"book" news and stories

Anu Garg's new book, "The Dord, The Diglot, and an Avocado or Two: The Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-so-common Words" combines two of my favorite things: food and etymology. Bibliophiles might know Garg from Wordsmith, his 600,000-subscriber word-a-day e-mail system.

Now, while the book isn't entirely about food, Garg, a vegan, devotes one entire chapter to the meaning behind food words (gourmand, by the way, comes from the word gormant, which means glutton - share that one at your next dinner party!)

Some other fun word origins? 'Calzone' means 'trouser leg,' 'taco' means 'plug' or 'wad' (ew), and a 'trencherman' is a hearty eater. Hey - what about us trencherwomen? Check out the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's review of the book for more.

So, next time you're gathered postprandial, use this book as fodder in your conversation about aristology to impress your guests.

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For Christmas, I received a super-cool vegan cookbook (thanks, Mom!) that's become my new favorite. I find that some veggie/vegan cookbooks, while gorgeous and filled with fantastic recipes, have an air of pretension about them that irks me as I struggle to, say, wrap my increasingly-crumbly tempeh in endive.

But Angeline Linardis, author of V Cuisine: The Art of New Vegan Cooking, isn't like that at all. Her voice throughout the book is light and non-threatening, and the recipes aren't nearly as intimidating as some I've come across. (For instance, my favorite chapter name is "Terrifying Tofu.")

So far I've tried a few of the recipes, including the corn chowder (Linardis recommended that you blend half of it with an immersion blender, but I left it chunky, and I'm glad I did - I retained the individual flavors of the veggies and it felt more hearty, like a chowder should) and the tofu "fries," which weren't nearly as crispy as I'd hoped, but plenty tasty and filling.

And while the teaspoon of turmeric the soup called for turned my favorite spatula a permanent shade of shocking yellow, it's a small price to pay for such a fun collection of recipes.

This one is for our most beloved Slashfoodie. We're giving a gift to our favorite reader!

Okay, not really.

We are giving away a copy of The Weekend Chef: 192 Recipes for Relaxed Cooking Ahead, the cookbook that Slashfood earned in January for being named the Best Group Food Blog by the Food Blog Awards. But we're not going to play favorites. How could we? Haven't we all learned to love each and every one of our readers equally?

So we're just going to choose a winner at random. All you have to do is let us know you're here with a comment on this post. No need to be witty. Rant. Rave. Make a suggestion. Just say "Hello." Whatever you're moved to say, say it!

You have until sundown today. Maybe later if we decide "sundown" in Hawaii.

I have heard Tyler Florence compared to Jamie Oliver on more than one occasion and although the comparisons have involved everything from technique to looks, the two chefs just happen to fill very similar roles on TV as good looking guys with a "good food, good friends" type of philosophy. Of course, Tyler and Jamie ultimately went in different directions with the TV careers (with Tyler ending up on How to Boil Water, but Tyler's Ultimate: Brilliant Simple Food to Make Any Time is a step back towards his roots. The dishes in the book are simple and straightforward, but are certainly not too far into "quick fix" territory. They rely on quality ingredients and bright flavors, with both more exotic and more casual fare to choose from, and all are intended to be the types of recipes that you can turn to again and again. Some of the recipes include The Ultimate Barbecued Chicken; Almond Semifreddo with Spiced Honey Dried Fruit; Chicken Paillard with Blue Cheese, Pancetta, and Figs; and Coconut Shrimp with Basmati Rice and Apricots.

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When the power goes out, you lose a lot of the functionality of your kitchen. The microwave doesn't work, nor does the oven. You can't use your coffee machine, and neither will an electric stove. The worst thing, aside from the fact that such situations are almost entirely unpredictable, is that your refrigerator and freezer will be powerless, meaning that to clock is rapidly ticking for all the perishable foods that are so important to our daily meals.Apocalypse Chow: How to Eat Well When the Power Goes Out is a lighthearted look at how - and what - to cook when you can't use any of the resources that we normally take for granted. It includes lists of safe, easy-to-store foods, as well as other disaster-preparedness tips, and suggestions for putting together a reliable and electricity-free cooking system. The 50 or so recipes are easy to follow and require minimal work to put together dishes - all of the ones in the book are vegetarian - like Almost-Instant Black Bean Chili, Pantry Pasta Salad, Skillet Peach Crumble and Garlicky Chickpeas with Potatoes and Tomatoes.

And, lest you think that the book is only handy in natural disasters (and Bachelors, as the cover suggests), consider that it is not a bad idea to have a book full of recipes that require minimal cooking and shelf-stable (or just long lasting) foods for those times when you just don't feel like working too hard in the kitchen.

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