loved food writer MFK Fisher is almost at the bottom of the list at 47. And Thomas Keller doesn't appear at all.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, of course, but to overlook Keller's "French Laundry Cookbook" completely seems odd – it's a huge seller in the states, and has been praised by critics and home cooks alike. Is it a deliberate snub?

Filed under: Books

The Big Book of Molecular Gastronomy

COMMENTS 1

by Jessie Cacciola, Posted Aug 9th 2010 @ 2:00PM

Photo: Amazon.com

If there were a Guinness World Record for heftiest, most expensive cookbook, there would be no question that this new arrival would own the slot. At a whopping $625, Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, the 2,400 page creation of scientists-inventors-cooks Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet, is a six-volume guide to molecular gastronomy.

Renowned for his own hand in the movement, Ferran Adrià has already given his blessing, offering a statement on the book's website that "this cookbook will change the way we understand the kitchen."

The volumes are divided as such:
• 1 - "History & Fundamentals"
• 2 - "Techniques & Equipment"
• 3 - "Animals & Plants"
• 4 - "Ingredients & Preparations"
• 5 - "Plated-Dish Recipes"
• 6 - "Kitchen Manual"

Filed under: Books

The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories

COMMENTS 3

by Clare Leschin-Hoar, Posted Jul 15th 2010 @ 4:00PM

Photo: Amazon.com

The CAFO Reader is meaty. Maybe it's the fact that I read it while on vacation in Iowa, smack dab in the very heart of hog and egg laying hen confinement operations. These industrial "farms" have been here for years. Pass them on the highway, and the smell can be eye-watering, even if you can't see the operation itself from the road. Locals are fond of saying, "That's the smell of money." And it is, but too often that cash doesn't make it back into the very communities where these operations live.

That's just one of the points editor Daniel Imhoff makes as he sets out on a myth-busting mission in this book. Chapters are voiced by some of the most notable thinkers in our country's sustainable food movement -- Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry Fred Kirschenmann, Dan Barber, Tom Philpott, and Eric Schlosser among them.

From intensively farmed beef, pork, chicken, fish, dairy and eggs -- the curtain of "Big Agriculture" is pulled back with fact-driven arguments on the true costs of pollution, animal cruelty, overuse of antibiotics, immigrant labor and more, which many feel has mired our food system. Republican speech writer Matthew Scully says "instead of redesigning the factory farm to suit the animals, they are redesigning the animals to suit the factory farm."

Filed under: Books

'Dulce' - Cookbook Spotlight

COMMENTS 2

by Maggie Ruggiero, Posted May 21st 2010 @ 2:00PM

dulce Photo: Amazon.com

"Dulce"
By Joseluis Flores with Laura Zimmerman Maye
Photographs by Ben Fink
Rizzoli -- 2010
Buy it on Amazon

The cover photo of "Dulce" features churros with a dish of chocolate sauce alongside. Poised for a nibble, it's food porn at its very finest. But can you judge a book by its cover?

I have a love affair with cookbooks. "Dulce," despite its amazing collection of tempting recipes, stepped out on me. It tested my love and I don't know whether to give it another chance or break it off.

See what we tested and whether it's worth buying after the jump.

Filed under: Books, Cookbook Spotlight

Cook Like a Real N.J. Housewife

COMMENTS 6

by Nicki Gostin, Posted May 13th 2010 @ 12:00PM

Teresa Giudice Photo: Mike Coppola / Getty Images

Teresa Giudice, the table-flipping star from "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," has a cookbook out called "Skinny Italian." In it she shares recipes for low-fat Italian dishes, which helps explain how the mother of four children under the age of nine maintains her svelte figure.

When did you learn how to cook?
TG: When I got married. When I was working I wouldn't get home from the city till 7:30 or 8:00 and my mom would have dinner ready for me on the table. But when I got married I would call my mom and I would say, "Ma I want to make this dish that you make" and she would tell me over the phone, and Joe, my husband, thought it was delicious.

So really this cookbook is your mom's.
TG: Well, it is my mom's recipes. There are a few that are mine, like the zucchini spaghetti and the lemon granita.

You have four daughters. Are any of them picky eaters?
TG: None of them. They eat whatever I make. My friends' kids come over and once they try my food, they're like, "Oh my God," and I tell their mothers that they ate and they're like, "What?" That's because their moms don't cook for them.

Filed under: Books, Interviews

Claudia Roden Inducted Into Cookbook Hall of Fame

COMMENTS 1

by Nicki Gostin, Posted May 6th 2010 @ 5:00PM

DamGoodSweet Photo: Amazon

At the James Beard Awards this week, cookbook author Claudia Roden received the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award: She was inducted into the Cookbook Hall of Fame for her landmark tome, "A Book of Middle Eastern Food," first published in 1972. Roden, who lives in London, was in Manhattan to accept the award, and spoke to Slashfood.

Where does your love of Middle Eastern food come from?
CR: I come from Egypt. When I lived there, it was a very cosmopolitan country, like Dubai today. People from all around the area came there for business. When the Suez Canal crisis happened, it resulted in Jews having to leave Egypt. This whole big shock of having to leave brought to me the urgency of collecting recipes because we never had a cookbook. There were never any recipes in print at all. It didn't exist.

More with Claudia Roden after the jump ...

Filed under: Books, Chefs