Andrea's Cooktales


Book Description

Andrea's Cooktales: A Keepsake Cookbook. Learn New Recipes, Treasure Old Ones is the debut book of one of America's top 100 home cooks. This heirloom cookbook is meant to be savored, splattered, and shared. It features "New-Generation" Southern recipes that are unique, fun, and easy to follow. Special stories are behind every recipe, which will inspire your own memories and stories. Learn new recipes to add to your weekday as well as holiday meal rotations. From appetizers to dessert, recipes are both naughty (for splurging) and nice (for healthy eating). A notes section is included for cooking/food questions and answers, as well as journal areas to jot down stories and enter family recipes. The perfect gift book, it features a scuff-resistant hardcover, Smythe-sewn binding and a ribbon bookmark that will ensure it will be passed along for years. With delicious photography by Memphian Nicole Cole and a foreword by Memphis restaurateur and chef Jennifer Chandler.




The Cooking Gene


Book Description

2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts




Memories of Gascony


Book Description

Pierre Koffmann's Memories of Gascony is the story of how one of the most influential chefs of our time first learned to love food. With recipes and reminiscences from his grandparents' home in rural Gascony, this is an intimate account of school holidays spent on the farm helping his grandfather to harvest and hunt, and learning to treasure seasonality, simplicity and the best ingredients at his grandmother's side. The finest of Gascony produce is here, with a focus on simplicity. The recipes stand the test of time and speak to the food tastes and trends of today. While you read the charming stories of everyday life on the farm, you'll devour the cuisine as you go along - dandelion salad with bacon and poached egg, grilled chicken with shallots and vinaigrette, and greengages in Armagnac in Spring; chicken liver pate with capers, Bayonne ham tart with garlic, oeufs a la neige in Summer; roast hare with mustard and beetroot, salt cod cassoulet and quince jelly in Autumn; and fried eggs with foie gras, potato and bacon pie and tarte aux pruneaux in Winter. This is a book to learn, love and live from. "One of the great works on regional French food, by one of the greatest of all French chefs." Tom Parker Bowles "Pierre Koffmann is a giant of the kitchen, and his shadow looms larger than anyone else's. Almost every decent chef I can think of learned most of what he knows from Pierre." Giles Coren "If you do not own a copy of Pierre Koffmann's glorious Memories of Gascony your cookbook collection is not complete. Brilliant to read; even better to cook from." Jay Rayner "No words can describe how delicious his food is. He is the Chef's Chef." Michel Roux Jr




The Omnivorous Mind


Book Description

In this gustatory tour of human history, John S. Allen demonstrates that the everyday activity of eating offers deep insights into human beings’ biological and cultural heritage. We humans eat a wide array of plants and animals, but unlike other omnivores we eat with our minds as much as our stomachs. This thoughtful relationship with food is part of what makes us a unique species, and makes culinary cultures diverse. Not even our closest primate relatives think about food in the way Homo sapiens does. We are superomnivores whose palates reflect the natural history of our species. Drawing on the work of food historians and chefs, anthropologists and neuroscientists, Allen starts out with the diets of our earliest ancestors, explores cooking’s role in our evolving brain, and moves on to the preoccupations of contemporary foodies. The Omnivorous Mind delivers insights into food aversions and cravings, our compulsive need to label foods as good or bad, dietary deviation from “healthy” food pyramids, and cross-cultural attitudes toward eating (with the French, bien sûr, exemplifying the pursuit of gastronomic pleasure). To explain, for example, the worldwide popularity of crispy foods, Allen considers first the food habits of our insect-eating relatives. He also suggests that the sound of crunch may stave off dietary boredom by adding variety to sensory experience. Or perhaps fried foods, which we think of as bad for us, interject a frisson of illicit pleasure. When it comes to eating, Allen shows, there’s no one way to account for taste.




In a French Kitchen


Book Description

A delightful celebration of everyday life in France through the lens of the kitchens and cooking of the author’s neighbors, who, while busy and accomplished, still manage to make every meal a sumptuous occasion. Even before Susan Herrmann Loomis wrote her now-classic memoir, On Rue Tatin, American readers have been compelled by books about the French’s ease with cooking. With In a French Kitchen, Loomis—an expat who long ago traded her American grocery store for a bustling French farmer’s market—demystifies in lively prose the seemingly effortless je ne sais quoi behind a simple French meal. French cooks have the savoir faire to get out of a low-ingredient bind. They are deeply knowledgeable about seasonal produce and what mélange of simple ingredients will bring out the best of their garden or local market. They are perfectly at ease with cracked bowls and little counter space. In a French Kitchen proves that delicious, decadent meals aren’t complicated. Loomis takes lessons from busy, everyday people and offers tricks and recipes to create a meal more focused on quality ingredients and time at the table than on time in the kitchen.




Let's Speak Haitian Food


Book Description

I am not Haitian because I was born in Haiti, I am Haitian because Haiti was born in me. -Anonymous After Haitian-American Author and Community Advocate Cindy Similien-Johnson met her102-year-old Haitian grandmother for the first time in 20 years, she embarked on a cultural journey to rediscover her Haitian heritage. It was through food that she felt a deeper connection to her roots. She reached out to her Haitian brothers and sisters from around the world and talked about their memories of cuisine, community, and culture. This volume is a culmination of half a decade worth of collecting, editing, and compiling heartfelt stories from more than 100 members of the Haitian Diaspora. Also included are the recipes of her top favorite Haitian foods from her childhood. It is with great hope that the stories contained in this book will be shared for generations to come, and cultivate the importance of passing down traditions, stories, and memories.







Delicious Memories


Book Description

From Chef Boyardee’s granddaughter: “Part cookbook, part family history, and part homage to her ancestors—immigrants who made their way in a new country” (NPR). The Boiardi name has reached tables across America for more than seventy years. Most Americans have fond memories of this iconic brand, evoking nostalgia for a simpler time. From a very young age, Anna Boiardi spent countless hours helping her mother and grandmother, kneading and folding, and listening to stories as rich as the tortellini she and her mother would work to perfection. Now, for the first time, Anna brings us the authentic recipes that inspired the brand, including Ravioli with Ricotta and Squash Filling, Cotechino with Lentils, and Baked Fennel with Butter and Parmesan. Recipes for sauces, meats, and of course pasta dishes are just some of the secrets Anna shares in Delicious Memories. “This loving paean to home-style Italian cooking and the culinary traditions of a family dynasty rooted in food offers just the right balance of nostalgia and appetizing recipes.” —Publishers Weekly “If you’ve never been excited by Chef Boyardee’s spaghetti and ravioli dinners, fear not—there’s much more to the Boiardi family’s recipes than what you’ve seen in the supermarket.” —Library Journal




Sensehacking


Book Description

The world expert in multisensory perception on the remarkable ways we can use our senses to lead richer lives 'Talks total sense, lots of fun facts, right up there with the best of the best' Chris Evans 'Packed with studies on pain, attention, memory, mood' The Times How can the furniture in your home affect your wellbeing? What colour clothing will help you play sport better? And what simple trick will calm you after a tense day at work? In this revelatory book, pioneering and entertaining Oxford professor Charles Spence shows how our senses change how we think and feel, and how by 'hacking' them we can reduce stress, become more productive and be happier. We like to think of ourselves as rational beings, and yet it's the scent of expensive face cream that removes wrinkles (temporarily), a room actually feels warmer if you use a warmer paint colour, and the noise of the crowd really does affect the referee's decision. Understanding how our senses interact can produce incredible results. This is popular science at its unbelievable best. 'Spence does for the senses what Marie Kondo does for homes' Avery Gilbert, author of What the Nose Knows 'Everything you need to know about how to cope with the hidden sensory overload of modern life, engagingly told' Robin Dunbar, author of How Many Friends Does One Person Need?




Tasting Vietnam


Book Description

This beautifully designed guide to Vietnamese home cooking and comfort food goes beyond restaurant fare to explore the vibrant, fresh flavors of a cuisine whose popularity is rising rapidly. Anne-Solenne Hatte presents the mouthwatering recipes for traditional Vietnamese home cooking collected by Bà, her maternal grandmother. This book is an homage to Vietnamese cuisine, with its emphasis on fresh ingredients, bright flavor combinations, zesty sauces, and reputation for healthfulness with vegetables and salads at center stage. These family recipes withstood the test of time—and exile. Staying true to her culinary heritage, Bà learned to work around unavailable items and adapt to new ingredients. These expertly detailed yet accessible recipes are intertwined with the story of Bà’s event-filled life and memories of home. After exploring the cuisine’s base recipes and “mother” sauces, the book explores dishes organized by region. Included are classic variations of pho, quick pickled vegetables, robust salads, grilled and stir-fried meats, and fusion dishes like trendy banh mi sandwiches.