Aimed squarely at the teenage market, The New Students’ Veggie Cookbook addresses not just what a young vegetarian should eat, but also how to keep fit and healthy while doing so. The book covers the basics of setting up a kitchen, stocking a pantry, offering helpful and very clear instructions on how best to chop an onion, boil an egg and, interestingly, how to store food.
Over the past few years publishers Phaidon have been establishing a presence in the cookbook market. “The Silver Spoon For Children” is their first move into the area of cooking with children. Often, books in this area of cooking, like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “The River Cottage Family Cookbook”, are written for adults as a guide to teaching children how to cook. This book’s approach involves having a child read it, and then prepare the recipes with the aid of an adult. By simplifying the recipes to their essence, and using large pictures and bright colours to grab attention, this book is one that has a great chance of engaging young minds.
The book takes its recipes from “The Silver Spoon”, and is aimed at children aged at least nine years old. The recipes have been tested by children, so parents can be reasonably confident that the recipes will work. As someone who has not been impressed by Phaidon’s cookbooks, this one has been surprisingly good.
This contemporary introduction to cooking and food preparation focuses on information that is relevant to today’s aspiring chef. It emphasizes an understanding of cooking fundamentals, explores the preparation of fresh ingredients, and provides information on other relevant topics.
Hugh Garvey and Matthew Yeomans are the creators of the popular gastrokid.com website. The book, like the website, is focussed on cooking for families. While there is an emphasis on simplicity and the use of fresh ingredients, the authors strongly encourage their readers to try new foods. They believe that parents should not prejudge what their children will or will not eat, and that finicky tastes are something to be expected. As a parent of two children, it is an attitude that I agree with. The book’s recipes cover the day’s three main meals, snacks, and picnic food. Many of the recipes are designed to allow children to be involved in the preparation, with the pleasing consequence that techniques are often simple and quick. The book is littered with bits of trivia and tips, and overall, it is a package that many families will find very useful.
In Notes on Cooking, Lauren Braun Costello and Russell Reich provide us with 217 insights into what it takes to be a good cook – what they call a “concentration of the culinary craft.” Though each item is brief, most are immediately useful, insightful, and will have an impact on your kitchen habits. It makes an excellent gift for the starting and intermediate cook, but even experienced cooks will benefit from reflecting on the wisdom in it.
Michael Ruhlman’s book Ratio promises a lot. He seeks to teach home cooks about the basic relationships between ingredients that form the basis of so many preparations – from custard to bread to sausages to mayonnaise. Bread, for instance, is 5 parts flour to 3 parts water. These relationships, ratios or “codes” for combining ingredients, are more fundamental than the specific weights and volumes of today’s flood of “new” recipes.
I was excited in anticipation of this book, but was greatly disappointed with the outcome from this otherwise good author. Ratios are a great approach to reviving cooking “sense”, but they require skill in definition and explanation. Somehow Ruhlman’s sense for communicating about cookery didn’t conquer the demands of explaining a mathematical relationship clearly to a range of possible readers. It was never going to be an easy task, especially when trying to apply chef sense to something which domestic cooks have largely forgotten. Nonetheless, despite its failings, the existence of this book is truly valuable and can be of utility to certain readers – those who are already familiar with ratios in cooking, perceptive novices who need no visual material, and perhaps some others who might want to explore their own understanding of cooking fundamentals.
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New release: The Complete Mushroom Hunter The Complete Mushroom Hunter is the only mushrooming book that will introduce you safely and with confidence to the hobby of mushroom hunting and gathering. Gary Lincoff escorts you from getting equipped for mushroom forays to preparing and serving the fruits of the foray. |
New release: Salades Acclaimed chef Damien Pignolet shows us the endless possibilities of the salad. Here are entrée salads to stimulate the appetite, side salads to refresh the palate, and warm salads that serve as a meal in their own right. |
New release: Street Food of India The acclaimed photographer Sephi Bergerson has been tracking down the very best street food in India. The resulting book is a visual celebration of this splendid everyday cuisine and a virtual feast in itself, with nearly 50 authentic and detailed recipes. |
New edition: The Food Substitutions Bible This new edition of The Food Substitutions Bible has the best instructions for the home cook or professional chef who needs to find a great substitution when a vital ingredient is missing at a critical time in the preparation of a recipe. |
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New edition: Will Write for Food Noted journalist and food-writing instructor Dianne Jacob has revised her award-winning book to include a chapter covering all the how-to’s of food blogging as well as updated resources and new information on working in other popular genres, namely cookbooks and food memoirs. |
New release: The Yogurt Cookbook By acclaimed author Arto der Haroutunian, The Yogurt Cookbook offers over 200 recipes ranging from hearty peasant fare to elegant, light dishes. He expands yogurt beyond the narrow limitations of breakfasts and desserts, incorporating it into an impressive array of recipes. |
New release: The Lost Art of Real Cooking The Lost Art of Real Cooking heralds a new old-fashioned approach to food-laborious and inconvenient, yet extraordinarily rewarding and worth bragging about. From jam to smoked meat, the authors arm you with the skills that let you connect on a deeper level with your food. |
New release: Leiths Meat Bible Leiths Meat Bible is the ultimate meat cookbook. Packed with recipes from all over the world, it has something for every occasion, from a simple after-work supper to an elegant dinner. All recipes are foolproof with an emphasis on proper technique. |
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