Tag Archives: recipes

Off the Menu by Marissa Guggiana

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For every dinner service, there is a staff meal, family-style celebrations prepared by chefs for their crew. The meals are never on the menu, but are designed to show appreciation, provide energy for the evening, and more importantly, please even the pickiest palate. Off the Menu brings you behind-the-scenes profiles of the country’s top restaurants, and explore the tradition of the staff meal.

Each night, sous chefs, line cooks, waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and managers all gather to eat, socialize, and plan before opening for business. Ranging from small plates to multi-course extravaganzas, from an inspired use of leftovers or entirely new offerings, the concept is simple: a well-fed staff is a happy one. Guggiana has taken the most remarkable, soulful, and mouthwatering of these dishes and translated them for the home cook. You will find more than 80 recipes from 50 of the nation’s top restaurants. Each entry includes profiles of the restaurants, behind-the-scenes trips to the kitchens, and dining out tips, restaurant tricks, and cooking techniques from the cream of the culinary crop.

Pull back the curtain on the staff meal, and find new, exciting ways to feed your family from the best in the business.

Martha’s Entertaining by Martha Stewart

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In this exquisite and very personal book, Martha Stewart welcomes you into her world, where she entertains in the beautiful style that she has made so famous. Whether a simple blueberry breakfast on a Sunday morning in Maine or a more lavish holiday dinner at Bedford, each of the gatherings is equally memorable, for what Martha cherishes above all is spending time and sharing delicious food with her family and friends.

Featuring elegant and casual affairs held throughout the year and a diverse collection of enticing recipes, Martha’s Entertaining shows us—in the broadest and most lovely fashion—what it really means to entertain and host today. From an afternoon Easter egg hunt for children to a festive Halloween dinner held inside her horse stable to a spring garden fête amid the most glorious beds of peonies, Martha’s parties offer a glimpse inside her beautiful homes.

All of the events feature menus and delicious yet approachable recipes: Tomato and Gruyère Toasts, Mini Crab Cakes with Tarragon Tartar Sauce, Tiny Tuna Burgers, Braised Short Ribs, Roast Turkey Breast with Sage Butter, Rhubarb Crumbles, Blueberry Jam Tartlets, and Chocolate Honey Ice Cream with Butterscotch Sauce, plus some of Martha’s favorite drinks, including Pomegranate Cosmopolitans and Honeydew Mojitos.

Set among Martha’s dining rooms, kitchens, gardens, and patios, this is her most intimate book yet, a new classic for hosts and home cooks of every generation. (description from publisher)

The Viennese Kitchen by Monica Meehan

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This beautiful book, The Viennese Kitchen by Monica Meehan, based on an original notebook and recipe journal of a 1900s baroness, takes readers on a journey through fin de siecle Viennese high society.

With over 100 original recipes, all of which have been tested and brought up to date for the modern cook, it is not only a wonderful collection of recipes but also a fascinating look at the life of a Viennese family. Filled with anecdotes and personal stories to bring the recipes to life, this book is a charming insight into a bygone era. The classic recipes cover a variety of dishes both savory and sweet, with a strong emphasis on the desserts and pastries for which Vienna is famed. Enchanting photographs of Vienna grace the book, capturing the architecture, cafe culture, and beauty of this elegant city.

Food Trucks by Heather Shouse

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A unique combination of old-fashioned chutzpah (becoming your own boss) and cutting edge technology (using twitter to tell your customers where you are), food trucks are all the rage. Significantly cheaper to open than a traditional brick-and-mortar restuarant, food trucks open the door to a better life for newly arrived immigrants (bringing authentic recipes from home) to a creative outlet and financial independence for wannbe-chefs and foodies. Plus, yum!

Food Trucks by Heather Shouse tours the country exploring the funky world of street food, from Hawaii to Los Angeles (ground zero for taco trucks) to Miami to New York City. You’d think (at least I did) that food trucks would be most prevelant on the coasts and in the southern, warmer states, but there are plenty of trucks worth seeking out in the Midwest (Madison, WI especially), the North and the Northwest. Interestingly, Chicago is considered a food truck backwater - city regulations prohibiting cooking in the truck means the food has to be prepared offsite, although it looks like that will be changed soon.  

Not quite a cookbook (although there are more than 40 recipes) and not quite a travel guide (although you’re going to want to hunt down some of these gems), Food Trucks is a fun look at a piece of Americana that is alive and kicking. Plus, again, yum!

Summer Cooking (and Eating!)

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Summer is here at last and that means the Farmers’ Markets and your backyard garden are filled with the bounty of the season. Take advantage of the harvest with some help from the following books:

Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing – Interspersed with short essays and gorgeous photographs of Reusing’s farm and kitchen, this friendly cookbook celebrates simple food cooked with love through the seasons.

Cooking from the Farmers’ Market from William-Sonoma – As you would expect from Williams-Sonoma, this cookbook is beautiful and stylish and offers multiple recipes for each fruit and vegetable featured. Recipes are sophisticated but not out-of-reach.

Harvest to Heat: Cooking with America’s Best Chefs, Farmers and Artisans by Darry Estrine – Here’s a slightly different approach – following the growers and creators using the best ingredients. The emphasis is on family favorites and local delicacies across America.

Seasonal Recipes from the Garden by P Allen Smith – Low-key and approachable, this cookbook makes you feel like you’re exchanging recipes with a good friend. The recipes are favorites of P Allen Smith and his family and celebrate the backyard bounty of the garden.

The Art of Preserving from Williams-Sonoma – Keep some of that summer goodness for the cold days of winter. Not only does this book show you how to make delectable jams and jellys and salsas and relishes, it gives you multiple ways to use them in tasty dishes.

Cookies as History

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Here is almost 70 years of history one cookie at a time. The editors of Gourmet magazine (which recently ceased publication) went through their vast files of cookie recipes and chose one “best” cookie for each year, 1941-2009. The result is The Gourmet Cookie Book, a treasure trove not just of recipes, but as a reflection of our history.

Presented year by year, it is remarkably easy – and fun – to watch how recipes and baking have changed over the years. Early recipes are much more casual than what you may be used to now  with instructions like “bake in a moderate oven until done” or “add flour until stiff”, indicating that they assumed that the reader was an experienced cook;  more recent recipes give precise measurements and directions.

The style of recipes has also changed – early on, they are written in an almost conversational style, in paragraph form very different from the now standard list of ingredients followed by mixing instructions. Each recipe is presented as it originally appeared in the magazine but never fear – added notes take the guesswork out of anything that might be unclear.

It’s also interesting to track the trends and interests of the country through the years. The 40s reflect the lean years of wartime shortages and food rationing – cookies are simple and plain, using few ingredients. Recipes became more daring in the 60s with many international flavors, the 80s were the decade of chocolate and the 90s see the introduction of espresso as a regular ingredient. The look of cookies changes through time too, from simple shapes to colorful and complex. Yet they all hold one thing in common – they’ve all stood the test of time and they all taste great.

Food Week – Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco

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Though there are several food-related adult mysteries to blog about (my favorite is  The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by C. Alan Bradley, which Ann blogged about earlier) I’m choosing instead to highlight a delightful childrens book with a food theme — Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco.

Polacco has written (and also beautifully illustrated) many fine stories for the younger set, and some of those, such as Pink and Say, have some pretty weighty underlying themes.  But Thunder Cake is just a fun, family story which not only “teaches” about rain and thunderstorms, but also about how to put a cake together.  By ignoring the thunder and keeping busy gathering ingredients, Grandma effectively dispels her granddaughter’s fear of thunderstorms.  At the end of the story, you’ll find the recipe, which includes a surprise ingredient — tomatoes!  I used this book back when I was a school library-media specialist and I’m looking forward to the time when I can use it again when my own granddaughter is old enough to want to make cakes herself.

Food Week – Southern Charm with Recipes

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In my quest to find all fiction books set in Savannah, Georgia and low country South Carolina, I have found Mary Kay Andrews. She is a wonderful author and these three books about Savannah are the funniest I have read. The characters are Eloise “Weezie” Foley and BeBe Loudermilk, best friends to the end.

Savannah Blues

Landing a catch like Talmadge Evans III got Eloise “Weezie” Foley a jewel of a town house in Savannah’s historic district. Divorcing Tat got her exited to the backyard carriage house, where she has launched a spite-fest with Tal’s new fiancé, the elegant Caroline DeSantos. BeBe owns a restaurant in town, and Weezie makes pies for her. An antiques picker, Weezie combs Savannah’s steamy back alleys and garage sales for treasures when she’s not dealing with her loopy relatives or her hunky ex-boyfriend. But an unauthorized sneak preview at a sale lands Weezie smack in the middle of magnolia-scented murder, mayhem . . . and more. Dirty deals simmer all around her — just as her relationship with the hottest chef in town heats up and she finds out how delicious love can be the second time around. There are not recipes in this book, but it does introduce you to Weezie and BeBe.

Savannah Breeze

In this eagerly awaited sequel to Savannah Blues, Southern belle BeBe Loudermilk loses all her worldly possessions thanks to a brief but disastrous relationship with the gorgeous Reddy, an “investment counselor” who turns out to be a con man. All that’s left is a ramshackle 1950s motor court on Tybee Island-an eccentric beach town that calls itself a drinking village with a fishing problem. Breeze Inn is a place where the very classy BeBe wouldn’t normally be caught dead but, with no alternative, she moves into the manager’s unit, vowing to make magic out of mud. With the help of Harry and BeBe’s junking friend Weezie, she soon has the motel spiffed up and attracting paying guests.Then there’s a sighting of Reddy in Fort Lauderdale, and BeBe decides to go after him. She puts together a posse, and with the irrepressible Granddaddy Loudermilk snoring in the backseat of the Buick, heads south. The plan is to carry out a sting that may be just a little bit outside the law but that, with any luck at all, will retrieve BeBe’s fortune and put the dastardly Reddy in jail where he belongs. The recipes in this book are for Breeze Inn Crabcakes and Blue Breeze Cocktail… Yummy

Blue Christmas

It’s the week before Christmas, and antiques dealer Weezie Foley is in a frenzy to garnish her shop for the Savannah historical district decorating contest, which she intends to win. Weezie is ready to shoot herself with her glue gun by the time she’s done, but the results are stunning. She’s certainly one-upped the owners of the trendy shop around the corner, but suddenly things start to go missing from her display, and there seems to be a mysterious midnight visitor to her shop. Still, Weezie has high hopes for the holiday—maybe in the form of an engagement ring from her chef boyfriend. But Daniel, always moody at the holidays, seems more distant than usual. Throw in Weezie’s decidedly odd family, a 1950s Christmas-tree pin, and even a little help from the King himself (Elvis, that is), and maybe there will be a pocketful of miracles for Weezie this Christmas Eve. The recipes in this book are for Foley Family Irish Corned Beef Dip and Red Roosters, a Christmas-y cocktail.

Frugal Librarian #31: Three dollar chili

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If you’re willing to get a jump on chili season before the hooded sweatshirts come out, you can save a mint due to the glut of local tomatoes.  Just walk into any break room across this great land of ours and nab the bag of tomatoes labeled “TAKE…PLEASE!”    Cut them up and dump them into a pot on top of browned meat of your choice and an onion.    Add half a bag of dried beans you soaked overnight.

Congratulations, you’re eating for a week for no money and didn’t get carpal tunnel opening a dozen tin cans.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

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The Pioneer Woman Cooks is an unique combination of cookbook and sociological essay. Ree Drummond got sidetracked on her journey from L.A. to Chicago, when she stopped in Oklahoma and met the cowboy who was to become her husband.

The photographs of horses, dogs, cowboys and rainbow straddled fields are sometimes cute and  funny, sometimes striking and romantic. They alone make you want to pack your bags and move to a ranch out West.

The recipes are clear and simple, and each step is accompanied by a photograph. They are not definitely not for someone looking for low-fat or low-cholesterol meals. However, if you go to her blog, http://thepioneerwoman.com, you’ll find a “Cowgirl Food” category with dishes like lettuce wraps and sundried tomato pasta salad. Drummond actually got her start as a blogger, and both the book and blog are breezy, personal and easy to digest.   :)