5 comments about Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America.

1. As the Caucasian parent of children adopted from Asia, I'm always interested in cookbooks that offer a healthy dose of cultural ed along with the recipes. This one does both things beautifully -- I have enjoyed the stories and the pictures very much. I have also made dozens of the included recipes, always with excellent results. (Living in an urban center with easy access to Chinese ingredients helps, but the difficulty level of many of these dishes is not as high as with some other Asian cookbooks I own, and should not be too scary even for beginning cooks.)

   The ultimate endorsement has to come from Chinese-American friends at the weekend school I attend with one of my kids. After having some of them over for a Lunar New Year party and serving the soy sauce chicken, steamed whole fish, and several other dishes from the book, I have gained a small reputation at the school as "that white woman who can cook Chinese food." The following year I made the steamed New Year's Cake (nian gao, in Mandarin) and took it to weekend school. Two of the faculty actually asked me for the recipe. I vow that one day soon I'm going to get the bamboo leaves out of my freezer, gird my loins, and cook up a batch of those time-consuming Jeng. Authors Ellen and Annabel have convinced me that the results might just be worth the effort.




2. After having moved away from home for a number of years, I started to realize and appreciate the important role of food to Chinese culture, family and traditions. Much to my chagrin, I had learned very little about the Chinese family kitchen while growing up. While I was nourished by the comfort foods my mother and aunts had made for us, I had very little knowledge of the mechanics of producing these offerings of love.
   Blonder and Low have done an impressive job of bringing back to the memories of my childhood, where food plays such a central role in Chinese family life. I have tried many of the recipes in this book and most of them have turned out just the way I recall my mother making them.
   And most of all, the stories and anecdotes demonstrate how Every Grain of Rice inextricably links culture and food to Chinese traditions. The authors recall momentous occasions such as Chinese New Year and donning their "best" clothes; the excitement of receiving little red "luy see".
   This book is all about comfort foods. It's about home cooking in the Chinese family. You will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. My cousin was looking through this book and disdainfully noted how the recipes were so "chop suey". I don't know if his description is correct, but you will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. Perhaps he was comparing it to the sometimes over-complicated and sophisticated, "gourment-style" Chinese cookbooks. It is certainly not that. It is purely about childhood memories of growing up Chinese in North America.



3. Great little stories but the REAL gems are the recipes. Not only do they work, they also deliver in the flavor department!

   I've been looking for a good char sui pork recipe since I was a teen. I've tried a bunch and I've been burned by them all, except the recipe in this book. Fabulous (and it freezes well too!)

   Great book.




4. The best Chinese cookobook bar none. Easy to follow recipes. Taste like the stuff my grandfather used to cook.



5. This is a beautiful and touching cookbook. The authors realized in midlife that their Aunties, Parents, and Grandparents were passing on and that they, the next generation, were ill-equipped to pass on the traditions and share the skills of making the food they remembered from when they were growing up. So they set about remedying the situation by cooking with their relatives until they could recreate the recipes and understand the philosophy behind much of the food that has meaning to them.
   
   I am not Chinese, but I grew up in a Chinese area of San Francisco and so have many of the same fondnesses for Chinese cooking, and this book is the first one I have found (and I have MANY Chinese cookbooks!) that has a Tomato Beef Chow Main recipe (and an excellent one, I might add - exactly what I remember from the local restaurants I ate at as a kid).
   
   If you have ever tried to make wontons and failed, try this book. If you enjoy cookbooks which combine short, personal stories with the recipes to give the recipes a context and a meaning, then buy this book.
   
   The illustrations add so much to the amazing recipes, too. This makes an excellent gift for anyone missing Chinese home cooking, or for anyone who has a weakness for dim sum.
   
   The authors also have a book on cooking dim sum which is excellent as well. I prefer this one mostly because I prefer cooking meals to dim sum type foods and because I have such fond memories of so many of these foods, but I found both books easy to follow and both have produced truly excellent results on the first tries.
   
   HIGHLY Recommended.

No comments about Afghanistan Cuisine.

4 comments about China The Beautiful (Beautiful Cookbook).

1. This book encompasses all regions- not just Canton. And its genuinely authentic- just like what you would find at fine restaurants in China (i've been there). A lot of great regional recipes (good schezuan).

   If i had to pick one cookbook for restaurant style chinese food, this would be it. Note,though, that: a) its authentic and assumes some knowledge (not a starter cookbook); and b) its not exactly homestyle comfort food. The dishes are spectacular, though. Beautiful coffeetable book.




2. This was my very first "Beatiful Cookbook". I used it all the time, until it mysteriously disappeared after a dinner I cooked for friends... I am a Chinese food junkie and felt lost without it until one day at an airport bookstore found it again and was overjoyed to pay FULL price and cram it into my bulging suitcase.
   It was worth it! I had an asian friend who read the book and was amazed at how authentic the dishes are. While I haven't been adventurous enough to make some of the dishes, I still love the photos and history, and have many favorite recipies!



3. I have been looking at this book for 5 years but due to the price I have avoided purchasing it however my wife got it for me this past Christmas. This is the best Chinese food I have ever had and my kids (10, 8 and 7) destroy the food as soon as it hit the table. The first dish I made was the sweet and sour pork now I make something from this book every Saturday. I only wish I would have got it five years ago. This is a must buy for those of us that are obsessed with the Chinese culture or just truly enjoy Chinese food. The photos are just as good as the food. The only mistake you can make with this book is not buying it.



4. My whole family love this book, we have our favorite recipes within the book, we use it all the time, the recipes are easy to follow and the finished product taste like home cooking, each recipe has a picture of the finished dish, I like to see how my dish compares with the one on the book. This is a great book for anybody.

5 comments about The Essential Asian Cookbook (Essential Cookbooks Series).

1. I received this book for my birthday because I had it on my Amazon wish list. I like it fine, but I think the recipes were not tested thoroughly in regards to their ingredient lists. For one thing, some dishes are missing what I consider the defining flavor/ingredient, like omitting star anise from the Vietnamese beef noodle soup (pho) recipe. I just about fell off my chair when I saw that...star anise IS pho. My mother is Vietnamese, so I've had plenty of pho in my lifetime to know this. Ironically, there's a picture of star anise on the page that introduces the Vietnamese section.

   I also think there should've been red onion and Thai basil in the Thai beef salad recipe. Lastly, the Singapore noodle dish came out a bit bland because the recipe called for way too many noodles and not enough seasoning. I didn't even use the full amount of noodles -- it called for roughly 9.5 oz., I used 8 oz. I had to add a lot more extra seasoning during the last stage of cooking, and by then the meat had overcooked.

   The book also has the annoying habit of integrating prep instructions with regular instructions. Anyone who knows anything about Asian cooking understands that prep is 90% of the work -- you need to have everything sliced, diced, marinated, because you toss it all together very quickly when cooking. Although each recipe has estimated prep and cooking times, it wasn't clear to me what the authors considered prep vs. cooking.

   This book is good for someone who already knows how to cook and is just getting their feet wet with Asian cooking. It's also good for cooks who don't have the access or knowledge to some of the harder-to-find ingredients. You swap authentic taste for convenience, however. Also, it's a bummer that I feel I now have to second-guess the recipes where ingredients and measurements are concerned.




2. Since I am Chinese and have much interest in asian cooking, I thought this cookbook is a good start for people who aren't familiar with Asian food but want something more "authentic". Tried a few recipes and it turned out great! Have to say that it's hard to get some of the ingredients depend on which part of US you're living in.



3. This book is wonderful! For one thing, I'm the worse cook in the world, but every recipe I have tried in this book has turned out just perfect!! I bought in on the strength of it's gorgeous layout and appetizing photographs, which do nothing but add to the overall quality. Usually, I don't like to cook, and my cooking reflects it, but I am having a blast with this book. The variety of recipes cover many Asian countries, even some more obscure and lesser known ones. Most of the ingredients are readily available in my supermarket (though not all), but enough to allow me to try most of these recipes. The recipes are rated for difficulty as "easy", "medium" or "harder", and as a non-cooker, I find the "easy" recipes a breeze. Each entry will also tell you how much time is required for preparation, marinating and for cooking, so it helps you plan, and you know what you are getting into even before you start. The ingredients are listed in commone Western units, often listing Metric and Imperial measurements at the same time which is a great help and really helps you visualize what you will need. Ingredients are listed in the order that you need them, which also makes getting organized easy. I find the flavors subtle and authentic. I was worried about too spicy dishes, but nothing has been too hot for me so far. And if it is too hot, I can always adjust the spices.

   My only complaint is that the book, being from Australia, uses some cooking terminology is a bit odd, but I have been able to figure most of it out. Pork mince is obviously ground pork, and I think that an "egg slice" (turn pancake over with egg slice) is a spatula. A lot of recipes call for cornflour, which I take to be cornstarch. I have been using cornstarch in all recipes calling for cornfloor, and everything has turned out perfect. Whether you like to cook or not, I guarantee that this book will thrill you! This book is turning me into someone who actually enjoys cooking!




4. My daughter bought this book years ago at Sam's Club. I thought she was spending money necessarily. Then I tried a couple of the recipes and immediately bought one for me and for each of my older children. Every recipe we have tried has been wonderful, and a few are my very favorite dishes to make.



5. I've been borrowing Asian books from the library and even owning some but all of them is a hit or miss -NOT THIS ONE. Although Im relying on the users' reviews for every recipe, I just tried several dishes on this book and its a hit!
   
   I am actually proud of doing Indian dishes, Thai dishes and even Singaporean from this book and get a very good reaction from my husband who is a picky eater. I told him about the book and he agreed this book has tasty recipes!

1 comments about Vatch's Thai Kitchen: Thai Dishes to Cook at Home.

1. `Vatch's Thai Kitchen' by chef Vatcharin Bhumichitr is a relatively inexpensive (cover price $24.95) collection of recipes and adaptations of recipes he prepares in his various restaurants in London and Miami. My first impression is that this is a book on the fast track to the budget tables at Borders and Barnes and Noble, as it is in an oversized format with big pictures and a less than big name publisher. But one can be wrong about these things, so I press on.
   
   If a book is very good (at least five stars) or very bad (three stars or less), you can tell it after reading a page or two. I cannot tell after a few pages whether this book is very good or very bad, so there is a good chance that you can also reliably assign four stars after just two or three pages, but I will go further, because it is easy for a four star book to still have strong appeal to a special audience.
   
   There are at least two special audiences that can do better than this book. The first is easily those who want a taste of real Thai cooking from an authoritative source. As luck would have it, there is an excellent, authoritative book in English on Thai cooking, the book `Thai Food' by David Thompson', published by Ten Speed Press. While this book lists for $40, it has 670 pages compared to the thin 144 pages from chef Vatch. Thompson's book has been criticized for being pretty parochial for requiring a lot of hard to find Thai ingredients.
   
   Bhumichitr's book promises to give recipes one can make with ingredients available at your local supermarket. Well, I think not. He has several recipes that make use of ingredients I tend to have a hard time finding even at my local megamart. Lemongrass is becoming pretty common these days, but I still cannot find Kafir lime leaves on a regular basis, and I have never found fresh galangal, even in New York City in Chinatown, Dean and Delucca, or Zabars. The best I did was a tin of dried galangal. So, if you are going to the trouble of ordering ingredients through the Internet, why not simply get Thompson's authoritative book to begin with.
   
   I also found more than one case where the basic style of Thai food as described by Thompson is violated by Bhumichitr's dishes. Thompson says Thai salads are simple affairs with little added to distract from the featured ingredient. Bhumichitr's salads seem to have everything but the kitchen sink.
   
   I have other difficulties with this book. While I am usually willing to forgive a few minor errors in recipe writing, they usually mean that a book containing such lapses in editing are not suitable for beginning cooks, since an experienced cook will easily think through the lapses. In this book, I think the prep instructions are not very carefully checked, as there are several times when I believe the intention was to peal vegetables, yet there is no mention of this step. I am also not thrilled about the author's stating that deep-frying can be done with equal ease with either a wok or a deep fryer.
   
   The introductory section on ingredients looks good, but I think it is only fair at best. There are several Asian ingredients used in the recipes that are not covered in the chapter on ingredients. I also question some of the statements in this section, as when the author says that galangal was `immensely popular' in late Medieval Europe. I checked my medieval cookbooks and found it mentioned in only one out of three books, and only in a minor role in a few less common recipes. There was no mention of it in my Renaissance cookbook. Much of the effort going into this section is wasted, as there are pictures of some of the ingredients, but nothing to connect those pictures to the text. Tsk, tsk.
   
   So this book is certainly of little value for people interested in authentic Thai cuisine or to people interested in easy Thai cooking. One audience that may find value here is experienced Thai cooks who want to add interesting entertaining recipes to their arsenal. Many of the recipes are easy, with very fancy, elaborate looking results. For that purpose, almost every recipe is accompanied by a better than average photograph of the dish. This is not something you will get from `Thai Food', so, if this is your cup of tea, then this book will help you.
   
   While I have not reviewed it, if you are interested in Thai cooking and find Thompson's book a bit dry, try Alford and Duguid's book `Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet'.

1 comments about The Completelete Step-by-Step Chinese & Asian Cookbook: The very best of Far Eastern food in one easy-to-follow collection.

1. I love everything about this book except its font size. Its tiny print is a handicap in the kitchen. However, its breadth of Asian cooking is near encyclopedic, and it's loaded with step-by-step photos and tips and traps for each dish. You'll get several cultures' take on chicken, beef, and dessert dishes, some with similar names. The binding is nice because it stays open. But unless you have eyes like an eagle, bring a magnifying glass. The recipes are worth the trouble.

1 comments about Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History.

1. Love this book but not for the recipes but for the history. If you're looking for a cook book pass but if you're interested in the history of Korean food then this one is for you. Want to learn how to set a table for a royal meal and why it's done that way? It's inside this book.

4 comments about Thai Cooking: From the Siam Cuisine Restaurant.

1. This is a great Thai cookbook. Simple to understand, a variety of dishes so the non-beginner won't get bored, and things uniformly taste wonderful. Apparently the authors run a great Thai restaurant in the East Bay area of San Francisco, California. It's the Thai cookbook I refer to the most of the several I own; and apparently the authors have produced a Thai cooking video as well, which it doesn't look like Amazon.com carries as yet. You can find the Siam Cuisine website, though, for further info, I suppose.



2. I bought this book when I was 18 and working my way through college as a cook. I loved Asian food, but did't have much experience cooking Thai food. The fact that this cookbook makes you (lets you) make all the curries from scratch is wonderful. It took some searching to get all the ingredients exactly right, but the first few meals I made with this book were just amazing. I continued to cook, and became a professional chef with a giant bookshelf full of cookbooks, well over 200. Now, 14 years later, I rarely use cookbooks, but whenever I do, or if a friend wants to borrow a book for something new, this is the one I give them. I love all of the Charlie Trotter books for the pics and ideas, but this book is the best for recipes. (I know I'm crossing cultural barriers, but I hope you get the point.) After I made my first meal from this book, for a girlfriend, I vowed that I'd go to this restaurant if I ever "made it to San Francisco." Well, now every time I'm there, I make sure I hit Berkeley to go there. The restaurant lives up to all of the recipes, and, this might surprise some, the dishes in the restaurant taste JUST LIKE the ones made from the book. It's one of my favorite restaurants, definitely the best Thai restaurant I've ever been to, and without a doubt, if we're judging cookbooks by the number of times they've been opened, this is the best among my collection. If you're in a smaller city, you might have some trouble getting some ingredients, but if you can't improvise you can always get something from the net. Even if you DO have do substitute some ingredients, I would recommend this cookbook above any other Thai cookbook I've seen, and above any other Asian cookbook as well.



3. I was disappointed with this book because too many of the recipes are not self contained, but rather require you use "Special Sauce #1" or "Special Sauce #2". What if I don't want to make a big batch of your special sauce (that intentionally creates more than for just one recipe). I want to be able to see a recipe and follow it to produce a dish for that night. I own a lot of thai cookbooks. This one does not see the light of day.



4. Another reviewer talked about having to make sauces and normally I would agree - it is daunting to have to make sauces first. But in this case, the food you get when you make it is some of the best food ever - better than most Thai restaurants. The Pad Thai is incredible. The yellow chicken curry is the best I have had in twenty years. Just outstanding. If you hunger for really good Thai food, then get this book!

5 comments about A Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Family Recipes (Hippocrene Cookbook Library).

1. Below was an email from Karla Dummer, minneapolis , mn -- thank you Karla:
   
   Hi Ha,
   
   I have been looking for a vietnamese cookbook with authentic recipes for a few years now. Couldn't make a spring roll to save my soul. With your book, I got them done perfectly by the 10th try. I also thought the sweet and sour sauce was perfect. Thanks for your family's recipes, I am having so much fun making great tasting food!
   
   Karla Dummer, minneapolis , mn.



2. Hi Ha,
   
   I purchased a lot of Vietnamese Cook Books through out my years but never found one that was great, until I bought your book. I thought this book was very well written and illistruated. I really use this book a lot. I do recommend this book to everyone that wants to learn how to cook Vietnamese food. Thanks for bring me back to my root in Vietnamese cooking Ha.



3. This is a great book for a Native born Vietnamese who has been in the US for 30 years like me. I don't know how to cook Vietnamese food but love to eat Vietnamese food and this book helps my meal preparing task a lot easier. I love how the author puts in lots of research and insights on the Vietnamese cultures. It is fascinating, even for a Vietnamese like me. Great job, Mrs. Ha Roda!!!!



4. Ms. Roda's cookbook is a joy to use. Her recipes are easy to follow and her ingredients are not only inexpensive but provide healthy eating for all. I have sent this cookbook to family and friends and all have shared my enthusiasm for this culinary look into Vietnamese family traditions.
   Three cheers, five stars, Ms. Roda!



5. When I got this book I knew nothing about Vietnamese food. I like to cook and try new things, I have other books on Thai, Japanese, Caribean food and unfortunately I have rarely tried the recipes because it always seems like a big production. With these book you get simple instructions from the food you need to buy or what you can replace it with, all the way to detailed directions on how to prepare the food. And the recipes are not complicated at all. The Vietnamese spring rolls have become one of our favorite weekly meals !!!!
   I would recommend this book to anyone regardless of their level of expertise.

1 comments about The Best of Goan Cooking (Hippocrene International Cookbook Series).

1. I got this book as a gift from a relative who is a superb Goan cook. She swore to its authenticity. I have successfully cooked Pork Vindaloo, the Recheiad masala fried fish and a few other dishes from this book.
   
   In order to properly grind the masalas, you need a wet/dry grinder like the Sumeet. Imho, the food processor does not create the right texture.