In the Kitchen


Book Description

A collection to savour and inspire, In the Kitchen brings together thirteen contemporary writers whose work brilliantly explores food, capturing their reflections on their culinary experiences in the kitchen and beyond.




A Tiger in the Kitchen


Book Description

"Starting with charred fried rice and ending with flaky pineapple tarts, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan takes us along on a personal journey that most can only fantasize about--an exploration of family history and culture through a mastery of home-cooked dishes. Tan's delectable education through the landscape of Singaporean cuisine teaches us that food is the tie that binds." --Jennifer 8. Lee, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles After growing up in the most food-obsessed city in the world, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan left home and family at eighteen for America--proof of the rebelliousness of daughters born in the Year of the Tiger. But as a thirtysomething fashion writer in New York, she felt the Singaporean dishes that defined her childhood beginning to call her back. Was it too late to learn the secrets of her grandmothers' and aunties' kitchens, as well as the tumultuous family history that had kept them hidden before In her quest to recreate the dishes of her native Singapore by cooking with her family, Tan learned not only cherished recipes but long-buried stories of past generations. A Tiger in the Kitchen, which includes ten authentic recipes for Singaporean classics such as pineapple tarts and Teochew braised duck, is the charming, beautifully written story of a Chinese-Singaporean ex-pat who learns to infuse her New York lifestyle with the rich lessons of the Singaporean kitchen, ultimately reconnecting with her family and herself. Reading Group Guide available online and included in the eBook.




Finding Yourself in the Kitchen


Book Description

Many books teach the mechanics of cooking and even inspire us to cook; not many dwell on the kitchen's ability to be a place of awakening and joy. In Finding Yourself in the Kitchen, Dana Velden asks you to seek deeper meaning in this space and explores what cooking can teach about intimacy, failure, curiosity, and beauty. Finding Yourself in the Kitchen is a book of essays, each focused on a cooking theme that explores how to practice mindfulness in the kitchen--and beyond--to discover a more deeply experienced life. It also offers meditation techniques and practical kitchen tips, including 15 of Velden's own favorite recipes. What happens when we find ourselves in the kitchen? What vitalizes, challenges, and delights us there? An extension of her popular "Weekend Meditation" column on TheKitchn.com, this book offers you the chance to step back and examine your life in a more inspired way. The result is a reading experience that satisfies, nourishes and inspires.




Voices in the Kitchen


Book Description

“Literally, chilaquiles are a breakfast I grew up eating: fried corn tortillas with tomato-chile sauce. Symbolically, they are the culinary metaphor for how working-class women speak with the seasoning of their food.”—from the Introduction Through the ages and across cultures, women have carved out a domain in which their cooking allowed them to express themselves, strengthen family relationships, and create a world of shared meanings with other women. In Voices in the Kitchen, Meredith E. Abarca features the voices of her mother and several other family members and friends, seated at their kitchen tables, to share the grassroots world view of these working-class Mexican and Mexican American women. In the kitchen, Abarca demonstrates, women assert their own sazón (seasoning), not only in their cooking but also in their lives. Through a series of oral histories, or charlas culinarias (culinary chats), the women interviewed address issues of space, sensual knowledge, artistic and narrative expression, and cultural and social change. From her mother’s breakfast chilaquiles to the most elaborate traditional dinner, these women share their lives as they share their savory, symbolic, and theoretical meanings of food. The charlas culinarias represent spoken personal narratives, testimonial autobiography, and a form of culinary memoir, one created by the cooks-as-writers who speak from their kitchen space. Abarca then looks at writers-as-cooks to add an additional dimension to the understanding of women’s power to define themselves. Voices in the Kitchen joins the extensive culinary research of the last decade in exploring the importance of the knowledge found in the practical, concrete, and temporal aspects of the ordinary practice of everyday cooking.




Chicken in the Kitchen


Book Description

What would you do if you woke up one night to find the shadow of a giant chicken passing your bedroom door? Go and investigate, of course! When Anyaugo follows a giant chicken into her kitchen one warm night in Nigeria, she embarks on a fun-filled adventure where nothing is quite as it seems. Is the mischievous giant chicken a friend or a foe? More importantly, will Anyaugo be able to save the food for the New Yam Festival the next day?




Religion in the Kitchen


Book Description

Honorable Mention, 2019 Barbara T. Christian Literary Award, given by the Caribbean Studies Association Winner, 2017 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, presented by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion section of the American Anthropological Association Finalist, 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions presented by the Journal of Africana Religions An examination of the religious importance of food among Caribbean and Latin American communities Before honey can be offered to the Afro-Cuban deity Ochún, it must be tasted, to prove to her that it is good. In African-inspired religions throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, such gestures instill the attitudes that turn participants into practitioners. Acquiring deep knowledge of the diets of the gods and ancestors constructs adherents’ identities; to learn to fix the gods’ favorite dishes is to be “seasoned” into their service. In this innovative work, Elizabeth Pérez reveals how seemingly trivial "micropractices" such as the preparation of sacred foods, are complex rituals in their own right. Drawing on years of ethnographic research in Chicago among practitioners of Lucumí, the transnational tradition popularly known as Santería, Pérez focuses on the behind-the-scenes work of the primarily women and gay men responsible for feeding the gods. She reveals how cooking and talking around the kitchen table have played vital socializing roles in Black Atlantic religions. Entering the world of divine desires and the varied flavors that speak to them, this volume takes a fresh approach to the anthropology of religion. Its richly textured portrait of a predominantly African-American Lucumí community reconceptualizes race, gender, sexuality, and affect in the formation of religious identity, proposing that every religion coalesces and sustains itself through its own secret recipe of micropractices.




Messy in the Kitchen


Book Description

A cookbook for quirky home cooks looking to impress friends and family with a fancy meal, delicious cocktails, and intoxicating conversation. Television personality Renee Paquette brings passion, experimentation, and an overly confident-in-the-kitchen attitude to home cooking. When she’s not traveling around the world for work, she loves to stay within the confines of her home and Instagram-Live her experiences, cooking up mouth-watering, house-transforming meals for friends, family, neighbors…and all of their dogs. She thinks nothing of toiling over a hot stove while also providing sweet, cozy ambiance for anyone who walks through the door. Whether you’re hosting over the holidays, planning an anniversary dinner, or just feel like throwing back some cocktails and lining your belly with carbs, Renee’s got you covered. “Her debut cookbook…makes you daydream about the days (hopefully soon!) when friends can come over and share in a festive roast chicken dinner. Paquette’s book is a whole lot of fun.” —America’s Test Kitchen Messy in the Kitchen is an array of over sixty feel-good, feel-fancy meals, including appetizers, sides, salads, soups, and cocktails, (and the playlists to accompany them), to inspire a new generation of home cooks. Full of Renee’s passion for cooking, readers will be inspired and empowered to toss the take-out menus, put together a guest list, set the table, roll up their sleeves, and dare to get a little messy in the kitchen! “Similar to her smooth broadcasting style, there is a whimsical, familiar nature to her cookbook that makes the reader, even without culinary experience, feel as though success in the kitchen is attainable.” —Sports Illustrated Renee pulls from her foodie-family roots and guides you through the sometimes overwhelming process of making everything just right, including tips for entertaining and planning the perfect event. She offers the secrets and recipes you need to bring a bit of pizzazz to your home and make your dinner or dinner party a smash hit!




The Pedant in the Kitchen


Book Description

This work is an elegant account of Julian Barnes' search for gastronomic precision. It is a quest that leaves him seduced by Jane Grigson, infuriated by Nigel Slater and reassured by Mrs Beeton's Victorian virtues. For anyone who has ever been defeated by a cookbook.




In the Kitchen


Book Description

In The Kitchen is an updated version of the beloved original 2008 cookbook of the same name. Across 17 chapters are more than 700 recipes (plus more than 400 recipe variations), offering cooks a definitive guide to meals for every occasion and a fresh look at everyday favourites.

This new edition includes some sugar-free and gluten-free recipes, quinoa and kale, and a chapter dedicated to basics.

Chapters include: breakfast and brunch; bite-sized; soup; bowl food (pasta, seafood, rice and noodles); 30-minute dinners (chicken, duck, quail, beef, lamb, pork, seafood and vegetarian); roasts; spice; slow cooking; vegetables; salads; pastry (savoury and sweet); desserts and puddings; cakes; cookies and slices; bread; preserves; and the pantry (including basics from stocks, sauces and dressings to custards, icings and frostings).

It's as definitive as definitive gets for the home cook who wants to extend their repertoire – or for someone who is just starting out and wants to establish a foundation for good cooking and experimentation in the kitchen.




The Kitchen House


Book Description

Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of the highly anticipated Glory Over Everything, established herself as a remarkable new talent with The Kitchen House, now a contemporary classic. In this gripping novel, a dark secret threatens to expose the best and worst in everyone tied to the estate at a thriving plantation in Virginia in the decades before the Civil War. Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, and serve food, while guided by the quiet strength and love of her new family. In time, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master’s opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart from Belle and the other slaves. Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Grissom’s debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.