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Recipes by Gale Gand with Christie Matheson
Photographs by Ben Fink
Clarkson Potter -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon
Ah, brunch, that most indecisive and superfluous of meals: it's certainly not necessary, and probably wouldn't even exist if people weren't inclined to sleep in on the weekends.
But where French toast and eggs Benedict are concerned, necessity has never been the point. So it follows that of course brunch should have its own cookbook: any meal that can gouge so much time and effort out of an otherwise unremarkable weekend naturally requires a repertoire of recipes.
Gale Gand, a James Beard Award-winning pastry chef and the owner of Chicago's renowned Tru, has stepped up to the plate, and then some, with 'Brunch!' If the title's exclamation point tells you all you need to know about Gand's enthusiasm for the subejct, then her recipes -- from beverages like White Hot Chocolate and Gale's 3-Alarm Bloody Mary, to caloric delights like Corn and Parmesan Fritters and Chocolate Waffles -- should give you a generous hint of her serious dedication to the cause. Whether you prefer to drink your brunch or be put into a sugar coma by it, there's pretty much something for everyone here.
See what we tested and whether the book's worth buying after the jump.
Recipes for home cooks tend to be formulated for a specific numbers of diners, usually 2, 4 or 6, which are all
fairly common family numbers. Most recipes are easy to double, so you can turn a chicken dinner for four into
a meal for eight quite easily. Recipes for entertaining and parties, however, are different. You generally
want small or bite-sized portions and need a single recipe that will feed a house or yard full of
people. Fortunately, there are 
