Book Description
From the publisher of Under the Tuscan Sun comes another extraordinary memoir of a woman embarking on a new life this time in the South of France. Thirty years ago, James Beard Award-winning author Georgeanne Brennan set out to realize the dream of a peaceful, rural existence en Provence. She and her husband, with their young daughter in tow, bought a small farmhouse with a little land, and a few goats and pigs and so began a life-affirming journey. Filled with delicious recipes and local color, this evocative and passionate memoir describes her life cooking and living in the Proven al tradition an entrancing tale that will whet the appetite and the spirit perfect for foodies, Francophiles, or anyone who's dreamed of packing their bags and buying a ticket to the good life.
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful culinary journey.......2007-04-07
What an interesting, informative, and lovely culinary memoir! Georgeanne Brennan was a true trailblazer by going off to Provence with her family in the early 70's, at the height of the Vietnam War. This wasn't mere escapism--it was an attempt to get back to the land and learn what culinary traditions are all about (since most of those traditions in the U.S. were getting lost in the post-WWII industrialization of food production). Reading about the seasonal celebrations and ceremonies that are embedded in Provencal history is truly fascinating through the eyes of an American. Add to that a classic recipe at the end of each chapter that pertains to what you've just read preceeding it, and you have the perfect summer travel lit read!
Amazon.com
"Cooking is not about just joining the dots, following one recipe slavishly and then moving on to the next," says British food writer Nigella Lawson. "It's about developing an understanding of food, a sense of assurance in the kitchen, about the simple desire to make yourself something to eat." Lawson is not a chef, but "an eater." She writes as if she's conversing with you while beating eggs or mincing garlic in your kitchen. She explains how to make the basics, such as roast chicken, soup stock, various sauces, cake, and ice cream. She teaches you to cook more esoteric dishes, such as grouse, white truffles (mushrooms, not chocolate), and "ham in Coca-Cola." She gives advice for entertaining over the holidays, quick cooking ("the real way to make life easier for yourself: cooking in advance"), cooking for yourself ("you don't have to belong to the drearily narcissistic learn-to-love-yourself school of thought to grasp that it might be a good thing to consider yourself worth cooking for"), and weekend lunches for six to eight people. Don't expect any concessions to health recommendations in the recipes here--Lawson makes liberal and unapologetic use of egg yolks, cream, and butter. There are plenty of recipes, but the best parts of How to Eat are the well-crafted tidbits of wisdom, such as the following:
- "Cook in advance and, if the worse comes to the worst, you can ditch it. No one but you will know that it tasted disgusting, or failed to set, or curdled or whatever."
- On the proper English trifle: "When I say proper I mean proper: lots of sponge, lots of jam, lots of custard and lots of cream. This is not a timid construction ... you don't want to end up with a trifle so upmarket it's inappropriately, posturingly elegant. A degree of vulgarity is requisite."
- "Too many people cook only when they're giving a dinner party. And it's very hard to go from zero to a hundred miles an hour. How can you learn to feel at ease around food, relaxed about cooking, if every time you go into the kitchen it's to cook at competition level?"
--Joan Price
Book Description
"A chatty, sometimes cheeky,celebration of home-cooked meals."
—USA Today
Through her wildly popular television shows, her five bestselling cookbooks, her line of kitchenware, and her frequent media appearances, Nigella Lawson has emerged as one of the food world's most seductive personalities. How to Eat is the book that started it all—Nigella's signature, all-purpose cookbook, brimming with easygoing mealtime strategies and 350 mouthwatering recipes, from a truly sublime Tarragon French Roast Chicken to a totally decadent Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake. Here is Nigella's total (and totally irresistible) approach to food—the book that lays bare her secrets for finding pleasure in the simple things that we cook and eat every day.
"[Nigella] brings you into her life and tells you how she thinks about food, how meals come together in her head . . . and how she cooks for family and friends . . . A breakthrough . . . with hundreds of appealing and accessible recipes."
—Amanda Hesser, The New York Times
"Nigella Lawson serves up irony and sensuality with her comforting recipes . . . the Queen of Come-On Cooking."
—Los Angeles Times
"Nigella Lawson is, whisks down, Britain's funniest and sexiest food writer, a raconteur who is delicious whether detailing every step on the way towards a heavenly roast chicken and root vegetable couscous or explaining why 'cooking is not just about joining the dots.'"
—Richard Story, Vogue magazine
Customer Reviews:
A Fun Read.......2007-07-30
Simply delightful to read, even if you don't cook a thing. However, I can't imagine not wanting to try many of the easy, scrumptious looking choices she has included. Well worth the money.
i dig her cooking and her versatility.......2007-07-23
i truly enjoy the blends and stylings of what Nigella Lawson comes out with. her use of spices and flavoring. this Book offers so many treats and makes you enjoy your meals. i like the details and overview that this book has and the insights on various dishes. I also feel and think that Nigella Lawson is one of the Most Striking and Prettest Ladies on the Planet as well. that beauty and joy comes across in her cooking and her meals with her trademark humor.
Excellent eating!!.......2007-05-07
Nigella captures what the true essence of eating is all about. Not just the cooking and the recipes but the nature of food itself. Cooking from these recipes makes me appreciate so much more what goes into the preparation of the meal. I loved it!
wonderful, simple menus...and some great ideas.......2007-01-20
This book presents some great, uncomplicated menu plans; although not all of the recipes are perfect, most of them are; though the basics, which are presented are FABULOUS!
okay .......2006-12-01
I make more savoury dishes than I do sweet ones but I don't like this book as much as How to Be a Domestic Goddess nor as much as Feast which reuses recipes from previous titles. This book is very much like her first show that aired on American tv. I agree with many of her conclusions about ingredients and methods and eating style but I can understand why some reviewers gave this book the lowest rating. I'm happy I own a paperback secondhand (a dollar cheaper than a hardcover secondhand) but although I like this book for myself I would not feel comfortable recommending this title over Feast to anyone. If there is one recipe that works for me, it would be the not uncommon recipe for salmon fishcakes that allows me to use leftover salmon. I hate to waste salmon especially knowing that we may not have any more wild fish to enjoy in a few decades. This is a title that I would suggest to be scanned in a bookstore before buying rather than relying on reviews.
Book Description
Millions of ways to mix and match! Here's how it works:
Each menu planner has 28 days worth of new menu choices; pages are split into thirds and are interchangeable. There are 20,000 menu combinations in each book. No matter which combination the reader chooses, carb counts and nutrients are correct for the entire dayautomatically. Readers can mix and match among all of the menu planners if they want; millions of combinations are possible!
Updated third editions of the Month of Meals series feature:
- Complete nutrient analysis and carbohydrate count for every meal
- Every meal includes the same number of carbs, no matter which choice is picked4560 grams for every breakfast, 6075 grams for every lunch, and 7085 grams for every dinnerthis helps keep blood sugar levels stable
- Covered spiral binding increases bookshelf visibility
Customer Reviews:
disorganized book.......2007-06-20
First I must admit that I hate every book that doesn't have at least one image every two recipes. This book has about 10 images for the entire book.
I think the recipes are what some could qualify as simple, but really the good term would be obvious, you could figure it out yourself. Imagine what you would put in a spinach lasagna... Did you guess? lasagna pasta, tomato sauce of some sort, cheese and spinach. A little bit more taste? add onion and garlic and a little bit of dried oregano. Come on! Can't you make it up yourself? The recipes in that book have nothing new at all. Boring.
An other thing that infuriates me when I use a cooking book is when it uses prepared food. When a book tells me that I could cook spaghetti and use canned spaghetti sauce, but spice it up with dried italian herbs, I would slap its author with a cooking mitt... And you call that a recipe? I call that a college student meal.
Month of Meals: Vegetarian Pleasures.......2007-04-13
Great book for diabetics who are vegans or who want a few vegetarian meals a week.
Veggie Ideas.......2007-01-23
I have always enjoyed vegetarian meals but find that sometimes they take too much time and a lot of trouble to prepare until I found the Month of Meals; Vegetarian Pleasures. The recipes are easy to prepare and they are very tasty. I am very pleased with this book and would recommend it for anyone with diabetes or not to become a healthier individual through vegetables.
Helpful if you're not already a vegetarian.......2005-11-30
I found this book to be helpful in understanding the basic proportions of a healthful vegetarian diabetic diet, but have some reservations about it overall.
First of all, this book, which is sub-titled "Vegetarian Pleasures" might lead a practicing vegetarian to believe that it is focused on vegetarians, but ...throughout the book, vegetable protein sources are referred to as "meat substitutes". To a practicing vegetarian, there is no such thing as a meat substitute because there is no meat on your plate. The editors should take note of this for the next edition or be more up front about the fact that this book is really for non-vegetarians trying to add meatless meals to their diabetic routine. Which I completely support, by the way!
I also found some of the meals a little awkward, like this one: 1 soy dog, 1/2 c EACH carrot and celery sticks, 1/2 brussels sprouts AND 1 c bean salad, made with legumes. I really didn't know what to make of this either from an aesthetic or nutritional viewpoint. And I found the use of a certain brandname dried soup mix throughout to be annoying when it's so easy to make up and freeze nutritious home-made soups.
All that being said, though, I would still recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a selection of usually tasty, nutritious vegetarian diabetic meals, in a easy to read format. I liked the mix and match concept, the meals provide good templates for designing your own favorites, and the nutritional information in the back is very helpful. The menus tend to be the :30 quick-fix at home sort, but some of them are really good and they appeal to a contemporary palate in their mix of ethnic and old standard recipies. The use of soy product is minimal and most folks trying to just add some vegetarian variety to their diets will find many appealing options. The value to the practicing vegetarian is in the way menus are modelled on proper amounts of fats, carbs and proteins, so that you can train yourself to make appropriate and well-balanced meals of the correct portion size. So, despite flaws, I do recommend this helpful and useful book.
I like the cut-a-ways.......2003-03-21
I like the cut-a-ways so we can plan the whole day on one page. That has been the bigest help for me.
Book Description
Traditional craft-brewed beer can transform a meal from everyday to extraordinary. It's an affordable, accessible luxury. Yet most people are only familiar with the mass-market variety. Have you tasted the real thing?
In
The Brewmaster's Table, Garrett Oliver, America's foremost authority on beer and brewmaster of the acclaimed Brooklyn Brewery, reveals why real beer is the perfect partner to any dining experience. He explains how beer is made, relays its fascinating history, and, accompanied by Denny Tillman's exquisite photographs, conducts an insider's tour through the amazing range of flavors displayed by distinct styles of beer from around the world. Most important, he shows how real beer, which is far more versatile than wine, intensifies flavors when it's appropriately paired with foods, creating brilliant matches most people have never imagined: a brightly citric Belgian wheat beer with a goat cheese salad, a sharply aromatic pale ale to complement spicy tacos, an earthy German bock beer to match a porcini risotto, even a fruity framboise to accompany a slice of chocolate truffle cake. Whether you're a beer aficionado, a passionate cook, or just someone who loves a great dinner, this book will indeed be a revelation.
Customer Reviews:
This book is the guide to beer!.......2007-08-22
I've had this book for 2 years and just bought it for a friend because I've loved it so much. I've reread this book twice because there is so much great information. This book changed the way I look at, buy and drink beer. I'm also a home brewer and this book gave me a whole new perspective on what I was trying to make and what I wanted from my beer.
There are few books that talk about pairing beer with food and I think this is THE book on the subject.
If you want to broaden your beer horizons, this book will do it. You will never look back.
Enjoy!
The Best Beer Book.......2007-07-16
I read alot, and use Amazon alot, and have read many beer books, but this is the first time I've been prompted to write a review. This is by far the best book on beer I've read. Comprehensive, delightful, and informative, it would be enjoyable even for someone who was not a beer enthusiast. I don't particularly care about pairing beer with food, and so might have overlooked this volume. However, even passing lightly over the sections about beer-food combinations, it remains the best book on beer I've seen! It's my beer bible!
Great Investment and Reference.......2007-04-07
Great book! As a new beer lover ... after reading the book, I became a true beer connoisseur. Garrett Oliver lays out a simple, easy to read book. The only problem is that when I go out to dinner now, I get VERY upset when restaurants do not have a true and PROPER selection of beer to match my food! Beer is wonderful, and I thank Garrett Oliver to opening my eyes to a great beverage! Easy recommendation. Prosit!
Great for discovering new beers and food pairings!.......2007-03-01
I take this book with me whenever I enter any store with a good selection of beer. It has proven to be an invaluable source of advice as i peruse the shelves of imported and craft beers. i never appreciated how good beer and foods could go together before i tried some of the combinations in this book. The discussions of various Belgian styles, particularly the Saisons, has been eye opening for me.
I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to expand their beer experiences and more importantly, to anyone who wants to experience how different beers and different foods can come together in some wondrous ways.
Essential Reading.......2007-01-23
Oliver's book is a fasciniating read for anyone who is disgusted by the mass market abominations that they call Beer in America, but is absolutely essential to homebrewers of all levels who want to take the enjoyment of their craft to all new levels.
Amazon.com
Does it matter where our food comes from? Do we, our communities, and the planet do better if we choose food grown by local sources we trust? Exploring these and other questions of dietary and spiritual subsistence, Gary Paul Nabhan's Coming Home to Eat presents a compelling case for eating from our "foodshed."
Nabhan, a subsistence hunter, ethnobiologist, and activist devoted to recovering lost food traditions, gave himself a task: to spend a year trying to eat foods grown, fished, or gathered within 250 miles of his Arizona home. His book, both personal document and political screed, details this experiment from the moment Nabhan purges his kitchen of canned and other processed foods ("If this year could resolve anything for me, perhaps it would rid me of the desire to ever again buy any packaged food that boasted of its homemade flavor....") to a final food-gathering pilgrimage. That journey underscores Nabhan's conviction that we have too easily believed "the vacuous nutritional promises of the industrialized food that has sold our health down the river." In fact, the book encompasses an ongoing pilgrimage, during which Nabhan explores, for example, the near loss of saguaro cactus fruit as a dietary staple due to saguaro's use for "local color" in shopping malls, golf courses, and retirement centers. Readers, converted, skeptical, or just curious, will find Nabhan's book a source of many simple and stirring truths. "Until we stop craving to be somewhere else and someone else other than the animals whose very cells are constituted from the place on earth we love the most," he writes, "then there is little reason to care about the fate of native foods, family farms, or healthy landscapes and communities." But care we must, as the book shows so enlighteningly. --Arthur Boehm
Book Description
Issuing a "profound and engaging...passionate call to us to re-think our food industry" (Jim Harrison, author of The Raw and the Cooked), Gary Paul Nabhan reminds us that eating close to home is not just a matter of convenience—it is an act of deep cultural and environmental significance.
Embodying "a perspective...at once ecological, economic, humanistic, and spiritual" (Los Angeles Times), Nabhan has dedicated his life to raising awareness about food—as an avid gardener, as an ethnobotanist preserving seed diversity, and as an activist devoted to recovering native food traditions in the Southwest. This "inspired and eloquently detailed account" (Rick Bayless, Chefs Collaborative) tells of his year-long mission to eat only foods grown, fished, or gathered within two hundred miles of his home. "A good book for gardeners to read this winter" (New York Times), Nabhan's work "weav[es] together the traditions of Thoreau and M. F. K. Fisher [in] a soul food treatise for our time" (Peter Hoffman, Chefs Collaborative).
Customer Reviews:
Great topic--but why so much Spam?.......2007-08-15
I completely honor the impulse behind this book and believe in the importance of eating local. I also applaud Nabhan for thinking and writing about these issues before so many others (yet I'm also happy for the influx of recent local eating books and articles from Pollan, Kingsolver, McKibben, Alisa Smith & JB Mackinnon, and the blog by "No Impact Man"). Some scenes are powerful: eating ripe peaches, the short Thanksgiving section, reconnecting with family. The history and science sections are good too.
What surprised me, though, is that it seemed like throughout much of the book, Nabhan was in his Blazer, on a plane, or somewhere nowhere near home. Although he carried his fried grasshoppers and tortillas with him, I was longing to read more about the actual practices of growing and preparing local food (there is, however, plenty on roadkill). What surprised me more: the continual references to Spam, especially in relation to the sunset:
"As a Spam-colored sunset blanketed the western sky, the sweat on my back chilled" (40).
"At dusk they [mechanized dairy farms] took on a sickly greenish cast, the color of modly Spam" (158).
". . . each afternoon until the sun went down, gaudy as a thin slice of Spam" (276).
Why so much Spam? He buys a can of Spam in another odd section of the book where he spends $50 on a strange combination of food for a brunch that he and his partner, Laurie, don't eat. In another section, he throws a bunch of food in the compost bin because it uses cactuses in the advertising but doesn't contain cactus juice. I was puzzled by the waste. Why not eat the food and not buy it again? (Or in the supermarket venture, why not buy foods suitable for a decent brunch?)
In terms of the time in the Blazer and the time away from home, I understand that Nabhan's work and activism demand travel--and sometimes you see "home" more clearly when you're away from it. But I can't think of any reason for all the Spam.
A Great Book For Anyone.......2006-10-13
Coming Home to Eat is easy to read, enjoyable, and packed full of interesting details on a myriad of topics. This is the type of book you can give to almost anyone, and they will enjoy reading it. I'm a biologist with a background in conservation, and I really enjoyed reading about the natural history of many of the plants and animals in the book. I've given the book to two other people, and they both loved it, but for completely different reasons. One enjoyed all the detailed descriptions of cooking and meals; while the other was more interested by the social and economic aspects of the book. The author does a great job of weaving together several fairly disparate topics into a very entertaining narrative.
Follow One Man's Intense One Year Journey to Eat Locally.......2006-08-30
This book was, simply put, a joy to read, a veritable cauldron of ideas explored and fleshed out for the reader. It may be because I lived for 8+ years in the same general areas as Nabhan that I can get a feel for what he is talking about more easily, but more likely than not, it is not that which endears Coming Home to Eat is that Coming Home is more of a philosophy than anything else and Nabhan's enthusiasm is certainly catching, though some of his methods and ways are not for everyone (eating road-kill for instance).
This book is really an intimate look at one man's passion for eating as locally as possible, a goal I have long thought of as a grand ideal but more and more, it is something I would very much like to do and while I don't have a great deal of knowledge about where exactly to start...reading Coming Home has really given my ideas wings. Nabhan certainly brings to the fore wide ranging topics, touching on the "health" of our food supply, genetically altered seeds, ect...and really brings home the interconnectivity of the local, regional, national and global food chains. What this book doesn't cover in depth, one can certainly get by reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Pollan and I can honestly say, having read both, I am a better person for it.
I plan to buy a copy of this for my permanent library and would heartily recommend it to anyone! It's well written and while one gets the sense that Nabhan is on a personal crusade, it's not preachy or elitist in any way. It almost reads like a novel and I would caution that Coming Home to Eat does NOT provide any type of resource for eating locally (as in a formula for doing so), but it DOES provide inspiration and some very cool laugh out loud moments. A+!!
A Life-Changing Book.......2006-01-08
Quite simply, Gary Nabhan's Coming Home to Eat is one of the best books I've ever read, and one of the most important. I know of nothing else like it.
Nabhan's writing is engaging and moving, even poetic at times. He deals with the most serious of issues-the degradation of our environment, lifestyle, and health by the greed and power of giant corporations-with a deft use of humor.
The book skillfully interweaves his personal experiences in seeking local-grown or foraged foods with compelling analyses of how modern agriculture and marketing is destroying healthy traditional ways of life.
He ties together politics, ecology, anthropology, economics, history, and spirituality, using the stories of his family and his Native American friends and neighbors. Although there is much anger and sadness in the book, there's also much hope as well for a revival of traditional ways of feeding our bodies, our spirits, and our communities,
I'm grocery-shopping and eating differently since I've read Coming Home to Eat, and it's extraordinarily satisfying when I know what I've putting into my body, and where it came from..
I read a lot of nonfiction books, and many are informative and well-written. But this was the first one that impelled me to write an Amazon review.
Eating locally ain't easy.......2005-04-18
The premise is interesting--eating mainly foods grown locally. It's hard to know where our food comes from. But the book makes the case that learning more about where our food comes from is important. That we should carefully consider how our choices affect the environment and the economy. Not written in a way that makes you captivates you--but interesting all the same.
Average customer rating:
- The book's title says it all.
- Delicious recipes, but not very healthy
- Veggie Pleasures
- One of my favorite cookbooks
- a lot a great recipes
|
Quick Vegetarian Pleasures: More than 175 Fast, Delicious, and Healthy Meatless Recipes
Jeanne Lemlin
Manufacturer: William Morrow Cookbooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Quick & Easy
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Vegetables & Vegetarian
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Natural Foods
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
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Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet
ASIN: 0060969113 |
Book Description
More than 175 quick, wholesome, nutritious, and delicious recipes to be enjoyed by vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.
Customer Reviews:
The book's title says it all........2007-03-08
Jeanne Lemlin is one of my favorite cookbook authors. Her recipes ALWAYS succeed. They are well-written and friendly and contain a nice diversity of dishes. If she says a recipe is "simple" or "quick" to prepare it will be. The dishes ALWAYS taste good. Vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike will enjoy any of her books. Quick Vegetarian Pleasures is full of winners!
Delicious recipes, but not very healthy.......2007-01-18
I've used a number of recipes from this cookbook and have been mostly pleased. There are some nice deviations from the typical ingredients, including a few vegetables and grains I hadn't used before. The green bean and red pepper dish has become a staple in my home, and some of the other recipes inspired me to try different casserole dishes. Overall, I think it's a nice addition to my little cookbook collection.
However, most of the recipes in this book are very high in calories and fat. The author uses a LOT of butter and cheese--practically every recipe calls for a tablespoon or more of butter and mounds of cheese. Yes, you can cut back on these high fat additions and substitute oil in some places, but overall I would not call these recipes particularly healthy. I use most of the recipes only occasionally because of this.
Veggie Pleasures.......2007-01-10
The recipes are luscious and I'm going to try to incorporate them into our not-so-vegetarian lives.
One of my favorite cookbooks.......2006-10-09
This is one of our favorite cookbooks (our others from Moosewood, Jane Brody, and Tara Duggan). I think every recipe we've tried so far has been a winner. One of our staples is the lasagna recipe, which lets you skip the boiling the noodles step. Easy, fast, delicious.
a lot a great recipes.......2006-08-27
This is a great book for someone who is not necessarily a strict vegetarian, but would like to try eating more vegetables.
Amazon.com's Best of 2001
When Mai Pham--chef and owner of the renowned Lemon Grass Restaurant in Sacramento, California--left her home and her grandmother in Saigon in 1975, just days before the city fell to communist rule, she never thought she'd see either again. Happily for her, she returned 20 years later to rediscover her roots and reconnect with her 100-year-old grandmother. Happily for us, she's written Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table, in which she shares that journey--and the vibrant cuisine of her homeland. She weaves a stirring tale of rediscovery; of visiting with cooks in market stalls and street cafés and home kitchens; and, perhaps most importantly, of rediscovering her "favorite food on earth," pho, the noodle soup often referred to as the national dish of Vietnam.
Pham begins with a chapter on dipping sauces, condiments, and herbs, which, she explains, are the true backbone of Vietnamese cooking. She explores culinary variations: the "rice bowl" of the southern peninsula and the French- and Indian-inspired foods of Saigon; the more robust style of the cooler central region of Hue; and the straightforward style of the mountainous north. And she shares the simple, classic recipes that define Vietnamese food. Green Mango Salad with Grilled Beef is at once salty (from the ubiquitous fish sauce), sweet from the fruit, and tangy and spicy from Chili-Lime Sauce. Ginger Chicken is bright with the flavor of ginger and spicy with dried chilies; caramel sauce adds body and an intriguing sweet and smoky element to the dish. And of course, one can't forget the beloved pho, which gets a whole chapter to itself. The traditional Hanoi-style Vietnamese "Pho" Rice Noodle Soup with Beef is fragrant with anise and ginger and thick with velvety noodles and delectably rare beef suspended in the hot broth.
Featured throughout the book are black-and-white photographs of the country and its people, stories of Pham's childhood, and enchanting tales of the history and people of Vietnam that, taken together, highlight a rich and vibrant picture of the ancient cuisine of this complex country. Helpful guides to the Vietnamese pantry and cooking techniques, along with a glossary, menu suggestions, and a list of resources for the more exotic ingredients make the book extremely useful to even the uninitiated. --Robin Donovan
Book Description
A land of vibrant cultures and vivid contrasts, Vietnam is also home to some of the most delicious and intriguing food in the world. While its cooking traditions have been influenced by those of China, France, and even India, Vietnam has created a cuisine with a spirit and a flavor all its own.
Chef and restaurateur Mai Pham brings to life this diverse and exciting cooking in Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table. Born and raised in Saigon before emigrating to the United States, Mai has often returned to her native land to learn the secrets of authentic Vietnamese cooking, from family, friends, home cooks, street vendors, and master chefs. Traveling from region to region, she has gathered the simple, classic recipes that define Vietnamese food today: Green Mango Salad with Grilled Beef, Stir-Fried Chicken with Lemongrass and Chilies, Caramelized Garlic Shrimp, and especially pho, the country's beloved beef-and-noodle soup. With more than 100 recipes in all, Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table offers home cooks the chance to create and savor the traditional flavors of Vietnam in their own kitchen.
Filled with enchanting stories and stirring black-and-white photos of life in Vietnam, Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table provides a captivating taste of an enduring culture and its irresistible cuisine.
Customer Reviews:
If you want a simpler Vietnamese cookbook,.......2007-09-01
then you should buy Andre Nguyen's "Quick & Easy Vietnamese: Home Cooking For Everyone". Andre Nguyen's book is for beginners or for homecooks who want to put food on the table fast because he simplified the recipes, and it also has great photos for every recipe. Andre Nguyen's book has few ingredients for all the recipes, and the ingredients are easy to find in a Vietnamese market or other Southeast Asian markets. I bought both Andre Nguyen's book and Mai Pham's book. Mai Pham's "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table" is a great book because the recipes are truly authentic, but they are also more complicated because they require more ingredients. Other reviewers mentioned that "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table" is not for them because they are not hardcore cooks who want to slave over the stove for hours, and I know what they are talking about. I can sympathize with their problems because there are so many ingredients they have to deal with. For me, however, "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table" is special because I want to learn how to cook these Vietnamese recipes authentically, meaning taking more time and effort rather than using short cuts. It's important to me because I'm Vietnamese, and I want to learn and preserve Vietnamese cuisine as authentically as possible for future generations. I love Mai Pham's "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table" for its cultural values via authentic Vietnamese recipes. Learning to cook from Mai Pham's book may be a daunting task for beginners, so they might want to try an easier book such as Andre Nguyen's "Quick & Easy Vietnamese: Home Cooking For Everyone". Since I own both books, I use them both and I love them both. When I'm too tired to tackle the more complex recipes from Mai Pham's book, I just cook from Andre Nguyen's book. For most beginners, Andre Nguyen's book will probably be used more often.
just like the restaurant!.......2007-08-23
Great book! Easy to follow instructions, gives background info about the ingredients, and everything tastes great. The only complaint that I have, is that the book is not glossy, so it is easy to destroy if it gets wet.
"Just like mom makes it!" as stated by my husband!.......2006-11-19
My Mother-in-law (MIL)is Vietnamese which makes it difficult for us to find a great Vietnamese cookbook since we're always comparing it to her cooking. We wanted a cookbook that featured authentic dishes. And being that I'm hispanic it was really hard for me to replicate instictively what I saw my MIL make in her kitchen. But after getting this book...Wow! The dishes truly tasted the way they were supposed to! I know some reviewers have stated that the recipes are too time consuming, but you can always "modernize" a bit if your in a rush (Ex. She tells you to make the coconut milk from scratch. Very Time consuming! But just substitute for a good asian brand of canned coconut milk and the results are VERY close, specially if you're in a time crunch. That's what my MIL does!). The first time I made a recipe from this book my husband couldn't believe I had made it myself! It's true that you would need a pretty good asian/vietnamese market nearby for best results but I've done slight modifications when needed and still had a tasty meal at hand.
This is a great book to have in your library. You might not use this book every month but it has the BEST truly Vietnamese recipes I've ever tried. If you're not concerned about the authenticity of a recipe then you might prefer a different book that is "easier" but probably more suited to our american palates than the vietnamese...
great cookbook.......2006-02-19
aesthetically pleasing book with interesting background information on the dishes and good recipes. more pictures of the actual dishes would have helped, especially for those that you are not familiar with, but the easy to follow step-by-step directions made up for the lack of pictures
A Must Have Vietnamese Cookbook.......2006-01-11
Only received this book today and as yet have not attempted any of the recipes, however I have given it a good read and found myself totally immersed with the information related to cooking in Vietnam, the recipes themselves and the authors personal experiences. I am very much looking forward to cooking the recipes....this is my third Vietnamese cookbook...you will need to have a good Asian supermarket nearby, which thankfully I do..two infact. Good step by step guides will help you and unlike Japanese the more exotic ingredients really are'nt that hard to find. Add this one to your cookbook colection.
Book Description
Cooking with Nature's Rarest Treasure
Now you can make luxury a part of everyday dining, with delicious truffle-based dishes that only taste expensive. From truffle butters, oils, and cheeses to pastas, honey, and flour, this book shows you how to use the lure of truffles to create magical meals that are triumphs of easy yet affordable elegance.
Customer Reviews:
WOULDN'T KNOW HOW TO RATE b/c THEY NEVER SHIP IT!!!!.......2006-11-29
Tried more than 3 times to order this book from Amazon. Each time they have changed the shipping dates to months and months after I placed my order, over and over again until I finally cancel. After THREE attempts to buy this book I give up. This is ridiculous! Why are they selling this book on Amazon if they can't keep it stocked??????
Ugly--But Delicious and Worth Their Weight in Gold.......2003-01-19
This book is a bit of a heartbreaker in these tight economic times: The best truffles--the revered white truffles of Alba, in Northern Italy--were going for about [ninety dollars] an ounce the last time I looked, or dared to look. Still, it's a good read. If you (like most of us) can't afford truffles but (like some of us) are still entranced by them, this books counts as 'armchair dining.' And if you can afford these gems, this book will help you buy intelligently. Not only are there many different kinds of truffle but these days 'counterfeit' truffles--second- or third-raters dragged in from Hungary and China--have been sneaked onto the market. The lore you need to to tell them apart (and what to do with them when you buy) is here presented by Rosario Safina, president of Urbani USA, the world's largest truffle importer. Safina and his co-auther, Judith Sutton, do a good job of presenting both information and recipes. Apart from genuinely useful information, they also impart some truly strange facts. Considering what truffles fetch on the market today, is it not strange for example that not so many years ago people were ashamed to eat them? They were poor folks' food--ugly, strong-smelling fungi hunted out by dogs and dug up from underground. Well, there was a time when New Englanders felt the same way about another poverty dish--lobster.
Accessible Luxury.......2003-01-15
I love truffles but I've always thought of them as something you order in restaurants, not use in home cooking. They're expensive and I didn't really know how to buy them, store them, how much to use, and all that. This very well-written book tells all--and now that there's no mystery and I'm not afraid of making an costly mistake, I will buy truffles and truffle products. Truffle butter, honey, oil, cheese, and flour are all simple to use and will be great fun to play around with. To me they are the best kind of convenience foods--they add alot of flavor and luxury without a lot of cooking or prep time. I don't spend lots of time cooking--I think you can prepare great food without it--and this book seems to have that same philosopy. The recipes are simple and enticing. They often focus on humble foods--like potatoes, eggs, pasta, rice, lentils, and vinaigrettes--which give you a great way to flavor all your favorite foods and make any meal special with very little effort.
Another great cookery book by Judith Sutton.......2002-12-20
For years, Chef/Writer Sutton has guided my choice of cookery books through her book reviews and articles. Now her latest work--I often turn to her previous piece on champagne and chocolate--is a joy to behold. Beautiful, well-conceived. And the recipes, etc. are also great. Good reading. Good eating. Great gift. The best cookery book of the year.
Truffles ý My Ultimate Choice.......2002-12-06
Truffles Ultimate Luxury Everyday Pleasure Cookbook by Rosario Safina and Judit Sutton, with the marvelous photographs by Shimon and Tammar Rothstein - is much much more than an ordinary cookbook. The book treasures not only plenty of recipes (Over 115, I liked the smoked duck salad with pancetta, warm ricotta salata and black truffles, among other dishes too) and treasures not only The Rothstein's accompanying beautifull photos (didn't they just come out with Eric Riper's Cookbook A Return to Cooking?). The book also holds in its pages a brief history of truffles plus an important and an eyelightening information about The Truffles Family (White and Black Truffles and their relatives), How truffles grow and harvested, How to buy, store and serve truffles, and last but not least - introducing the truffle products: affordable luxuries. It calls for a celebration to all truffles lovers. It is also an opportunity to those, who are not aquainted with truffles, to taste it, to learn how to prepare outstanding tuffles-base dishes, and to start a new long friendship with that delicious food. Truffles are unique and The New Truffles Ultimate Luxury Everyday Pleasure Cookbook makes a valuable gift for my friends and myself.
Average customer rating:
- Outstanding Work by Mr. Sherman
- Good basic data
- Knowledgeable, objective, easy to read. An excellent book.
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Nat Sherman's a Passion for Cigars: Selecting, Preserving, Smoking, and Savoring One of Life's Greatest Pleasures
Joel Sherman , and
Robert Ivry
Manufacturer: Andrews Mcmeel Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Special Occasions
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Cigars
| Pop Culture
| Entertainment
| Subjects
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Customs & Traditions
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
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Manufacturing
| Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
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General
| Reference
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ASIN: 0836221826 |
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding Work by Mr. Sherman.......2000-06-27
One would think that one of the world-renowned cigar makers/cigar shop owners would be snobbish and elitist. WRONG! Mr. Sherman writes like a true aristocrat, that is, without any snobbery or pretense. This is a very readable and useful guide I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys cigars or just wants to know more about them.
Good basic data.......1998-11-21
Sherman's book is a good introduction to the art of cigars. The glimpse into the history of one of NY's premier cigar establishments is especially interesting, and the graphics are good. On the downside, I think the author spends too much time promoting his own brands, and occasionally strays from the core subject.
Knowledgeable, objective, easy to read. An excellent book........1998-07-13
This book covers the entire range of the cigar experience, from the history of cigar making, through the various countries that produce the best tobacco and cigars, through selection and care, to how to give a cigar dinner (with recipes!). I've given away two copies to friends and I'm ordering more.
Books:
- A View from the River: The Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise (Pomegranate Catalog, No. A537)
- American Wholefoods Cuisine
- At Home with Magnolia: Classic American Recipes from the Owner of Magnolia Bakery
- Bartender's Black Book, 7th Edition: 2,700 New and Classic Recipes
- Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes
- Breakfasts & Brunches (Culinary Institute of America)
- Chez Jacques: Traditions and Rituals of a Cook
- Cook Right 4 Your Type: The Practical Kitchen Companion to Eat Right 4 Your Type
- Crisis Preparedness Handbook: A Complete Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival
- Cucina Simpatica: Robust Trattoria Cooking From Al Forno
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