5 comments about Sam Choy's Island Flavors.

1. Sam Choy has always made cooking hawaiian style simple for me. I like his sense of humor and food combinations. My only problem is finding fresh ingredients here in eastern Washington. I use this book primarily for summer luau parties and impress all my friends. It has lots of variety.



2. All of Sam Choy's books are good, but this one has a special place in my kitchen, because it covers the gamut of dishes. Unlike his seafood and Poke books, Sam provides some of the finest "home cooking" recipes of the islands.

   Well done!




3. With an UKU here and an OPAKA PAKA there, a touch of mango and crushed lemon grass, coconut hull fires and roasted HAPU UPU U, new ways to whisk a mother hollandaise,and flavors that jump right up off the page.That is Sam Choy's Island Flavors.
   When exploring new techniques and language in cooking it really is irrelevant if the recipes are complicated, compound, simple or sublime, what matters is if they work. The recipes in Island Flavors work. Too often the reader/cook is duped into buying a cookbook by the way it looks and the food displayed, or by the hype and narrative of paid critics and TV shows. Thankfully there is no illusion to this cookbook. I have found the recipes to be both true to the pan, and true to the palate.
   This is a highly recommended cookbook for the novice as well as the more experienced cook. It is full of great information, and you can feel Sam Choy's love of food throughout the book. Food is love so why not read and cook with those who love the craft, and leave the dilletantes of cuisine to gather dust on the backshelves, or in the late night hours of Emeril hell. Sam Choy cooks great food, is a great chef, and is a great food writer. Cook along with him as you read and you will understand why so many of the great chefs are smiling all the time. Food this lively can only make you happy.



4. I haven't tried to make anything yet and it's mainly because I don't know what each dish is simply by it's title. There are only a few photos of his dishes (and they're not next to the recipe, the few given are all in the center of the book). I like to know what a recipe should look like when it's done so I know I've done it right - this book seriously lacks in that department, something I find very important in a cookbook. However, if that doesn't bother you and you just want the recipes, I'm sure it's great because Sam's a great chef.



5. Wonderful book of the Island's favorites along with Sam's favorites. The food in Hawaii is delicious and this is a welcome addition to my shelf for bringing those flavors to home when we can't be there. This is one of my favorites of Sam's book because anyone can cook from it.

5 comments about True Thai: The Modern Art of Thai Cooking.

1. Victor Sodsook tells us early on of his experiences as a child at his mother's elbow, pulverizing spices, garlic, and ginger in a mortar and pestle. This, he explains is one of the most sensual parts of cooking and when he teaches others to cook he starts them the same way. The story proves that Sodsook knows and loves his topic and is passionate about having his audience know it and love it as he does. This places his food writing in the same echelon as Marcella Hazan's.
   
   Whenever I read the recipes, my mouth waters and I want to cook them. Unfortunately, however, I live half an hour's drive from the nearest location that would have all of the essential ingredients. Each recipe has at least one ingredient I do not stock. And my kitchen boasts at least sixty dried herbs and spices. It is the fresh lemon grass, galangal, tamarind, Kaffir lime leaves, cilantro, and fish sauce that always seem to be missing. If I cooked Thai weekly, I could stock the fish sauce and tamarind. The lemon grass, leaves, and galangal, and cilantro are a bigger problem. People who live near a really good Asian food market or are willing to plan their meals more carefully than I do may find this problem quite tractable.
   
   So I have a wicked confession. I have not yet cooked from this book. I live near six very good Thai restaurants, each of which is reasonably inexpensive. And in all of the places I have lived, I believe it must have been easier to buy really good cooked Thai meals than to buy the ingredients for them.
   
   Still, if one is determined to learn Thai cooking, this is an excellent place to start. The recipes cover a wide variety of foods, cooking techniques, and ingredient combinations. The instructions are spare but clear and complete. The methods are not elaborate. Few voices beckon a cook to new territory or welcome him so warmly as Sodsook's.



2. I never knew a cookbook with so few photos could be so beautiful! The descriptions are so vivid, you hardly miss the photos. While you learn to make curry pastes and hot sauces from scratch, you can also learn the history and culture behind different dishes. The recipes I've tried so far have been delicious, and they taste even better knowing some of the background of the dishes. It's also more gratifying knowing that you made everything yourself with fresh ingredients, rather than buying premixed spices. I made the pad Thai for someone last night, and he agreed that it tasted just like what he would get at a restaurant.



3. I wanted one Thai cookbook that would tell me how to do everything for my Thai cuisine loving hubby.
   
   This is it!
   
   Ok, it's very time consuming. But believe me, it's worth it! Each time I've made these recipes for dinner guests they've been blow away.
   
   You do need access to a good asian grocer in order to make the recipes in this book. When I've been in a hurry, I've even cheated by using a reputable brands "curry sauce" as a base, reviewed the ingredients in it and IMPROVED it by using the recipes in this book.



4. I'm a Thai food affectionado and always looking for the most authentic stuff around. I'm also so picky that sometimes I take to making the stuff on my own when I can't find it around. This book is awesome. Few points that I noticed:
   
   1. A lot of the recipes call for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too much garlic. So much garlic that it overpowers the dish. I made the blue shell crab meal and used 4 instead of 6 garlic cloves and still ended up with a rather unpalatable final dish which didn't do those live crabs justice for sacrificing their lives!
   
   2. I'm not accustomed to all the use of the various dried chiles. I suppose it would be difficult to give a fresh chile vs dried version in such a lengthy book.
   
   3. Has tons of great recipes. I was amazed when my red chicken curry tasted exactly like a good restaurant's version! I also now appreciate the amount of time and effort that goes into making curry paste, wow. It's labor and time intesive.
   
   If I was to choose a thai cookbook to have, this would be it along with The original Thai cookbook



5. I've had a great time trying to make the recipes from this book. However, I wouldn't generally consider cooking my primary hobby, so a lot of these involved more dedication than I'm interested in. Be warned that a lot of the recipes involve tons of prep time - first making a curry paste from scratch, which is not trivial, before you can really start the recipe at hand. Unless you just want to use curry paste from a jar, but then you hardly need the cookbook at all.
   
   Also, while there is an explanation of some of the more exotic ingredients, and suggestions about where to get them, there are also many exotic ingredients that go completely unexplained, so you just have to hope that you live near a Thai market and can manage to pronounce the ingredient name well enough to get them to know what you're talking about.
   
   These are surmountable obstacles, but they take time. If you're willing to deal with all that, the results are great.

3 comments about Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World: A Concise History with 174 Recipes (California Studies in Food and Culture).

1. "Bang the casserole against the ground," an instruction from one of the recipes in Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World (p.135). (Kids, do not do this at home!)
   
   The book was written in French, translated to Italian, and from the Italian into English, that is a long journey to take for a text dealing with medieval Islamic cookery written originally in Arabic. The book, nevertheless, generally makes a smooth read, with the exception of some instances where the reader is left puzzled whether the translation, the writer or the original Arabic texts and recipes are indeed to blame. Some things did get lost in translation, all right.
   
   There are places where ingredients are wrongly identified and sentences not accurately construed. For instance, according to a recipe, the dish is presented by stacking chicken pieces on top of each other (p.64), whereas in reality, the recipe asks the cook to arrange the pieces (tunadhdhad) on the platter. A medieval pot called dast is inaccurately translated as a `jar.' Jam, once again, is rendered as a jar (196), whereas, in the medieval culinary lingo it is actually a platter. Pickled lemons kept in brine (musayyar), the signature condiment of the North African cuisine then and now, is erroneously rendered as `candied lemon' (p.67), or `lemon coated with salt' (p. 138). The flavor of one of the dishes in a recipe is described as "sweet and sour flavor that influences the mood of the person who eats it (p. 81)," whereas the original recipe simply suggests that the sweetness and sourness of the dish is to be determined by the eater's mizaj temperament, in modern terms, "adjust to taste." The green seeds in one of the recipes are not cardamom as rendered (p. 130), but terebinth berries. The quince and onions that have been "chopped but not cut up into pieces," (p. 139) - does not make sense at all, are in fact to be "slashed into sections, but not all the way down" as the original Arabic recipe instructs. Some of the statements sound rather funny, a condiment recipe, for instance calls for "locusts that have returned from hunting" (p. 140), which should be "locusts that have just been caught," 140). Or, the recipe instructs the cook to "bang the casserole against the ground" (135)- sounds like the medieval cook was under a lot of stress! In fact, the cook is asked to put the pot on the ground away from the fire, and beat the cooking dessert vigorously. There are also some inaccurate generalizations, such as fish was mostly consumed dried in the eastern medieval Islamic world.
   
   The best part in the book is the first, dealing with background of the medieval Arab cuisine. It is well researched, although I find it strange that there is no bibliography. It would have been nice to see the sources that contributed to the research put together at one place, as I do not think the inclusion of a bibliography would have made the book less appetizing to the `general reader.' In the third part, which entirely focuses on modern North African dishes, the writer's own cuisine, I felt the need, especially when in a lazy mood, for a brief note telling me where in the second part (dealing with the original medieval recipes) a given modern recipe has its counterpart. Besides, medieval weights are not explained, neither are we given the modern equivalents, except for the pound, which is mentioned alongside the dirham and uqiyya, which does not help much.
   
   I also find it odd that the back flap of the dust jacket, while it includes a brief description of the writer and the forwarder, the translator, who, besides working on the text and has, in his own words, "made a great many changes to the organization of the Italian edition while also adding a good deal of material to the text, glossary and notes" was left out. As a reader, I am entitled to know something about him, as well.
   
   All things considered, the book after all is what it claims to be, a concise history. It is smartly packaged and priced, visually appealing with some color medieval illustrations. So, all in all, it can be a fair deal.



2. As an amateur student of culinary history, in particular medieval Arabic recipes, this book is an excellently done translation of recipes and culture that has not been readily available in English. While Charles Perry (who wrote the Foreward) is noted for his translations of some medieval Arabic recipes, for the most part the rich tradition of this culture has been largely unknown in the West. Hopefully, this book, and some of the others available on Amazon now about the culture and times, will make a difference. Culinary history as a topic is something that has fallen on hard times, when in the past, a cultured person of any nationality prided themselves on knowing something about cooking from around the world, even if they didn't cook themselves.
   
   I'm looking forward to making many of the dishes described, and finding my own way of incorporating them into the modern world!



3. Useful as a sort of summary of the subject. The Foreword, by Charles Perry, a well known scholar, recapitulates the subject but says nothing about the book in hand. The same contents can be found in so many other books that cover this same subject. For general information may be adequate, not so for study. It is very rare to find a source being given; the lack of bibliography only makes things worse.

4 comments about Rice Bowl Recipes: Over 100 Tasty One-Dish Meals.

1. I am not a Japanese but my wife and I love eating Japanese food. We bought this book and used it multiple times for cooking dinner. The instruction was clear and the result was tasty. Highly recommended.

   PS: We usually just look at the photos in the book to pick the rice bowl that we want to prepare.




2. I picked up this book on a trip to Japan and didn't really expect much out of it. To my surprise, it's become one of my all-time favourite cookbooks. It's a great way to start learning about Japanese home cooking. There are also some great recipes for Korean and Chinese dishes. Every recipe I've tried is quite tasty and easy to prepare. It's also great when cooking for 1-2 people or when you're on the go. For years I've thought rice was a side bowl of dry and bland grains. Well, no more! Get yourself a decent rice cooker and get ready for a new way of preparing wholesome, quick, and delicious meals.



3. If you like rice dishes, buy this book. I'm no cook, but I've tried 3 different dishes in as many nights, and they all turned out great.
   
   There're MANY simple, delicious dishes that you can cook up within an hour or less. All I've bought so far is sake (I have most other oriental spices, oil, and what nots).
   
   I just had to get used to cooking w/o salt, cos you use soy sauce alot of times.
   
   Buy it and enjoy it!



4. Wow. That sums this up in one word. The recipies are setup for a serving of 1 person. No division required for odd number of people, just multiply the recipie and wham! We've made dozens of the recipies and although I'm white, I've got a phillipeano friend that's telling everyone that I'm asian. The meals come out soo good I've got people asking us to cook for them. It's got helpful information for properly preparing rice, and other aspects of cooking that might be foreign to a lot of people out there. I definately recommend this for everyone.

5 comments about Thai Cooking Made Easy.

1. This cookbook is okay for its nice pictures but is not one of
   the best. It doesn't tell the real recipies--missing some ingredients in some recipies. I wish the owner of the Thai restaurant would give away the real recipies since he has been making lots of money from his business ( already! ).
   
   I was diappointed to buy this book but I enjoyed looking at all the pictures in it. This book might be helpful for some beginners out there though.
   
   the facts--
   Most Thai restaurants don't wash the veggies because they're afraid they can't keep the veggies for long time.
   
   They usually use MSG and usually tell their customers NO MSG added :)
   
   They use fish sauce and oyster sauce and tell those vegans NO fish sauce NO oyster sauce. ( Impossible: All ready to cook sauces )
   
   Some restaurants use Chicken broth instead of using MSG and will tell you NO MSG added. ( they use MSG anyway because is far cheaper!! )
   
   Some of them hire illegal workers and they love to hide paying real taxes.
   
   Do you think they change the cooking oil as often as they should have???? ( Usually....NO!! ) ( FOR DEEP-FRIED FOOD !! )
   
   Peanuts,crushed peanut,dried chillies.....could cause Cancer because they don't know how to keep them right and they might keep them for too long. Some cooks left the lids open and never close them.....then the moister gets into those ingredients and cause ALFATOXIN!!!
   
   Do you want to make peanut sauce????
   
   One can of Mae-Ploy ( the best ) coconut milk
   One pinch of salt
   Half tablespoon of Red curry paste
   Half tablespoon of Massaman curry paste
   3-4 tablespoons of sugar or palm sugar
   ( depends on how sweet you like )
   2 tablespoons of tammarind juice ( Por kwan brand )
   Peanut butter ummm about less than 18 oz. you can try to put half of 18 oz. and stir it. If it's not thick enough then add a little more.
   
   you should stir fried Massaman curry paste with red curry paste with a little veggie oil, then add coconut milk, and then the rest of the ingredients. Add peanut butter the last.
   
   This is my home recipie which is different than my restaurant recipies.
   
   FOR EASY STIR FRIED FOR ONE DISH....
   1/2 tablespoon of oyster sauce
   1/3 teaspoon of sugar
   1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce
   1/2 teaspoon Thai thin soy sauce ( SE EW KhaW )
   1/4 teaspoon of ground pepper
   some crushed garlic
   1/2 teaspoon of chicken broth POWDER Knors
   1 TEBLESPOON OF WATER
   
   tHAI ice tea.....Thai tea ($2.99 a pack) and lots of sugar
   yes you have to filter it too!!! Add half and half too.
   
   Enjoy eating Thai food......it's good for you but you should learn to cook it at home ( you know for sure that it's clean and fresh!! )



2. I use it all the time. It is great. Everything comes out
   great. I would recommend this book to anyone!



3. I selected this booik after nearly 3 years of looking at Thai cookbooks. This is easy to use and takes the mystery and confusion out of preparing Thai food. I have given copies to several friends and family.



4. This book is a waste of time and money - very confusing with poor pics
   Buy McDermott's book - you'll be much happier



5. I looooved thai food, that is one reason why I bought this book. This book contains quick and easy step by step photos insturction that is very easy to follow.

5 comments about Dok Suni.

1. Let me start out by admitting one fact: while I've grown up eating Korean food, I've never dared to try my hand at cooking it until only recently. My mother was an undefeated cooking whirlwind in our kitchen and when it came to the point where I thought I'd like to learn from her, I realized I would need more help than her 'a pinch of this' and 'a handful of that' pointers.
   
   Jenny Kwak has written a book that seems to have been made just for amateus like myself, who are willing to test the waters but unsure of where to start. The common complaint I've heard with most Asian cookbooks such as this one is the difficulty of finding ingredients and the level of skills that the writer assumes. Let's be real here. Who knows what it means to ferment pickled cabbage in subzero temperature (and yes, I've actually read this in another book)? Dok Suni starts out with a couple of helpful pages entitled, 'Mom's Shopping List', where she lists ALL of the more-than-average ingredients she uses in the recipes to follow. She gives a nice description of what it is, what dish(es) they are used in, and its name in Korean (which is nice because now you can go into an Asian grocery and ask for it by name if you can't find them yourself).
   
   The recipes themselves are, according to my very Korean mother, practically perfect in their authenticity. Instead of veering towards the more fancier (read: more difficult and not necessarily better tasting) dishes, Kwak has written up the simple staples of the Korean diet. Each recipe includes all of the ingredients WITH AMERICAN MEASUREMENTS. A lot of recipe books out there use grams and mg, which can get pretty confusing for us with our cups and ounces. The steps are easy enough for an eleven-year old to follow (and I would know because my younger sister proved it), and Kwak also includes a short but personal story about some of the dishes, which is a nice touch.
   
   Interspersed throughout the recipes, she has longer stories of the story behind the cooking on a whole, which makes the cookbook more than a smattering of recipes; it is a memoir. Though I haven't counted how many there are in all, it is enough to fill roughly 130 pages. I can say that I've bookmarked at least 90 percent of them. The couple that I've dabbled with so far came out great, even if I botched up the recipe just a little.
   
   In my overall opinion, Kwak has put together a fantastic book that couldn't be easier to follow and I haven't regretted my purchase in the least.



2. To the reviewer who gave this 3 stars because he or she couldn't find "beef satay" for the Cold Buckwheat Noodles recipe: If you were following the recipe for Noodles in Cold Beef Broth, the author CLEARLY states in parentheses, directly after the ingredient SATAY BEEF, "see Page 5." If you had gone to PAGE 5, you would see where the author explains that BEEF SHANK is BEEF SATAY. If you WEREN'T following the recipe for Noodles in Cold Beef Broth and your college degree was for English, it might just be useless, because there is no recipe titled Cold Buckwheat Noodles in this book!
   
   For the rest: I didn't give this 4 stars only because I like my recipe books to have pictures & this one doesn't have many. Even though I know what most of the finished recipes should look like, I simply like to have my mouth watering over delicious-looking food at 1 in the morning when every Korean restaurant is closed. (Food masochism.) But the recipes in this book are pretty easy to follow and it should intimidate no one who is trying to cook Korean food for the first time. My mother was Korean & I was raised on this stuff--Korean food is Heaven to me, and you too will get there easily with this book.



3. I was introduced to Korean food by some good friends. Most of the cooking was done by their grandmother who couldn't even speak English. A problem when I started asking how to cook it. I was so hooked. Then I moved and all I knew was you needed salt, garlic, and red peppers to make Kimchi.
   
   Then I found this book. The recipes in here tasted exactly like what I had eaten at my friends. From the Bulgogi and Kalbi to the many types of Kimchi. My favorite part has been the soups though. They taste so refreshing. The only one I didn't like was the seaweed soup. The rest have my family asking for more, even the children. I use it so often my pages have notations and bookmarks throughout.
   
   I have bought more Korean cookbooks but when I want some good food I always find myself coming back to this one. The others just don't measure up. As a result I have recommended this book to everyone I know and none of them have been disappointed. In my opinion Korean cooking is the best in the world and this book will teach you how to cook it for yourself. Spread the joy.



4. I am a korean who has grown up eating korean food for at least one meal of the day, for my entire life. In addition, i've eaten at countless korean restaurants... So i can, at least, say that I know what korean food 'should' taste like.
   
   PROS: I've tried about 10 of Kwak's recipes so far, and they have all come out very authentic and tasty. She includes a good mix of very common dishes and more advanced dishes, with a good number of pan-chan recipes. Her ingredient lists aren't excessively long like some other cookbooks, but some of the ingredients might require a trip to the korean store (beef dashida powder). Her memoir type style and her personal touches add alot to the enjoyment of the food. Sometimes it sounds like she's reminiscing about the recipes with tears in her eyes. Some could consider these digressions unnecessary, but I found it adds 'soul' to the recipes. And the family pictures are a real nice touch.
   
   CONS: There are pictures of food, but only in the context of telling her family story. They mostly show up in the glossy insert sections in the middle of the book. There are no individual pictures that accompany each recipe. For koreans this might not be a problem, but if you're new to korean food, you might need to see what the finished dish 'should' look like. Secondly, I just wish there were more recipes. Don't get me wrong there are alot (about 77), but wanted more soup and meat recipes and less rice porridge dishes and sweet, snack-type foods. Well i guess my second point isn't really a 'con' because all the 'major' recipes are here. Now that i trust her cooking, I just want more of it, that's all. Lastly I wish she included a table of contents that includes the name of each recipe in a single list. The table of contents breaks down by category, then you have to flip through the entire category to find the recipe that you're looking for. (My copy has about 20 post-it notes on it now). Although I think this may have been deliberate, because the book reads like a memoir, so there are personal stories associated with many of the recipes.
   
   Jenny and her mom own Dok Suni, which is a korean restaurant down on the lower east side of manhattan. Naturally, the food is excellent and it has a good reputation for 'cool' or 'hip' korean food. Although the decor is a bit...hmmm, eclectic? The recipe for the jalapeno fried chicken served at the restaurant (probably the most popular dish) is included in the book. For Dok Suni fans, this should justify the cost of the book itself.
   
   Given the reasonable price of the book and the personal stories that add 'soul' to the recipes, i would highly recommend this book. I just wish there were more pictures. I can't wait for the follow up book.



5. I bought this book in part because I thought it was so funny that Director Quentin Tarantino (whose films I've never seen but only heard about or seen previews of) would write a cover blurb for it.
   
   Most of my favorite Korean dishes are here. The muted color photos are in the middle of the book and contain finished dishes, not step by step process photos.
   
   The cover title is misspelled. It should actually be "Doh Suni" or "Dough Suni."

5 comments about Asian Ingredients: A Guide to the Foodstuffs of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

1. This excellent, informative book deserves to have been reprinted (how could such a fine book have gone out of print?), but beware of the "fully revised and expanded" claim. I ready owned the out-of-print hardcover and bought the new paperback edition to check out the updated information. I've looked pretty closely, and the only new copy I can find is very incidental (i.e., changing the locations of farms from exotic locations to the US as more domestic farmers are now growing Asian produce). No new recipes, either, although some new titles (to throw unsuspecting readers off the scent?). If you don't have this book, and you are an Asian food aficionado, do add it to your collection. However, I am very irritated at the publisher's suggestion that this is a new edition (it's a good old-fashioned reprint, and that's all) and at the previous reviewers who didn't find it necessary to warn other buyers of this important fact. I would rate it much lower for readers like me who own the original, but newcomers to this classic will find no quarrel.



2. A terrific reference for people like myself: round-eyes who want to learn about authentic asian ingredients and cuisine. The book is a great guide to many obscure and, to outsiders, mystifying ingredients. What's most important is that the book clearly describes the ways in which they are commonly used and (often) provides sample recipes; this allows you to utilize previously unknown items correctly and learn how their flavors are part of traditional asian dishes.

   The book is well-written, though this version is the first I've seen, so I can't comment on whether it's really "new and expanded". Someone with a keen interest in food can sit down and read it cover-to-cover. I was also impressed by the care taken to differentiate national/regional applications of ingredients. Much discussion is given to how the region and history shaped the use of ingredients and what is accepted in contemporary cuisine.

   All in all, a great reference book.




3. Asian Ingredients is a cookbook in reverse. The familiar formula dictates that a little of the cookbook is dedicated to some cultural background titbits and a glossary; the rest is devoted to recipes. Cost, as his title indicates, offers us a major tour of the foodstuffs with just a sprinkling of recipes throughout. And that is exactly why the book appealed to me. Here you get the best bookish knowledge mixed with personal experience as he gives ingredients not just names, but cultural context, almost bringing them to life as if historical characters. Soy sauce, he tells us in the introduction, "evolved from ancient methods of fermenting and preserving meat and game ¡K" The Chinese value fresh water fish above salt water because the latter are considered to be already partly preserved (less fresh) - salted by the water they swim in. Amongst gems like these are plenty of practical advice for both the market and kitchen. But while the book includes a Region of Use listing for each ingredient, the geographical origin of each recipe is unfortunately left a mystery. The book is also crying out for a separate recipe index. You would not buy this book for the recipes alone but I tried four or five and whenever I wore my reading glasses and did not try to cut corners, I ended up with some really good food. Simple Roast Chicken with Sichuan Pepper (I was drawn to the word Simple), for example got the thumbs up from my friend Linda. The photographs being black and white are not always as illuminating as they should be, and there may be a few questionable facts. For instance, we learn that Dong gwa (gua) is Cantonese for Winter Melon. Not mentioned is the fact that this pronunciation is virtually identical in Mandarin. All in all I would call this an excellent reference.



4. `Asian Ingredients' by Bruce Cost is one of those books like Patience Gray's `Honey from a Weed' and Claudia Roden's `New Book of Middle Eastern Food' which gets cited as THE authority on its subject by culinary heavyweights such as Ruth Reichl and Alice Waters. So, in my quest for the perfect culinary library, I really need to read and review this book. I am very happy to say that the reputation of this book is not overdone. It is one of the finest books on culinary ingredients I have seen on either Oriental or Occidental cuisines. The author states from the outset that his objective was not to give us an encyclopedic work. What we get is much closer to some of the finer books on Mediterranean cuisine such as Nancy Harmon Jenkins `The Essential Mediterranean'. In many ways, Cost's book is far more practical, albeit less analytical than Jenkins' work.
   
   Cost deals with the fairly homogeneous food world of Japan, Korea, China, Viet Nam, and Thailand. He mentions India as an influence on Thai cuisine, but does not deal directly with Indian cuisine, as it is substantially different from the cuisine of China and the rest of the Far East. The book also does not deal with the cuisine of the Philippines or Indonesia, as the cuisines of these two nations are heavily influenced by European colonization beginning in the 16th century.
   
   One of the best things about Cost's book is that it is organized in such a way to make it a pleasure to read for background information. While I have never sat down to read the Larousse Gastronomique for pleasure, I read Cost's book from cover to cover with great pleasure, skipping a very few subjects on which I was very familiar. Costs book is divided into the following seven (7) major chapters:
   
   Fresh Ingredients including Herbs and Seasonings, Vegetables and Fungi, Meat, Poultry and Eggs, Fish
   Preserved and Processed Ingredients including Dried Ingredients, Cured Ingredients, and Soy and Coconut
   Condiments and Sauces including Soy based condiments, Fish based sauces, Chili based sauces, Vinegar and spirits, and Flavored oils
   Spices, Sugars, Nuts, and Seeds, including Spices, Sugar, Nuts and Seeds
   Rice
   Noodles and Wrappers
   Flours and Thickeners
   Cooking Fats and Oils
   
   One of the most dramatic lessons to be learned from this book is the fact that like the Mediterranean respect for dried and preserved ingredients such as salted cod, dried pasta, and dry beans, Asian dried ingredients such as seaweed, vegetables, fish, and mushrooms are highly regarded ingredients in their own right. They are not `second best'. By drying and concentrating their flavors, they bring something to the party that is simply beyond their fresh precursors.
   
   Another fairly dramatic discovery is the fact that while so many of the spices prized by Europe and so greatly desired by Renaissance Europe were grown just next door to China and Japan, these spices such as black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon (cassias) really did not and still do not play a big part in East Asian cuisine, except for Thailand, which is influenced by the curries and other spices of India. Northern China and Japan almost totally reject the use of the `cookie spices' except for ginger, which is used heavily throughout the region covered by the book.
   
   It is interesting to see both the harmony and the dissonance created when one lays Mediterranean and Far Eastern cuisine side by side. Some of the biggest parallels are the importance of garlic, pork, mushrooms, cilantro, and New World (capsicum) chilis. Some differences are in the relative importance of drying versus salt curing. As Nancy Harmon Jenkins points out, salt is much more important in the Mediterranean cuisines simply because the Mediterranean is saltier than the oceans, so it is a lot easier to acquire than on the Pacific Rim. There are some salt cured pork products, with hams very similar to Smithfield hams, but nowhere near as much of the Charcuterie / salume culture of Western Europe. The greatest differences between the two areas lies in the use of milk. There is simply no milk culture in East Asia from cows, goats, sheep, or buffalo. The Chinese and Japanese feel the same towards Europe's more aromatic cheeses as westerners may feel about fermented fish sauce, birds nests (dried bird saliva), and seaweed. Where the European uses animals' milk, the Asian uses milk refined from soy or coconut.
   
   An important part of this book, more important than similar samples in most other books of this type, is the recipes, especially for things such as fish and chicken stocks, which are far simpler than comparable French stocks. They are not just simpler; there is a whole rationale in the Chinese cuisine against including vegetables in chicken stock recipes.
   
   Two of the most useful aspects of this book are the recommendations on how to best use Asian markets and which commercial preparations are of a high quality. I had some reservations regarding a local Chinese run farmer's market with a fish counter until I read Cost's description of Asians' regard for freshness in fish. The `Iron Chef' episodes where virtually all seafood ingredients are presented live is not for the sake of show business. These people are SERIOUS about their fresh fish! Note that while this book was originally written and published in 1988, the new paperback edition was revised in 2000, so the numerous comments about which prepared brand name ingredients are the best should be fairly current.
   
   This book is so good you will be remiss if you buy any other book on East Asian ingredients without first reading this new edition. Other books may offer better coverage of selected aspects of this subject, but this book is certainly the gold standard against which other books should be measured!
   
   Very highly recommended, especially if you like to read about food as well as eat it.



5. Being an Asian-American born in the US, sometimes we need something to understand Asian cooking and foodstuffs ourselves! I consider Bruce Cost the ultimate Asian food expert considering he's not Asian! Everything is explained in an easy to understand manner and is authentic as any Asian food reference. His Big Bowl cookbook is also excellent.

5 comments about Fortune Cookie Fortunes.

1. Hard to keep a young toddler (or an adult) interested in the storyline...it's mostly a long list of fortunes, but Grace Lin's illustrations are wonderful, as always. My toddler loves just looking at the packed pages of beautiful birds, origami animals, and lots more!



2. For older kids, even high school, this would be a great starter story for them to read and then make their own fortune cookies, inserting their own fortunes before the hot smooth cookies harden. A nice end note explains some of the original of the Fortune cookie as Japanese, not Chinese, but the overall charm of the book is its celebration of the traditions of the messages inside the cookies. If you didn't want to make fortune cookies from scratch in a classroom, you might just settle for everyone having a fortune cookie (available in most large groceries) and sharing their fortunes over a cup of nice tea. Also, check out Dim Sum for Everyone, also celebrating cultural food experiences for all ages.



3. I bought this book for a lesson on Multiculturalism in the classroom. I incorporated a puppet with the story, and the students loved it. This is a must for any classroom.



4. My two-year-old daughter and I just LOVE Grace Lin's books. With each new Grace Lin book that we buy, it immediately becomes my daughter's favorite, until we get another Grace Lin book! There is so much to see in the book, and the story is adorable. Highly recommended!



5. My 3-year old daughter loves Grace Lin books. Kite Flying, Dim Sum and this one are in her current reading rotation (sometimes 10 times a day!) The illustrations are just wonderful.

5 comments about The Georgian Feast: The Vibrant Culture and Savory Food of the Republic of Georgia.

1. I gave this book to a Georgian and she loved it. It had all the dishes she had eatten as a child. If your looking for a book to fill in any missing recipes this is the book for you.



2. As someone who was born and grew up in Tbilisi, I was very happy to find this book -- it captures all of my favorite recipes, and when I prepare them according to this book, they taste just like my grandma's cooking.
   
   More than just a recipe book, this is also an exploration into the rich history and culture of Georgia, and how the history shaped the cuisine. I suggest this book to everyone who would like to add some interesting preparations to their cooking. For vegetarians, Georgians have plenty of healthful and filling ways to prepare veggies and beans, and also some mouth watering sauces that will enliven any dish (veg or not).
   
   I enjoy this book both as a cook book, and as a historical book!



3. I've already written a review of this great book. I have only one suggestion: the basic khmeli suneli recipe can be augmented further to reach the authentic smell and taste. The wikipedia article on khmeli suneli has additional ingredients that can be added to the recipe. I tried that, about 2 teaspoons of each ingredient that's not already in Darra's recipe (less for black and chili pepper), and it came closer to the authentic smell and taste. I think the author of the wikipedia article might have meant safflower (marigold) instead of saffron though, so I didn't add that.



4. This is a marvelous, utterly authentic encyclopedia of Georgian cooking. I tried some of the recipes before leaving for Georgia in summer 2006, and they were great, and gave me a good idea of what to expect. Once in Georgia, the book was an invaluable reference that I constantly turned to whenever I tried something new. Just about *everything* I had is in here, along with many things I didn't get around to sampling.
   
   This book also helped me learn the correct Georgian names for the dishes and many of the ingredients. A significant portion of the book is devoted to providing cultural background on Georgia and Georgian food, such the elaborate rules for a _tamada_, or Georgian toastmaster. With its charming photos of representative paintings scattered generously throughout its pages, it also made me a Pirosmani fan, and better able to appreciate the originals when I saw them for myself.
   
   Most importantly, as the other reviewers say, the recipes *work*. We just made the potato salad with walnut paste (p. 172), and it was delectable. Other dishes we have tried and like include tomato soup with walnuts and vermicelli (p. 73) and green beans with egg (p. 130). Pkhali was one of my favorite dishes in Georgia, and I'm glad to have the recipe for when I get around to making it myself. There is a recipe for beets with cherry sauce, a dish a travel companion had tried but that even some of our Georgian hosts weren't familiar with. For the few recipes that seem to be missing from this book, like eggplant with walnut paste, try Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook, another excellent collection of delicious recipes from all the former Soviet republics.
   
   _The Georgian Feast_ is well worth having even if you don't eat meat - many of the recipes are completely vegetarian. This book is a real treasure.



5. This is an ok effort by Ms. Goldstein but unfortunately the recipes don't quite result in the amazing flavors that Georgian cuisine is known for. Perhaps it is Ms. Goldstein's substitutions of less authentic ingredients as some ingredients in the "real" dish are hard to find. Perhaps it is something else. (Her "adjika" is REALLY bad/wrong for instance....)
   
   OK book if you want an idea of what Georgian cuisine is like. Not good if you REALLY want the real thing...

5 comments about Philippine Recipes Made Easy.

1. Since my parents moved out of state, I had to fend for myself when it comes to Filipino food. This is like Filipino Cooking for Dummies!



2. The title really speaks for the book itself. This is a great cookbook with classic, homestyle Philippine recipes that you find to be tested, tried and true. Nothing fancy, no pictures or lengthy dish descriptions, just the basics and sometimes that's all you are looking for.



3. man this book is so cool. basics are there and has been passed around my work for the longest time. Everyone seems to like it.



4. I am always hesitant to believe reviews on filipino cookbooks and recipes because you never know if the person writing the review is filipino which I think alters the comments especially versus a native who grew up with the culture and the food.
   I grew up with this stuff and am filipino and I just absolutely love this book! Mine is worn from being used so often. Sadly, I am 2nd generation Filipino American and like many in my generation, many traditions have fallen to the wayside. It was nice to have a book to refer to when my mom and lolas aren't available to tell me their recipe. Very very very easy to use and the recipes are delicious. I wish they had photos of each item though!



5. I just learned how to write reviews so I am happy to be able to write a review about this book. I really love the recipes found in this book. They are home style foods, just like my grandma used to cook. If you have never tried the food of the Philippines then you should order this book and try it out! You will love it!