Cake and Commerce

The Craft of Baking Cookbook Giveaway!

10/27 Update: Winner announced! Piroska will receive the Craft of Baking! Thanks to all who participated in the giveaway!

If you've read my review of Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox's new baking and sweets cookbook, The Craft of Baking, you know I'm pretty excited about it. I've already cooked out of it and really love not only the results, but also DeMasco and Fox's approach to building both a great baking pantry and developing technique and skill.

Cake and Commerce is giving away a copy of The Craft of Baking to one lucky reader. Between today and October 27th, the official release date, readers who are interested in the cookbook can enter to win it by simply leaving a link to their favorite sweet recipe, photo, or blog post in the comments section of this post and explain briefly (one sentence) why you love it so much. It doesn't need to be your own recipe or blog post, but it should be something you love that you'd like to share with other readers. Make sure you enter your email address when leaving your comment so I can contact you if you are selected - if you do not leave your email address and I cannot contact you, I will select the name of another reader.

On the 27th I will randomly select one name (I use an excel spreadsheet with the 'random' function) to receive the cookbook. Easy enough, right?

So...what are you waiting for?

10 easy tips for building a great cookbook library

A personal culinary reference library - also known as a cookbook library or cookbook collection - is an essential part of every cook's battery of tools. Although the internet makes finding individual recipes simple, there's nothing like curling up on a couch and studying a book containing the words, ideas, and visuals of a cuisine or method or chef or theory (the jury is still out on the contemporary culinary memoir, though Tony Bourdain gets a free pass).

A great cookbook or food reference book is more than just a collection of recipes that work. A great cookbook presents knowledge in a way that makes you, the reader, richer for the experience of both reading it and cooking from it. A great cookbook contextualizes recipes and makes them understood as cultural artifacts and as processes.

Putting together a useful library, some thought must be put into the books that are in it. Some books can be picked up for a song in used bookstores, at sales, or in remainder sections. Others are investments. The best cookbook collections strike a balance between old and new, fad and tradition, lore and index and pretty and functional.

When I first started building my cookbook library, I was very lucky: I lived just down the street from a used bookshop in the middle of Cambridge, MA, a mecca for book reviewers who dutifully traded in their review copies of cookbooks for first editions of Dante's Inferno. I was able to buy new books at half off their cover this way, and older books for an even steeper discount. It wasn't unusual for me to blow a good portion of my cook's salary (about $7/hr) on cookbooks.I was also a brief drive from Jessica's Biscuit and the remainder section at New England Mobile Book Fair, which is neither mobile nor a book fair, but has the premier cookbook selection in New England, many priced up to 40% off.

Not every city or town has used book shop with a decent cookbook selection or a used book shop or a great new book store at all, although sites like Amazon make new and used copies available to anyone with a computer and a mailing address. With a little perseverance and cash to burn, you too can build a great culinary reference library in no time at all. Though I'd recommend giving yourself some time to grow it.

Cake and Commerce's 10 tips for building your cookbook collection

1. Before you start building your collection, do your research. This article, by Mark Bittman, is a great place to start. He talks about what makes one cookbook useful and another one less so. His list of great cookbooks is a classic reference, and any collection will be enhanced by any of the books he suggests. Still aren't sure about where to start? Go to your local library and check out their cookbooks. For the price of a (FREE) library card and your local taxes, you can take any book in the collection home for a test drive.

2. Think twice before spending money on celebrity chef cookbooks. If it is from a restaurant you adore, great. Make sure you get an autographed copy. Otherwise, proceed with caution. There's an expectation that restaurant chefs will publish a cookbook. Do you really think even a small fraction of those books are worth your money? More than likely, the answer is no.

3. Invest in high price tag cookbooks with caution. if you are looking to teach yourself a particular method that was developed by a particular chef, by all means, invest. And by 'invest' I'm not exaggerating. The Fat Duck Cookbook, The Alinea Cookbook, the various El Bulli cookbooks fall into that category and are costly picture books. They also make interesting reads, although the majority of home cooks will be rather challenged to produce anything detailed within the covers. They're costly investments, so think twice unless you're a serious groupie or a glutton for punishment.

4. Like celebrity chef cookbooks, Food Network cookbooks are not a necessity for your library. Most of the popular recipes can be found on the Food Network's site and there's no need to have a hard copy of something that is so widely available. Just print out what you need when you need it. Trust me, these cookbooks won't age well. Other non-necessities: every Beard Foundation Cookbook Award nominee - look, the committee needs to come up with a certain number of nominees and winners every year and the field is pretty variable. These cookbooks aren't always must-haves - they're what stood out that year and only that year (though some are instant classics and will endure over time). Same for the IACP finalists and winners. Use your best judgment. Be selective.

5. Professional cookbooks are interesting - but if you are a home cook, you probably don't need a cookbook with 20x quantities. I'm not saying you aren't smart enough to do the conversions, but do you really want to? And more importantly, after the initial blush of a new purchase goes away, will you pick it up again? Make sure the title is something of value to you - a skill you want to learn (garde manger, garnishes, baking) - before handing over your cash.

6. Cookbooks by celebrities - and I mean Hollywood types - are absolutely a waste of your money unless you are collecting them for kitsch value. In which case, get those autographed too. And hide them.

7. Choose cookbooks that you will actually use. When I say 'use' I don't necessarily mean 'cook from' but read, reference, and study. Books that are dense, exhaustive, and detailed are not only packed full of recipes, but you'll find yourself going back to them again and again and again for history, background and method. Pretty pictures are a plus, but not necessary unless you are trying to replicate a dish you have never seen, tasted, or experienced before.

8. Classic cookbooks are classic cookbooks for a reason - make sure your library has a good representation of cookbooks that have endured through the decades. I say decades because a lot has changed in cookbook writing (as well as conventional wisdom around food as well as food trends) and anything older than, say, Joy of Cooking (first published in 1931) sounds quaint and dated. But Julia Child and Simone Beck's Mastering the Art of French Cooking from 1970 is as vital today as it was nearly 40 years ago. And, happily, most of these cookbooks never go out of print.

9. Great regional cookbooks are an essential part of your library. So are topical cookbooks. By 'regional cuisines' I mean cuisines of the world and regional American cuisines. By 'topical' I mean those books that tackle a single subject, like charcuterie or baking or cheesemaking  (and say "NO" to single subject cookbooks that have titles like "1001 Ways to Use Cottage Cheese"  or "The Complete Cooking With Donuts Cookbook"- you can figure this out yourself).  One cookbook per topic/country/region is hardly enough to cover the bounty that is the traditional, living foodways of our extremely varied planet. For example, I obsessively acquire Japanese cookbooks (nearing 20 now, in Japanese and English) and am always learning new things from them. I pick up Chinese cookbooks wherever I find them. And I'm continuously adding to my pastry and baking collection, which now takes up two shelves in my bookcase.

10. Reference books, history, food science and food literature are as important as cookbooks. You'll find yourself going back to these books again and again, so make sure you don't ignore this part of your library. I've gone a little wild with the cheese section of my library, and the historical cookbooks - books that are fascinating artifacts of a long-passed era - are always fascinating to read. Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is the gold standard for culinary food science geekery, and no library is complete without a copy of the revised edition. Culinary memoirs must be chosen with care - not all of them are worth your time or a prominent place on your bookshelf.

And one final tip:

If you can't find the cookbook of your dreams locally or in your travels (used book fairs, church fairs, antique shops, consignment shops, thrift shops,boot sales, garage sales, estate sales and flea markets are all potential goldmines), these sites may be able to help: Amazon.com (the used books are my favorite part of the site), C.H.I.P.S (Professional books, including many rarities and professional cookbooks written in French, Spanish, German and Italian), Jessica's Biscuit (discounted cookbooks and many hard-to-find food-related books), Old Cookbooks.com (vintage and out-of-print cookbooks), My own google search (more old cookbooks), Biblio.com's cookbook section (new and vintage cookbooks), Books for Cooks (Great UK Bookshop) and, of course, Ebay.com (if you want to avoid driving yourself crazy, create searches).

Do you have anything to add to the list? And which cookbooks do you think no collection should be without?

Desert Island Cookbooks: The Joy of Cooking and a gluten-free Buche de Noel

My apartment is a disaster. After I was unexpectedly laid off from my job last spring, I packed up every last painting, print and photograph, cookbook, cake pan and pastry bag and moved out of my beloved condo into (what I assumed to be) temporary digs in my friend's three-flat (that's Chicagospeak for triple decker apartment or three-story apartment). Temporary has turned into 3 months, and most of my belongings - including my cookbooks - are all still in boxes and stacked in not-so-neat piles in my uninsulated (but enclosed) porch.

The walls bare, the rooms empty of furnishing save for cardboard boxes and plastic totes, the apartment looks more abandoned than occupied by someone once obsessed with arrangement of paintings and furniture and bookcases. And still I make no attempt to make it more lived-in; at any moment I could lose my job and start the whole packing process anew, something I dread. 

So I live from day-to-day, hoping that whatever I do or need is already unpacked and not in a box, buried under other boxes. Half of my blankets are in boxes, cradling fragile art works. My DVDs are neglected and unwatched, lying disorganzied in several totes. And what I have left of cookbooks takes up only 1/4 length of shelf space. If I had internet, this wouldn't be a problem. But my home is internet-free, one of the many austerity measures I took after the April layoff, and the Googling of a fill-in recipe is impossible.

This weekend I decided that I wanted to bake a Buche de Noel, which is one of my favorite high calorie holiday treats. Delicate, nearly flourless cake rolled with espresso buttercream and covered in chocolate buttercream and served soft, at room temperature? Yes please. Only problem? All my pastry books were in book purgatory, in boxes, in the deep freeze. And there was no way I was going to spend anytime in near zero degree temperatures looking through books that may not even have the recipe.

Momentarily stumped, I then remembered the only review copy of a cookbook I had received this fall from a publisher: The Joy Of Cooking, 75th Anniversary edition, first published in 2006.

I was late to The Joy Of Cooking. I didn't even own a copy of it until 1998, when I picked up a copy at a used book fair in Atlanta. I referenced it from time to time, usually when adapting simple homestyle recipes to the Four Seasons bake shop, where I worked at the time. I remember finding a homey donut recipe, filling the donuts with a fresh peach jam, and calling them 'beignets' - it sounded so much cooler on the menu than 'donuts'. 

The Joy Of Cooking didn't change my life or become my constant companion. Actually, the way recipes are written is a bit frustrating to me. I like my recipes short and sweet - I understand process and procedure (thank you, culinary school) and really just want to look at lists of ingredients so I can understand ratios. TJOC is long, wordy, and at times, confusing. There is a lot of cross-referencing of recipes, and more complex preparations require the cook to flip back and forth from recipe to recipe. But the cookbook is reliable and the recipes, though basic, are well-written, well-tested, and, in general, good. Very good, really.

So I grabbed my copy of The Joy of Cooking and searched the index. And there it was, under "Christmas Baking": The Yule Log. I was, afterall, going to be able to accomplish my baking mission.

To put together a Yule Log, a number of recipes must be made, and the final cake cobbled together with each of the elements. There's the biscuit or genoise, the light, eggy, low-added fat cake made with just a cup of flour (or half a cup, in the cocoa version) and, interestingly, in this version, clarified butter; the simple syrup for moistening the cake; the buttercream; and the meringues, for the meringue mushrooms. It is actually a fairly simple process, made slightly more confusing by the flipping back and forth from one recipe to the next. 

I decided to go gluten free, which was an easy adaptation. I left out gums and other binders, as this recipe is meant to be delicate and airy. Since the recipe is low in flour, it was easy to swap out the regular flour for gluten-free flour and still have a successful product. Here's the recipe I ended up using for the cake:

Gluten-Free Genoise

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Line a half sheet pan (a large one) with parchment. Or you can torture yourself by buttering/flouring a sheetpan. 

1/3 C Clarified Butter

if you don't know how to clarify butter, simply melt it. 

        1 stick butter will clarify to just over 1/3 cup

1/4 C Brown Rice Flour

3 T Tapioca Flour

2 T Buckwheat Flour

1/2 C + 1 T Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

Sift all of the above ingredients together at least 3 times

6 Large Eggs

1 C Sugar

1/4 t salt

1 t vanilla extract

Combine eggs and sugar in bowl of mixer. Over a simmering pot of water, whisk eggs and sugar together until mixture feels very hot to the touch, somewhere around 115-120 degrees F (you don't need a thermometer for this, it should just feel hot, almost too hot. Don't overheat or the proteins will start to coagulate, and you don't want that).

Set bowl back in mixer and set on medium-high speed for about 5 minutes, or until mixture has cooled and volume has tripled.

Remove bowl from mixer. With a spatula, carefully fold in the sifted dry ingredients in three additions - do not overmix. 

Slowly fold in the butter, pouring butter in a steady stream (alternately, TJOC recommends that you put 1.5 C of the egg mixture into in a bowl and fold all butter into that, and then add the butter/egg mixture back to the main egg mixture, folding carefully but thoroughly. I leave that to you).

Acting quickly and decisively, and armed with a flexible rubber or plastic spatula, pour the contents of the mixer into the prepared sheet pan. Make sure cake is evenly distributed. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until cake starts pulling away from the sides.

Allow to cool.

At this point you can now freeze the cake, set it out on your counter to work with later, or, alternately, allow it to stale, which will make it very hard to work with.

You'll now want to whip up a few batches of buttercream. The easiest version is something Nick Malgieri recommends in his many baking books. The Joy Of Cooking also features two recipes - a "Swiss" buttercream (or Italian meringue) and a "classic" buttercream. In all three versions the eggs are heated - in the case of the "classic" buttercream, a cup of sugar is dissolved and heated to soft ball stage, and then, in a thin stream, added continuously to the whipping egg whites (or whole eggs). Since I generally do not enjoy making 'classic' buttercream, I've taken to making the "Swiss" or "Italian" versions, which entail a process nearly identical to whipping eggs for the genoise, above. 

Super Easy Buttercream That Wouldn't Even Intimidate My Mom

(you'll need to do this twice for the cake)

1 C Sugar

1/2 C Egg whites

1/4 t Salt

Place sugar, whites and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Place bowl in saucepan of barely simmering water and whisk until all sugar is dissolved and mixture feels hot to the touch (around 115 degrees F).

Return to the mixer, and on medium-high speed, mix for 5-10 minutes, or until cooled and volume has tripled or quadrupled. Remember, your bowl and whisk should be free of all and any fats to build the highest volume whites.

Once the whites have cooled to room temp, add, one little chunk at a time:

12 oz Butter (that's three sticks)

At first you'll see chunks in the white mixture, and it will deflate gradually. And then it will get lumpy. And mealy. And then, as if a wand were waved over it...it becomes a smooth, buttercreamy spread. At this point you can add flavor - up to a half-cup of espresso, chocolate mixed with butter (to prevent seizing), lemon zest and juice, pureed chestnut, etc. Oh, and add some vanilla, too. Or caramel syrup. Don't overwhip or you'll incorporate too much air, and then you'll get air bubbles while you are spreading it, which matters only sometimes.

For a traditional Buche de Noel, you'll want an espresso buttercream and a chocolate buttercream. I added a single espresso to a 1x batch of buttercream and for the chocolate I melted about 2.5 oz of chocolate with 1 T of butter and added the mixture to a 1x batch of buttercream.

Set these aside on the counter. 

Meanwhile, combine 1 C of sugar with 1/2 C to 2/3 C water (depending on how sweet you like it). Dissolve sugar completely over heat. And cool. You've got simple syrup, and you're going to use this to moisten the cake.

Take about 1/2 C of this mixture, add the liqueur or liquor or flavor of your choosing to it - not too much, but just enough to give it a certain, "ah, that's moist, sweet, and slightly boozy" flavor.

Now, get all your components together. Grab an offset spatula. 

Lay a piece of fresh parchment on your work surface (ie 'table'). Grab a handful of granulated sugar and sprinkle the parchment with it, not too heavy, because this is going to end up in your cake. 

Now take your cake, which I presume is still stuck to the parchment you baked it on, and flip it on to the new parchment covered in sugar. VERY CAREFULLY peel off the parchment- use an offset spatula to help if it seems sticky. Paint the entire surface with your delicious simple syrup/booze/flavor combo (I'm partial to a coffee/chocolate/rum liqueur I made a few years ago). This will make it deliciously moist.

Grab your bowl of espresso/coffee/mocha buttercream and spread it evenly all over the cake. Starting from the SHORT END, roll up the cake - try to roll it as tightly as possible. when completely rolled up, position it so that it is sitting on its 'seam', put it back on the sheet tray (just my advice) and put it in your fridge to set. Reserve a little of the buttercream for decorating the buche.

Once it has set, cut off a small piece from the end. This is the cut bough that always seems to be a required part of the buche (otherwise it is just a jelly roll). Set it aside.

With your chocolate buttercream, ice the log. Once it is iced, take your cut piece, position it toward one of the ends, and ice that too. Using your espresso/mocha buttercream, ice the 'cut' ends of the log. With your chocolate buttercream in a small parchment pastry bag (which you'll make yourself) you can draw concentric circles on the lighter buttercream. You know, so it will look like a log.

Now the fun part: mushroom meringues. These are optional, but the crunchy meringues are a nice contrast with the soft cake. 

Mushroom Meringues

1 C Sugar

1/2 Egg Whites

1/8 t Cream of tartar

1/8 t Salt

Cocoa for dusting

Preheat oven to 225 degrees F. 

Repeat the same process as for buttercream - warm process meringue. Whip until light and fluffy and stiff.

Using a piping bag fitted with a large round tip (at least 1/4" diameter, preferably slightly larger) pipe round button shapes onto a parchment lined sheet pan. On another sheet pan (or on the same one) pipe "kiss" shapes for the stems. Dust buttons with cocoa powder.

Bake for at least 2 hours. Allow to cool.

Combine 4 oz dark chocolate with 1 teaspoon butter. Melt. Dip kiss end of meringue into chocolate, top with button meringue. Allow to harden (it'll harden in the freezer fast!). Once hardened, place in air-tight container until ready to use.

I decided that my buche was too ugly to merit adorable mushroom garnish, so I used some of the smaller meringues I had made to simulate an oyster mushroom growth on a dead log (see below). 

I made two logs for Ivan's 40th birthday - he was expecting over 40 guests and I wanted to make sure there were leftovers for the next day. I improvised a container that would hold the logs in place for the 4 hour drive from Chicago to Bloomington, Indiana, where the party was taking place (glue gun + cake circles + buttercream = workable, slide-proof box):

The cakes were a big hit - nothing like a four hour drive to soften up the buttercream (there's nothing worse than cold buttercream...errrrr). 

The next day, only a small remnant of one of the buches remained:

And no one guessed it was gluten-free.

Cookbook Porn: I just got Heston Blumenthal's Big Fat Duck Cookbook

And I want to marry it. I certainly will NEVER cook a thing out of it. There's no point for me - I don't cook in an R&D lab, or in a kitchen that approximates one. But as a full-time food industry person and a full-time glutton, I'm 100% obsessed with the area where cuisine and science intersect.

And in this cookbook, Blumenthal delivers. There's a huge section at the back with interesting, brief academic articles about food science. I glanced through it with Betsy, my company's resident food scientist, and we both oohed and ahhed.

The photos are dirty tastic. Food porn at their porniest. And plenty of equipment shots for those who geek out on the latest centrifuges.

It will set you back around $150 on Amazon, $100 off the outrageous list price.

Cookbook Monday: Olives & Oranges by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox

A caveat: I first met Mindy Fox, the co-author of this book, when I was an intern at Salamander, a now-defunct restaurant in Cambridge, MA, where she was a well-established line cook. We've been friends ever since. I am not reviewing this cookbook simply because she's a friend - I'm reviewing this cookbook because it is a genuinely useful, well-written, and advice-laden personal compendium of authentic and inspired recipes from all over the Mediterranean that will be appreciated by both the novice cook and the more experienced one. And now the review....

I'm a cynic when it comes to new cookbooks. There's little under the sun that hasn't been written before, and many of the new offerings are simply vanity titles from big-name chefs that present little in the way of genuine kitchen knowledge and understanding. Mostly the new breed of cookbooks is useful for the food photography. The sumptuous pictures of perfectly styled entrees and side-dishes are too frequently coupled with ego-handed prose that is more self-promotion than enlightenment for the home cook. Sometimes the recipes are overly complicated or difficult to accomplish with limited time and budgets. Sometimes the kitchen lore is full of inaccuracy, myth, and/or food science voodoo. Sometimes the cookbook is spare of details and little more than indexed recipes with a smattering of food porn. And, occasionally, just occasionally, it is right on target.

Olives and Oranges: Recipes & Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus & Beyond (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, September 2008) is one of the few cookbooks I've seen this year that hits the target. Sara and Mindy's primary assumption about their readers is that they are intelligent, thoughtful, and are interested in creating both authentic Mediterranean cuisine and cuisine inspired by the Mediterranean, and learning how to harness flavor in the food they design at home with whatever they have on hand. Rather than dictate a cooking orthodoxy, Sara and Mindy seek to inspire the home cook with their deceptively simple recipes. The tone of the book is friendly and inviting - Sara and Mindy want you to be comfortable with the food they are presenting and comfortable improvising on that food.

Sara shares a lot of personal anecdotes about her childhood and teen years spent abroad as the daughter of an American foreign correspondent and a famous food writer (Nancy Harmon Jenkins) in a way that is surprisingly modest and familiar. Sara's descriptions of time spent in Italy, Cyprus, Spain and Lebanon are folksy and warm rather than pretentious or gloating. What could have been a elitist and off-putting exploration of a childhood lived in privilege is instead a warm hug, a suggestion of possibility, and many interesting and diverse recipes, from slow-cooked soups to liqueurs to pasta to hearty meat dishes and everything in-between. The recipes assume carnivorality, though many (with the exception of center-of-the-plate protein dishes and ragus) can be adapted to be vegetarian friendly. The small plates chapter, in particular, provides interesting recipes that will please most vegetarians.

In general, each recipe provides helpful hints about where to buy ingredients, substitutions that the cook can make, handling instructions, a few food science tips, and the approximate length of time the recipe will take - quick cook or slow cook. Each section has a informative, instructive introduction of about two pages, where Sara and Mindy offer advice. I learned an interesting method for dressing a salad to retain crispness of the greens by reading the chapter on, what else, salads:

"When I am ready to eat, I dress the greens with a vinaigrette that I've made some sharp mustard or with a 3:1 ratio of extra-virgin olive oil to acid (fresh lemon juice or vinegar). The oil and acid are added in a precise sequence: first the oil to coat the leaves, then salt, then the acid, which is buffered by the oil and won't wilt the leaves as it would if added first. Finally a twist of the pepper grinder - and that's it."

Scattered throughout the book are page-long guides to specific methods and kitchen basics, easily my favorite part of the book. There's a section on making chicken broth, which every cook should have on hand; a page on risotto, written with the intention of demystifying the process of the oft-made but seldom perfected Italian classic; a half-page on the ins and outs of vinaigrette; shredded root salads warrant a third-of-a-page explanation; and a helpful exploration of meat ragus help the home cook understand how to improvise on the classic recipe. For me, the most important guide is the first full chapter, called "My Flavor Pantry," which explains why certain ingredients need to be on hand to prepare simple and delicious Mediterranean-inspired meals. It provides both watch outs ("make sure "San Marzano" tomatoes actually come from Italy, not elsewhere") and handling instructions ("Keep nuts away from heat and light. The best places is in sealed freezer bags in the freezer (the nuts don't need to be defrosted before toasting or cooking).").

The tips I mentioned are just a handful from the dozens and dozens scattered throughout the book. In the press release, the publishing company wrote out "10 Flavor Tips from Olives & Oranges", a list of 10 extremely helpful tips that will help the home cook improve, what else, flavor in any given dish. I could share them with you but then I'd take the surprise out of this interesting, beautifully photographed cookbook. You'll just have to buy it and see it for yourself.

Olives & Oranges won't replace your country-specific Mediterranean cookbooks but it serves as a helpful companion to them, giving color and explanation that will satisfy the curious cook. More importantly, it provides multiple jumping off points for kitchen improvisation, a skill that has been widely lost in this era of processed food and restaurant dependence.

Cookbook Monday: GRILL IT! Schlesinger and Willoughby offer yet another cookbook for the menfolk

...though the grillin' ladies will also find GRILL IT! an indispensable guide to setting up your very own backyard 'cue, once you get past just about the most butch design I've seen in a cookbook in years, maybe ever.

Allow me to present the covers from the first UK and first US editions of GRILL IT! You'll notice the US version is significantly more macho - there's nothing frou-frou about the single steak flaming away on a live coal grill. But the UK? The photograph speaks for itself.

From the UK (take note of placement of title, the thickness of the steak, the vegetables in the UK edition, the circumference of the grill):

And the US cover:

Go US! Macho beef culture! Man eat big steak! Big fire sizzle! 

Ahem. So now that I have that out of my system, I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this cookbook. GRILL IT! is a great introduction to the art of grilling on live fire. Gas grills barely merit a mention, save for a quick dismissal of the popular, convenient, albeit unremarkable outdoor appliance. The first 32 pages (or so) focus on the basics of grilling - direct heat vs indirect heat (both have their uses), wood charcoal vs charcoal briquettes (don't use 'em), and, how to build fires for quick or slow cooking (depends on what you want to cook). And because it is published by DK, a publishing company know for its richly photographed How To books, there are extremely helpful photos that show exact placement and quantity of charcoal (and optional wood) for each type of fire. It is a remarkably clear, helpful, and instructive chapter. It helped me realize that I've been doing it all wrong for years and inspired me to run out and buy a hickory log, just to have it ready for my next, wholly imaginary, barbeque.

The rest of the book is devoted to two things: precise instructions on cooking meat (which kind of fire to build, how long to grill it, the marinade) and recipes for quick, easy sides. The recipes are organized by country and region (think US, Argentina, Southeast Asia, etc), making it a helpful introduction to the global flavors of the grill. The recipes are simple and do not require special ingredients.

I'm ready to get my grill on, even if I'm not the target market for this great entry-level cookbook.

Cookbook Monday: The New York Times Cookbook

The very first cookbook I ever owned was a dog-eared copy of the New York Times Cookbook, one of the best 'basic' cookbooks for people who are new to cooking or have more enthusiasm than skill. My mother had worn out the binding of her copy as she made her way through the chapters over the years of my childhood. She gave me a copy - my own pre-Molly O'Neill-edited version, circa 1961 - when I went to college.

Originally published in 1961, The New York Times Cookbook  was compiled by Craig Claiborne, who, along with Julia Child, James Beard, and Richard Olney, was the vanguard of American food in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s. The 1961 edition features recipes that represent childhood to anyone raised in the 70s and 80s - there are 'international' dishes like Tempura and Sukiyaki and Gazpacho, cocktail fare like Rumaki, pate, and step by step instructions for baking break, making croissant, and mixing cocktails. It is as much lifestyle tome as it is a how-to for curious cooks.

I don't know how much there is to say about The New York Times Cookbook, but, like Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child and Simone Beck, it has had a profound influence on my generation - either because our parents used the book or it was one of the first books we owned. It is a classic cookbook that everyone should own, much like the Joy of Cooking or any of James Beard's cookbooks.

The 1990 updated New York Times Cookbook includes more contemporary recipes, though fans of nostalgia will miss some of the 'old fashioned' dishes our moms prepared for holidays during childhood. I won't be updating my 1961 edition anytime soon.

Cookbook Monday: Cooking With Shelburne Farms

Have I ever mentioned to you that I spent two years of my life in Vermont, while I was a student at New England Culinary Institute? Actually, that's a bit of a lie. I only spent a year, cumulatively, in Vermont, but winters have a way of slowing down time, and I can still remember my frozen breath, my crystalline eyelashes, the endless cold that pierced my warm, scarf-covered intentions.

I spent the summer of one year at the Essex Junction campus, close to Burlington but just far enough away from Shelburne Farms to make it inaccessible, but for special occasions, like the visit of my parents. Other students spent internships at Shelburne Farms, using cheese from the dairy, vegetables and herbs from the gardens, and meats from other local farms. A meal at Shelburne Farms, a former Vanderbilt Estate and current land trust and working farm, was elegant and expensive. It wasn't particularly exciting cuisine, but it was made from great ingredients, minimally prepared.

The drive through the gates of Shelburne Farms took my breath away. Cliched though it sounds, there's nothing like driving through a gate - a beautiful one, but a gate nonetheless - and see a working farm opening up in front of you, with buildings recalling teutonic castles, and a landscape reminiscinet of the Rhine, with spectacular Lake Champlain in place of the river.

The cookbook, appropriately, is folksy and approachable. There are only about 24 color plates with fairly old school photography and art direction (read: props in the background, full focus, very little 'porn'). The font is large and easy to read. The recipes are fairly simple, seasonal, and classic. There are folksy profiles of individuals who work at Shelburne Farms and others who provide game, wild foods, etc, true to the full title of the book: "Cooking with Shelburne Farms: food and stories from Vermont".

The chapters are a departure from traditional cookbooks. Sections are broken out by vegetables, fruits, meats and fish, milk and maple syrup - foods local to Vermont. Chapter from from Savory Milk and Cheese and Savory Maple to Sweet Milk and Sweet Maple, with just about everything else in between. There's a chapter on spring and summer greens, root-cellar vegetables, wild mushrooms, lamb, game and fish, pork, and apples.

I can't really fault this cookbooks its simplicity or retro look (the font, the bound cover with a pasted on front and back instead of a jacket) as it reminds me very much of the menus we put together at NECI. The recipes are comforting and crowd-pleasing. Who wouldn't be delighted to chow down on pub fare like Shepherd's Pie with Caramelized Onions and Cheddar Smash (p 99), Scalloped Potatoes with Mushrooms and Canadian Bacon (p 118), Orange-Yogurt Coffee Cake (p 236), washed down with Rhubarb-Citrus Tonic (p 74).

Cookbook Monday: Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savory Tarts

Tarts intimidate most bakers I know. Perhaps it is the requirement that some tart shells be blind baked before filling, perhaps it is the delicate nature of the tart dough. Perhaps it just seems too complicated, too advanced, too time consuming.

Eric Kayser, a 4th generation baker (a fact revealed in the book description, the introduction, and just about any where M. Kayser's name is mentioned), has put together a marvelously simple, easy-to-follow cookbook that reveals the secrets - and simplicity - of making great tarts.

Usually when I see a cookbook like this, where the author's name is larger than the name of the book, I'd have something sassy and mocking to say - I don't really care for cooking celebrities. But Eric Kayser is not yet a household name here in the states, despite the presence of three of his baking ventures in the Los Angeles area. And this cookbook, published by Flammarion, is more an exercise in enthusiastic tart how-to than it is an exercise in culinary posturing, which is often the case with celebrity cookbooks.

There's no goofy introduction here, no mention of 'authentic French baking' (thank you, chef). Kayser is first and foremost a baking evangelist, spreading the gospel of good bakery items through his bakeries in France, Japan, the US, Greece, Lebanon, Russia and the Ukraine. Kayser doesn't affect an attitude in his introduction, rather he soothes and reassures the reader that his rustic tarts and their enjoyment are simple and enjoyable, both to make and eat.

The first chapter is the most essential, and many baking enthusiasts will be delighted by the easy step-by-step instructions for making and using various tart doughs. Organizationally, this chapter could not be easier to use. Under each recipe is a photo and the name of a tart recipe, along with the page on which the recipe appears.

Recipes range from the mundane to the fanciful. There's a Normandy Apple Tart, a blueberry tart, a chocolate hazelnut tart. But then there's a salted caramel tart, a pink caramelized almond tart and various savory tarts including an onion and sausage tart with beaujolais wine. If anything, this cookbook demonstrates that an enthusiastic and ambitious home baker can put anything into a tart, and the results will be almost always delicious.

Cookbook Monday: My Sicilian Cooking by Nino Graziano

If you've seen my cookbook posts, you know that I don't necessarily review cookbooks and the cookbooks that I don't necessarily review aren't always new. Last week I talked about two Japanese cookbooks published 25 years apart. This week I'm going to talk about a newish cookbook that I've never actually cooked from but love to read: Nino Graziano's My Sicilian Cooking. Graziano is the Chef-Proprietor of Il Mulinazzo, a Michelin two-star outside of Palermo, Sicily. One of several new restaurants in Sicily to revel in its traditions, its local ingredients, and its local talent, Il Mulinazzo served "New" Sicilian cuisine that was barely related (even through marriage) to the stuff served in U.S. restaurants passed off as food of the old country. Marian Burros wrote a good piece in the New York Times in 2005 on new Sicilian cuisine and writes about her New Year Eve 2005 dinner at the restaurant.

In 2005, the year the cookbook was published, Graziano apparently closed up shop to open up a new restaurant, Semifreddo Mulinazzo in Moscow. Semifreddo, get it? A three-hour flight from Italy, this new restaurant features just-flown-in ingredients served at the peak of freshness in the new traditional Sicilian style. A meal there will set you back a pretty penny unless you happen to be there for lunch - 36 Euros will buy you a three course meal.

But what of the cookbook? Probably the best part of the cookbook, like most contemporary cookbooks, is the photography, food porn images that will leave you breathless and sweaty. The introduction, written by Fabrizio Carrera, has the adoring tone reminiscent of record liner notes of the 1960s and reads like a disingenuous press release touting the brilliance of the chef as he traces the Mr. Graziano's steps from novice to proprietor. The words are juxtaposed with photos of the Chef waiting in the barber's chair for a haircut, sitting on the street pensively, a la Rodin's The Thinker, with an elderly couple and then inspecting produce at the local market.Turn the page and he's supervising a young cook in the kitchen. Look in the back and there's a portrait of his kitchen staff, including two young Japanese cooks (the Japanese seem to be spreading out all over the world in its greatest kitchens, no doubt returning with golden resumes and the clout to open up their own simulacra in some posh district of Tokyo or Osaka. The mention of 'tempura' and 'sashimi' in some recipes seem to indicate that the Japanese have likewise influenced the chef).

Recipes are simple and elegant and focus on fish. Many recipes have multiple components and need to be plated to be appreciated. No doubt you can replicate these recipes in your kitchen, but is it worth it? Because the food is so much a reflection of availability and product quality of Sicilian ingredients, even the best efforts outside of Sicily will yield something that is just a weak approximation. Better to look at the pictures and fantasize about a reservation at his restaurant next time you are in Moscow.

Cookbook Monday: Classic Armenian Recipes, Cooking without Meat

In college I was actually a passionate, curious cook. My culinary training was limited to one-and-a-half years of home economics in middle school and although I was comfortable in the kitchen, I was an uncertain improvisational cook. Embracing my lack of knowledge, I began buying cookbooks from the used bookstore under my house and reading them at night in an effort to understand the food that I enjoyed eating.

Close to where I lived was a neighborhood filled with Armenian shops and restaurants. On a shopping trip out there, I picked up Alice Antreassian and Marian Jebejian's Classic Armenian Recipes: Cooking Without Meat, published in 1981. It is, hands down, one of the greatest Armenian cookbooks ever written, vegetarian or not. Recipes are simple and easy to follow. Results are flawless, and exactly what you might find if you went to the corner "Middle Eastern" store.

There are no photos in this cookbook, just simple, decorative line drawings. There are no charts or step-by-step explanations about the Armenian kitchen. Instead there is an introduction by the authors urging readers to adjust recipes to their individual tastes, to move pages around at will (the first edition was a loose-leaf binder) all the while understanding that Armenian cuisine is a living cuisine and is still evolving.

Here's a recipe from the cookbook that I used to make a lot:

Wheat Pilaf with Lentils -Mudjadera

1 cup brown lentils, picked over and rinsed

3 cups water

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon middle eastern red pepper

1 cup cracked wheat, large

2 tablespoons chopped red or green pepper

2/3 cups olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

Directions:

1. Add lentils to water, bring to the boil, and cook gently 5 minutes, covered. Add seasonings, wheat, and red or green pepper. Bring to a simmer again, and cook about 15 minutes longer or until liquid is absorbed and wheat is bite-tender.

2. Heat olive oil in a skillet until a haze appears over it. Remove skillet, quickly stir in onion, reduce heat, and cook onion until lightly browned, stirring frequently.

3. When pilaf is done, pour skillet contents over it and stir to mix. Taste to adjust seasoning. Spoon into serving dish, garnish with scallions then add several grindings of pepper.

Yield: 5 to 6 servings.

Unfortunately, the cookbook is now out of print. There are, of course, a number of Armenian cookbooks that are still in print. Take one home if you can.

Appreciation: Quentin Bacon

Quentin Bacon deserves props. Although he seldom receives top billing in any of the cookbooks he contributes to, his impact is undeniable - he's a food porn photographer extraordinaire and a hired hand in many works that you've likely touched, opened, looked at, and maybe even own (do you have Batali, Morimoto, Ina Garten in your collection? Maybe something from Williams-Sonoma?). But more likely than not you have no idea who he is or that he's one of the main lensmen responsible for making food look so good that it makes you feel, well, dirty.

Food photographers, even ones as in-demand as Mr. Bacon, rarely get the big font or author credit in a cookbook. Search Amazon for Quentin Bacon's name and you'll find 19 co-author citations. But that's just the tip of the iceberg - there are even more books where he receives but a simple nod in the intro - or a tiny font credit on the title page.  Just today, for example, I was looking at a vegetarian cookbook, and after guffawing over some of the over-the-top photography, had to search the book's (usually ignored) acknowledgments to find the photographer - Quentin Bacon.

Food porn may sometimes rub me the wrong way, but in the right hands - like the hands of Quentin Bacon - it adds the necessary and needed dimension of sensuality that text alone lacks.

Cookbook Monday: Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking

Elizabeth David's classic cookbook French Provincial Cooking (1960) has more in common with the quaint homemaker's cookbooks of the 19th century than the lush, sexy coffee-table cookbooks spewed forth by contemporary chefs. Practical and encyclopedic, French Provincial Cooking documents in loving detail the traditional foods of the country. The book includes an extensive bibliography of 18th, 19th, and 20th century French cookbooks and 100 pages at the beginning explaining the nuanced cuisines of the different regions of France, important ingredients, units of measure and their translation, cooking terms and processes, and kitchen implements. It is an essential cookbook for every serious cook's collection. My copy, from the 1983 edition, has several amusing introductions from Elizabeth David, including one in which she warns of the coming flattening of all cuisine due to the scourge of the Cuisinart/Robot Coupe. Twenty-four years later I can happily report that the food processor has not destroyed cooking.

Elizabeth David, a Brit who discovered French cuisine during two years of homestay with a French family while she was studying at La Sorbonne, was one of the pre-eminent food writers of the mid-20th century and set the stage for Julia Child, whose own cookbooks are legend. Before her death in 1992, David published 7 cookbooks, all remarkable for their attention to detail and adherence to authenticity.

I purchased this book when I was an intern at a French country restaurant in Boston, MA. It helped me understand what we were doing and the basic principles behind our menu. Though I haven't used it much since, it is a great reference when fresh vegetables are in season and inspiration is at a premium. Almost continuously in print since its publication, this cookbook is easy to find and isn't pricey. Sure you won't want to leave it out on your coffee table, but you'll actually be using this one, and isn't that what cookbooks are for?

Cookbook Monday: Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking

Is there anything really new about Morimoto's Japanese cooking, or does this book have a title that is grammatically pleasing but otherwise meaningless? I tend to think the latter, and certainly after reading this cookbook, I wish the author had renamed it, "Morimoto: The Evolution of Japanese Fusion Cooking", a title which would have been a more accurate representation of the recipes and ideas within.

As JJ Goode, the food writing prodigy and editor at Epicurious.com, indicates in his over-long introduction that includes quite a bit of P.R.-style fawning biography, Morimoto's cooking is new yet authentic because the very lexicon of Japanese cuisine is informed by the adoption of foods from other cultures. Here's my favorite excerpt, an argument crafted to shake the reader's confidence in the meaning of 'authenticity' and to allow the cynical to accept Morimoto's fanciful cooking as something legitimate - perhaps more legitimate than the stodgy old Japanese cuisine of authors like Elizabeth Andoh, who tend to be more orthodox in their execution:

The very notion of authenticity stands on shaky ground, too fluid to be useful as a way to characterize cuisine. Things change, cultures meld and shift, foods travel across oceans. Many of the ingredients so associated with a particular cuisine...were themselves at one time imports, centuries ago.....

Cuisine, according to Masaharu Morimoto, is specific to time and place. Tastes, cooking methods, and technology change over time - what was once impossible is now quotidian, what used to delight is now unappealing - and diners and ingredients differ depending on where they're from.

I do not entirely agree that 'authentic' isn't useful to use in the context of cuisine. Does a newly introduced ingredient render a dish inauthentic? If I make a tempura batter, but choose to tempura a hot dog, is it no longer tempura? No, it is still tempura, but now it is kiddie food that is distinctly untraditional. It may not be an authentic way to prepare tempura, but it is still, by definition, tempura.

Last night, during a discussion with a friend about Morimoto's cookbook and JJ Goode's introduction, my friend wondered out loud who at DK made the decision to focus on 'authenticity'. After all, it is hard to make an indefensible argument about authenticity in the context of a chef whose signature recipes are, by definition, unconventional and creative. The recipes may draw on tradition and are authentically "Morimoto" but that's it.

If we are going to specifically pick apart Japanese cuisine, the first question to ask is what makes something authentic. Is it style? Is it the ingredients? Is it the recipe? Is it the person who is cooking? I don't know, but I do know that most of the time, when people describe something as authentic, they are actually referring to style or method of preparation, coupled with specific base ingredients, rather than who is cooking it or the specific 'neutral' ingredient (meaning an ingredient that doesn't alter the fundamental flavor of a dish) used.

As an example, let's say I had a restaurant that served fanciful Japanese bar food. I decide I'm going to serve dengaku, which is usually eggplant or tofu covered in a miso-based sauce and broiled. But instead of using tofu or eggplant, I use a crab cake. Is it authentic? No, not really. Now I'm just using the miso as sauce, not so much as a way of making the base ingredient (tofu, eggplant) more expressive. I'm tasting the crabmeat less and the miso more. But the reason I eat crab cakes is because I love the flavor of crab. One flavor doesn't complement the other. It is like pairing a big Zin with John Dory in beurre blanc. Just a bad, bad idea.

I'm not saying Morimoto's cuisine is a bad idea or isn't a real cuisine - I'm just saying that it isn't accurate to describe what he does as "New Japanese Cuisine". What it is is Masaharu Morimoto's fusion cuisine - a cuisine with profound and inextricable basis in Japanese culture and cooking.

But what of the recipes?

The first 15 pages show Morimoto gloriously cutting fish and show, step-by-step, how to put together a show-stopping sashimi platter. The pictures, by the deliciously named Quentin Bacon, are food porn perfect, with the sharp focus/soft focus dichotomy characterizing even the most instructional of photos.

The recipes that immediately follow are undoubtedly fusion - Buri Bap (a yellow tail sashimi served in a piping hot stone bowl in the style of Korean bi bim bap), Stuffed Lotus Leaves (in the style of Chinese dim sum favorite sticky rice), Sushi Rice Risotto (which isn't such a stretch except that the chef incorporates sushi vinegar and cooks it with eggs in the style of chawanmushi, steamed egg custard), Za Jan noodles (reminiscent of a Chinese dish), Squid Ink-Salmon Gnocchi, and Crab Naan and Bagna Cauda Morimoto Style (India meets Italy meets Japan).

The fusion is a thread linking all the recipes in the book together - and though I am unenthusiastic about fusion, I have to say that many of the recipes are both simple and delicious-looking, even if more Morimoto than Japanese. For example there's lobster Masala - seasoned with Morimoto Special Spice, made from chili, paprika, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, ginger, garam masala, and cayenne.

Unfortunately, the cookbook also contains grandstanding recipes like Blowfish Carpaccio - a dish that no home cook can prepare unless, by chance, they are licensed to prepare fugu, the potentially deadly (but mild) fish of legend. Remember that Simpsons episode? There is are also recipes incorporating Ayu and Kinki - two Japanese fishes that most American cooks will be challenged to find at any fishmonger, local or distant. There are a few Iron Chef recipes - great for those who get off on copying what they see on TV but rather unappealing to the rest of us - Squid Strawberry ice candy, anyone?

Dessert recipes are more novel than classic. Pichet Ong's recipes (see this Cookbook Monday review) are far more appealing than those featured here. As a devotee of Japanese-language dessert cookbooks that include many fusion-type recipes, I found Morimoto's recipes remarkably unappealing, although fanciful and creative. Sugared Salmon with Beet Sorbet and Yuzu foam may be a huge hit with the Iron Chef crowd, but I'll take a pass. I'm particulary mystified by the asparagus pocky recipe  - not because it sounds unappetizing (it does) but because its use of asparagus runs counter to both the ideas of seasonality, simplicity, and the tenets of Japanese cuisine. If I eat asparagus, I want to taste asparagus, not some cooked-in-simple-syrup-for-hours-until-it-becomes-a-mystery-cellulose vehicle for chocolate.

In general, the most challenging part of Morimoto's cookbook may be tracking down the ingredients, some of which will be impossible to find unless you happen to live on one of the coasts or live near a major Japanese supermarket.

More a keepsake for Iron Chef Morimoto's legion of fans than a cooking classic, Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking is a gorgeous looking book that will look great on any coffee table. And maybe that's where it should stay.

Cookbook Monday: Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot

Lately I've been avoiding cookbooks by star chefs. Usually the pictures are better than the recipes and in five years the cookbook is little more than a reminder of a food fad that you wished you had slept through.

Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot caught my eye and made me break my promise to myself for several reasons. I had read Frank Bruni's review of P*ong in The New York Times and I'm obsessed with pastry, having been a pastry chef once upon a time. I also am fascinated by chefs who make fusion their signature as it is usually a feeble attempt to create something new that usually leaves no lasting positive imprint on my palate memory.

I had some hope for Pichet Ong's cookbook. He's of Chinese descent and grew up in Singapore with more than a hobbyist's knowledge of the food of Asia. He's also pretty darn bright and creative - he went to Brandeis and Berkeley before deciding to head into the kitchen. So he brings background, smarts, and skills to his cooking. That sounded good to me. So I bought it.

These days I have been paying special attention to forewords in cookbooks. The Sweet Spot's forward is unintentionally hilarious as well as hyperbolic. Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Ong's former employer, calls The Sweet Spot, "a tremendous contribution to the world of cooking literature" and calls some of Ong's techniques "groundbreaking in the world of pastry and fine cuisine." Note to Jean-Georges: the technique of creaming butter with spices for cookie dough (or any dough) is not new at all. I've been in kitchens where that was just part of what we did, and no one patted us on the back for it.

As far as 'cooking literature' is concerned, I wonder what Vongerichten is thinking? That I should put this up next to my Larousse Gastronomique, my Julia Child, my Elizabeth David, my Ken Hom, my James Beard? Or does he mean that I should just slide this book next to my Claudia Fleming, Emily Lucchetti and Jacques Torres? Second note to Jean-Georges: there is no way The Sweet Spot is getting near Julia. If Mr. Ong is lucky, I'll take the cookbook home and stick it in my closet rather than leave it at work as a reference. Seems most of my cookbook shelves are full and I'm not quite sure who I would remove to add this one in.

Before I dive into the recipes, I do have one major complaint: the word "Asian" is used as a substitute for "pan-Asian" - an obviously gauche but more accurate term for the type of cooking Mr. Ong espouses - and occasionally he substitutes "Asian" for more specific term like "Chinese".

In describing loaf and sheet cakes (page 29) he states that

"Rows of sweet loaf and sheet cakes line the shelves of Asian bakeries... Also, Asian bakers tend to add traditional Asian dessert flavors - such as coconut, red bean, and green tea."

There is no such thing as Asian food or a unified Asian dessert flavor. Certainly you can generalize about Buddhist influence in East Asian countries, but to group so many countries into a single statement is lazy. In China and Japan, I have certainly seen loaf cakes. In Japan they aren't into sheet cakes the way they are in China. Here's a photo I took in Beijing a few years ago of a bakery going to town on some cakes.

You almost never see this in Japan, where the obsession is with French-style pastry. As far as the "Asian dessert flavors" - yes, the Japanese use green tea, but coconut is used in Japanese desserts much in the same way we use it here as it is not grown in Japan (except for Okinawa, which is to Japan what Hawaii is to the US). And I have never had a red bean or green tea-based dessert from an Indian bakery - and India is most certainly part of Asia. yes, I realize I am splitting hairs, but I truly despise when writers get lazy - presumably for the sake of marketing to the lowest common denominator cookbook audience and selling more copies - and make generalizations about the cuisine of an entire continent that has as many diverse food cultures as does Asia. To my mind, the dichotomy of Asia vs the West, which is a constant theme in this cookbook, looks back to the past when we routinely exoticized non-Western culture. There's a kind of politics of identity going on in the writing, but the claim Ong is trying to stake with the "Asian" moniker is trivial at best. Frankly I think Ong and his marketing buddies at HarperCollins should focus more on promoting him as a great pastry chef rather than as a great Asian pastry chef - but hey, that's their angle, right?

Let's talk about the recipes, shall we?

For all my grousing about the writing, the recipes are fun. And the photography is shockingly unpornographic and 'understated' (as Ong writes in the acknowledgments). The recipe layout isn't very easy to read, but at least there are measures in both imperial and metric. For someone like me who has never met a dessert she didn't like, this cookbook is an adventure. There are chapters on the sweet Asian pantry, Cakes, Cookies, Pies and Tarts, Puddings and custards, Candy, Fruits, Frozen Treats and drinks.

Randomly flipping open the book, I found a recipe for Shaved Ice with Summer Corn, Avocado, and Red Beans. This happens to be one of my favorite summer treats. I've heard it called ABC - an abbreviation for the Malay word for shaved ice - in Malaysian restaurants. To me it is the perfect foil to the heat and humidity of a southeast Asian (and northeastern US) summer afternoon. Ong also offers another shaved ice recipe - this time with something he calls Thai Jewels - water chestnuts colored in either red sala syrup or green pandan paste and coated in tapioca, jackfruit, papaya, coconut juice, and palm seeds. Pichet Ong, you had me at hello.

The recipes for ice creams and other frozen treats is equally intriguing. There's a recipe for Mangosteen sherbet, which, unless you are willing to shell out close to $45/lb and happen to live in New York where they actually sell the newly commercialized crop from Puerto Rico, will have to be made with the less fresh but perfectly legal and not so expensive canned product. There's also a Vietnamese coffee ice cream and a lemongrass frozen yogurt, along with a few other sherbets and ice creams. There's watermelon shaved ice served with salt and pepper, too.

I randomly flip open another page: Spiced Chocolate Pudding with Caramel Crisped Rice Cereal. This is a lovely recipe - a chocolate pudding spiced with cardamom, star anise and vanilla served with caramelized Rice Crispies. I swoon just thinking about the simple yet perfect marriage of East and West flavors.

I flip to another recipe - Sweet Potato Doughnuts with Roast Apple filling. Wonderful. There's even recipes for whimsical treats like Chocolate-Covered "Pocky" Sticks, almond fortune cookies, and Chocolate Kumquat Spring Rolls. Coconut "Twinkie" cupcakes with lemon filling combine two of my favorite flavors with one of my favorite forms.

For pastry chefs, this is a great resource. The recipes, which meld flavors of many Asian countries with traditional pastry of the west, are extremely inspiring to the innovation-challenged cook. I found myself imagining what other variants of traditional desserts I could create by using less common (in the US) ingredients.

My favorite recipes in the book are the ones that are less fusion and more authentic - steamed almond cake, steamed pandan layer cake, Castella, yuzu jelly rolls, green tea cake - all are things I've tasted before in 'ethnic' marketplaces or restaurants. That's not to say the other recipes aren't good. On the contrary, I think almost everything in this cookbook reads - what can I say? - deliciously. I can't wait to dig in.

If you don't mind the silly generalizations and can avoid reading most of the helpful blurbs and the introduction, you'll love this cookbook too.

Tartine's masterpiece turns one year old

   It may be too early to say what I'm about to say (because I haven't baked anything from it yet), but I think Tartine, by Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson, based on recipes used in their amazing San Francisco bakery, is easily the best baking book I've read in years. This cookbook cries out to be used and abused, not put up on the shelf or stored under glass - it looks like a textbook, feels like a textbook, and has a minimum of uberporny food photography. Although Alice Waters' introduction is as self-serving and full of nods to her own exquisite taste and experience as one would expect, it is unintentionally funny. Here's an example:

"At the time I was summering in the fog of Bolinas, a seaside village not far from Point Reyes Station, where I was reading a wonderful memoir, Life a la Henri, by the French Chef Henri Charpentier. I was so caught up in Charpentier's vivid descriptions....that I couldn't help drawing negative comparisons between the food of then and now. But I made an immediate exception for Liz and Chad's bakery."

Hey Liz and Chad - good news. Alice liked you from the start. But not only did Alice like you, but "The Japanese Designer Eiko" did as well (funny how Ms. Waters drops "Eiko" as if she were a household name).  When they visited Liz and Chad's bakery, stacked with just-made treats, Ms Waters further remarks, "[t]he whole magic tableau said everything that needs to be said about food and the joy of living." Did she mean the joy of living as expressed through food, or food, period, and the joy of living, period? To me they are linked, but one is not the total of the other.

My favorite line from the introductions a terrible cliche, but rather true in the context of Tartine, the bakery:

"...Tartine is about as authentic - and indispensable - as a bakery and cafe can get. No wonder people are still lining up."

I have been to Tartine. I have lined up in the morning with sleepy denizens of the Mission to pick up a bag of fresh croissants and gougeres and grab my cappuccino, extra dry. And everything I have ever had there has been excellent. On a visit to a vendor in the Bay Area who is helping our company to develop some new products, they served us a breakfast spread of quiches, tarts, croissants, gougeres and other treats exclusively from Tartine. They thought the world of Tartine. So do I. But in no way does my bias toward their bakery taint my perspective on the cookbook. This is a great cookbook, and if you buy any baking book this year, Tartine should be it.

As a cookbook, Tartine is easy to use. Measurements are in grams, imperial, and American volume - so they are easy to execute at home or scale up in a professional kitchen. Recipes are laid out in a linear form, top to bottom, so they are very easy to read. For novice bakers, the recipes may be a little less clear; although written well, they are not numbered and in many cases, small steps may take an entire paragraph of instructions.

But I assure you, if you can replicate Tartine's recipes at home, you will be very happy you took the time to read the entire recipe.

There's nothing folksy about this cookbook. It is a serious baking book with detailed recipes for croissants, brioche, scones, cakes, quiches, tarts, cookies, custards, and bakery basics. Page after page is pure alchemy. Before each recipe is a brief explanation of the recipe and its provenance as well as a kitchen note that provides the home cook for a little advice about the execution of the recipe or the process.

There's nothing really 'innovative' or new about the recipes as they are all variations on the classics. But the range of recipes (really all the home cook needs to be considered an excellent and proficient pastry cook), along with the occasional photo, detailed instructions, easy-to-read ingredients, and helpful kitchen notes makes this a cookbook worth buying. I can't say it enough -- if you don't already, you need to own this cookbook.

Cookbook Monday: Elizabeth Andoh's Washoku vs Shizuo Tsuji's Japanese Cooking

When I first went to Japan in 1985 as an exchange student, I became obsessed with Japanese food. I returned loaded with basic English-language Japanese cookbooks, essentially colorful index cards with recipes and pictures. The books contained no explanation of the principles of Japanese cuisine. It was perfect for my less-than-inquisitive 16 year old mind. I just wanted recipes so I could duplicate my favorite foods at home in the US.

In college in the late '80s, I stumbled upon Shizuo Tsuji'sthen out-of-print Japanese Cooking, A Simple Art in a second hand store. Originally published by Kodansha in 1980, the book was one of the first English-language cookbooks to clearly lay out the principles of Japanese cuisine. The cookbook was truly authentic in an era defined by clunky experimentalism, haute cuisine, and fad diets.

The cookbook has 220 recipes and is organized by cooking technique, which relates back to the order in which they are served in a classical Japanese meal:

Suimono and Shirumono - Soups

Sashimi

Yakimono - Grilled & Fried Dishes

Mushimono - Steamed Dishes

Nimono - Simmered Dishes

Agemono - Deep-fried Dishes

Sunomono & Aemono - Salads

Nabemono - One pot dishes

Gohanmono - Rice dishes

...and Sushi, Menrui (noodles) and Okashi (sweets)

One of the quaint artifacts of this cookbook is a rambling and adoring introduction by MFK Fisher, whose own books of pre-blog era confessional food writing usually focused on her experience with the foods of the occidental world. A reflection of the time in which it was written, the introduction focuses on one hand on the exoticism of Japanese and 'oriental' cuisine and dining rituals (e.g. slurping noodles, introduced to the American masses in the 1985 movie Tampopo) and on the other, the intense Japanese focus on seasonality and freshness, two qualities that MFK Fisher urged Americans to adopt in their own eating. For the most part, she manages to avoid fetishizing Japanese food and culture and implores Americans to "simplify our cooking as the Japanese have done, by learning a few more of its complexities, while we still have time." I'm not quite sure how the Japanese have simplified their cooking and she doesn't really explain that in her introduction. My guess is that it is an urging for Americans to rely less on processed foods using the Japanese model of seasonality and simplicity as a model.

Alas, 28 years after she wrote her introduction, the state of the American kitchen is probably worse, not better. Fewer people of my generation seem to know how to cook and we have gotten fatter and sicker and more reliant on restaurants to prepare our meals. But I digress.

What makes this food porn-free book remarkable and still relevant 27 years after its initial publication is its extensive and detailed discussion of Japanese cuisine and the ingredients in a Japanese kitchen. Tsuji devotes nearly 100 pages explaining every element of the Japanese meal, from the 'basic formula' of the Japanese meal (ichijuu sansai - 'soup and three) to holding chopsticks (a novelty back then) to ingredients (written in both English, Japanese -Kanji or hiragana, depending on the ingredient- and the transliterated Japanese) and descriptions, and handling of each to kitchen tools, tabletop, and butchering techniques, all illustrated step-by-step.

There are some concessions to the American kitchen. Recipe yields are higher than in Japanese cookbooks written for a Japanese audience. Tsuji (or his editor) suggests substitute ingredients if the Japanese ingredient is unavailable. Cooks who are used to cookbooks arranged according to western courses may be a little befuddled by the adherence to Japanese dining principles in the presentation of recipes. I assure you, it is a minor inconvenience that will easily be forgotten as you dive into Tsuji's simple and satisfying recipes.

Elizabeth Andoh's Washoku, published by Ten Speed Press, is a modern masterpiece of Japanese cookbook writing that is as essential, perhaps more so, than Tsuji's Japanese Cooking. Published in 2005, Washoku focuses on Japanese home cooking and has sumptous food porn-style photography. The only Japanese characters in the book are those for Washoku -- literally "kitchen harmony" but used in Japanese to denote Japanese cooking - and Japanese cooking only.

The cookbook is full of tips for handling ingredients, setting your Japanese table and Japanese aesthetics. The cookbook has some -but not all - of my favorite Japanese recipes. Andoh takes ingredients like Miso and shows how adaptable it is by including many variations on miso sauces, miso soup, and miso dressings. She improvises on tradition by including many of her innovative recipes that combine her knowledge of Japanese cuisine with her intrisically American sensibilities. There are combinations and dishes I've never seen before, and they all look great. In contrast to Tsuji's adherence to Japanese tradition, Andoh, who married into a Japanese family and now runs a cooking school in Tokyo, has ordered her recipes in chapters that more closely adhere to what American cooks expect - by subject and ingredient and order in a typical American meal.

Before Andoh dives into the recipes, she discusses at length the five principles of Washoku, Japanese cuisine: Five Colors (go shiki - red, yellow, green, black and white), Five tastes (go mi - salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy), Five ways (go hou - simmering, broiling, steaming etc) Five Senses (go kan  - taste, sight, sound, smell, and touch) and Five Outlooks (go kan mon - mindfulness around the partaking of food). These five principles originated in China and made their way to Japan via the Korean peninsula at least 1000 years ago according to Andoh.

As Andoh explains, washoku - the philosophy, can be followed anywhere by adhering to the following guidelines that parallel contemporary thinking about sustainability and food ethics:

"Selecting ingredients at the peak of seasonal flavor, choosing locally available foods from both the land and the sea, appealing to and engaging all the senses, using a collage of color, employing a variety of food preparations, and assembling an assortment of flavors - a washoku approach to cooking gives the creative and contemplative cook an opportunity to satisfy his or her own aesthetic hunger while providing sustenance and sensory pleasure to others."

Both books are essential for cooks who are serious about Japanese cuisine. Though I have more Japanese cookbooks that I'd care to admit (uh, 17), these are the two I fall back on the most.

Cookbook Monday: Why I love the Village Baker's Wife

  Recently a friend asked me what my favorite baking book was. I have a lot of favorites - I adore anything by Nick Malgieri, especially How to Bake (which you can find used on Amazon for $3.00!). I am fond of looking at Pierre Herme's cookbooks ('cookbooks' seem innacurate to describe his work, but who am I to quibble?). I have a couple dozen other books which I love with varying amounts of passion. I have a Japanese baking book that thrills me with its mix of East and West desserts but devils me with its difficult-to-execute-in-the-US metric recipes, even though I have the right measuring cups. I love highbrow and lowbrow baking books. I love pictures and I love recipes, but all I need is a good recipe to make a cookbook unforgettable and irreplacable.

The Village Baker's Wife, written by Louisa Beers and Gayle and Joe Ortiz, proprietors of Gayle's Bakery in Aptos, CA, is probably my favorite baking book, bar none. Written in 1997 and now in print only in paperback, this book has few pictures but has some of the best - and most fail-proof and easy to follow - recipes for American dessert and sweet snack favorites. The chocolate chip cookie recipe is one of the best I've ever tried - I even scaled it for use in the kitchen when I worked at the Four Seasons in Atlanta. Lemon bars are also better than just about any other recipe I have seen published. The carrot cake is a standout, and I use their recipe for cream cheese icing whenever I get a request for cream cheese icing.

The section on danish and breakfast pastry is equally impressive, with detailed but clear instructions on laminating dough, including croissant dough and danish dough. There are unnecessary but informative profiles of their famous baking friends scattered throughout the book, along with recipes they have inspired.

You definitely do not need to have visited Gayle's Bakery to appreciate the cookbook, which is, as far as I am concerned, a masterpiece in a very modest form.

The hardcover is out of print and you'll pay a small fortune for it. The softcover is a better value - and if you are a slob like me, it may be the better option. While I like cookbooks, I buy them to use them, not to have them gather dust on the shelf.

Tom Kime - Street food - brit cookbook of the moment

I love contemporary cookbooks. The food photography is outstanding, the tone is chatty and friendly, the colors are soothing and have 'appetite appeal'. Many books are more coffee-table ready than kitchen-ready.

Although I only just received it, I'm liking Tom Kime's new cookbook, Street Food - exploring the world's most authentic tastes. Two clues in the title make it instantly more interesting to me than other cookbooks: 1) It is about street food, so the recipes will be easy to execute at home and 2) it is about authentic recipes, so they won't be dumbed down to satisfy lowest common denominator tastes.

Thank god for 'authenticity' - as irritating and overused as it is to describe everything, from experience to business to food, having 'authenticity' in recipes is a sea change from cookbooks of the past, which were all about adaptation to the American (or British, or whatever) kitchen and palate. As an example, I remember one of the first 'westernized' Japanese cookbooks I bought in the '80s - Elizabeth Andoh's American Taste of Japan. It was made American-Supermarket friendly and wasn't appealing to my trained-in-Japan palate. Flash forward 20 years later. Elizabeth Andoh's Washoku is one of my favorite cookbooks and I'd recommend it to anyone looking to cook 'real' Japanese cuisine in their home.

Back to Tom Kime. Oh he's a looker...and of course there are pictures, his face partially obscured, of him indulging in various dishes during his travels around the world. The cookbook is organized by country or region, and has a managable number of recipes for each area - and all are fairly simple and easy recipes. Another feature I like is that the contents are broken down into 'world tour' and the menus - covering India and Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Southern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa - and a Recipe Navigator, which lists out the recipes by category. In the back there's a glossary (thank you, Tom) and an alphabetical index.

This isn't an epic cookbook - its no HOT SOUR SALTY SWEET, which isn't a bad thing for newcomers to world cuisine and for those who do not have or want absurd cookbook collections.

Attractiveness of Chef Tom Kime: **** Hubba Hubba

Simplicity of Recipes: ***** My mom could make them

Ease of indexing in my cookbook collection: * world cuisine doesn't categorize well for me

Quality of photos: *** they show what each recipe should look like, although not all had appetite appeal

Paleness of his 'models': ***** this does not include his world photos, just his 'Saveur'-type pix

Celebrity Name Dropping in About Chef: ***** seriously, I don't care that you cooked for Kirstin Dunst - when I start taking dining cues from celebrities, I'll let you know

Digging For Gold in the Stacks

Did you see the New York Times' Book Review two weeks ago? It was the food issue -- reviews of books about food, cookbooks, and a rambling feature that asked leading food people about their favorite out-of-print cookbooks. I was surprised by many of the books, as none were too obscure or hard to come by. Except for one -- Mario Batali's choice, Veneto in Bocca (I think this was his choice, or was it this one, Toscano in Bocca?), which was part of a series of Italian regional cook books published in Italy in the '80s in both Italian and English. Apparently Nach Waxman carries the books -- for display only, in his shop, Kitchen Arts & Letters. If you want to buy a book from the series (basically "Italian Region Name here" in Bocca) it will set you back around $135.00 via the usual bookstore suspects here).

Reading his entry made me recall a book that I have in my collection:

Yep, there it is. I was wondering about this cook book, I think I picked it up  for about $10 at some random bookstore during a period when I was obsessed with Italian cuisine. I usually remember where I buy everything, so it is strange that I can't seem to recall where I picked this one up.  I guess in Liguria people smoke pipes, get tattoos of fish, and walk around with parrots on their shoulders while wading in the Mediterranean. Yes, the cover really is made out of corrugated cardboard, and the illustrations are really that vulgar. What a cookbook! One of these days I've got to cook something out of it. Why don't you come over for dinner?