No comments about The Recipe Deck: Pasta.

No comments about Eating in Eden: Food and American Utopias (At Table).

2 comments about Northern California Best Places Cookbook: Recipes from the Outstanding Restaurants and Inns of Northern California.

1. The title understates the greatness of the recipes included in the book. The authors took the time to make sure the recipes are as complete and simple as possible. From the lemon French toasts to the sesame encrusted shrimp, the meals are flavorful. The seasonings used add character to the item but do not overpower them.

   I am eagerly awaiting the follow up to this book.




2. I fell in love with Northern California and its regional cuisine (including the romantic world class Highland Inn of Carmel, which has two recipes in this book) and could not wait to try cooking it on my own when I bought this book. Indeed, it delivers what it promises - recipes from the best places - but it is by no means simple. As would be expected, recipes of restaurant caliber like these call for special and expensive ingredients that you would not readily have on hand or may not be easily available. For example, the lemon french toast mentioned in another review calls for country style bread and lemon curd. This is not a book for a busy mom looking for fast and easy weekday meal. It is, however, perfect for preparing a romantic dinner on a weekend.

4 comments about The Ultimate Turkey Fryer Cookbook.

1. I was expecting a book with good turkey recipes with marinades and rubs, but instead it is recipes that you need to buy the authors own marinades and rubs. Evidently this guy started the Cajun Injector marinades and seasoning and the recipes say things like, use one jar of our marinade and one can of our seasoning and use our injector. There are a grand total of 9 turkey recipes in a book that has 192 pages. All the other recipes are for different side dishes and some desserts. Don't waste your money on this book. It was a big dissappointment.



2. One star off for the author touting his own rubs and marinades. Aside from that, this is one of the best cookbooks I've seen for deep frying in general - especially if you love onion blooms and begneits. The turkey frying instructions are very safety-oriented and we got great results. Every recipe is carefully given for the best breading and frying technique for the particular food. Our family has passed around one copy of this book for several months now while waiting to buy our own copies. Highly recomended!



3. I bought this book hoping to get a better understanding of how to cook with a turkey fryer, and got some good recipes in the process. Despite what has been previously posted, nearly half of the 160 recipes are for main courses. I was also unbothered by the self-promotion, having been forwarned. Besides you could easily substitute another seasoning or marinade if you didn't want or couldn't find the author's.
   
   My major disappointment was that there was next to nothing unique to using a turkey fryer, save one page on actually frying a turkey. I was more interested in using this appliance to cook fish and chicken for large groups at church and other places. While it had plenty of recipes for fish, chicken, fries, funnel cakes, etc., it didn't even include such basic info as how much oil to use for these recipes (surely not the five gallons required for a turkey.) I would have liked to have know what advantages this appliance would have over a regular fryer. Would adding extra oil allow me to cook more than four pieces of fish at one time? I still have no idea.
   
   With a title like "The Ultimate Turkey Fryer Book," I expected more, although having bought it for about $5.00 including postage on Amazon's used section, I got what I paid for.



4. Both my husband & brother in law love their Turkey Fryers. Now they can make things other than turkey.

3 comments about San Francisco Encore.

1. I have always looked for recipes that are fairly easy but that produce delicious results. This cookbook meets my criteria! Every recipe I have tried has been a success.



2. This is my favorite and most cherished cookbook even though I am a Virginian and this is a decidedly Californian cookbook. I picked up by chance in a used bookstore and began making recipes from it and was soon quite impressed. After 5 years, I have yet to find a bad recipe in the book. Furthermore, the recipes are elegant and somewhat fancy while not being too out of the mainstream or too exotic -- or too difficult for that matter. Interestingly, many of the recipes in here have become "standards" (Khalhua pie, baked brie, Indonesian rice salad) with variations on them popping up in other cookbooks and on the web. These are the original, simple versions that first began to define California cooking. You'll enjoy this.



3. This is a standout among communtity/fundraiser cookbooks. The format is clean and easy to follow. Ingredients are in bold type and consistant throughout. Instructions are clearly written, steps are not omited and they are not too wordy. Each section is clearly named with the "cute" name saved for the second page of the section (ie: SOUP chapter is also named Mendocino) and includes a written description of the region and it's food history.
   
   Some of our favorite recipes are from this book. The "Mustard Chicken in Phyllo" is an easy to make ahead dinner party favorite. The soups are amazing. The "Red Pepper Soup" is easy to make and delicious as is the "Black Bean Soup con Salsa". The "Soupe de Poisson" is more complicated to make but well worth the effort; with a salad and bread it is the perfect summer dinner to delight your friends. The "Kaluha Cinnamon Raisin Rolls" are one of my brunch staples.
   
   This makes the perfect shower gift along with The Silver Palate Cookbook and The Frog Commissary Cookbook.

1 comments about Cooking at the Academy: California Culinary Academy.

1. Cooking At The Academy is the next best thing to having your own personal training chef beside you in the family kitchen. This culinary volume of more than 100 delicious recipes is designed to be accessible to the novice cook and yet have a bounty of information and recipes of interest to even the most experienced gourmet chef. From Chestnut & Carrot Soup with Creme Fraiche & Chervil, Gingered Prawns in Bean Sauce with Spicy Noodles, and Chicken Paprikash with Apple Chutney, to Sauteed Beef with Lemon Grass, Sauerbraten with Braised Red Cabbage, and Frozen Watermelon Bombe, Cooking At The Academy showcases some of the best of what the chef instructors of San Francisco's prestigious California Culinary Academy has to offer. Cooking At The Academy is further enhanced with an extensive glossary and a complete nutritional analysis of each recipe.

No comments about Potato Book.

No comments about Wine & Dine: California Fine Wines Matched With Gourmet Recipes.

4 comments about Egyptian Cooking: And Other Middle Eastern Recipes.

1. First published twenty years ago, and now in a revised and expanded edition with over eighty new recipes added by author Samia Abdennour, Egyptian Cooking And Other Middle Eastern Recipes is a spiral-bound cookbook featuring classic dishes that perfectly capture the staples of Egyptian cuisine. A handful of color photographs illustrate the simple and practical instructions for creating such Middle Eastern delicacies as Falafels, Duck Pot Roast, Baked Rice With Milk, Hot Yogurt Soup, Pickled Eggplant, and so much more. A glossary, list of common spices and cooking utensils, and index round out this "must-have" cookbook for anyone interested in savoring Egyptian cuisine.



2. Having grown up in Egypt, I had no idea what I took for granted. Delicious stuffed tomatoes, fresh lemony salads, vine leaves, meat stews. It's such a pleasure to find a book that allows me to recreate these meals I had back at home. It's easy to follow and the ingredients are readily available here in the States. I recommend this book for everyone.



3. When even rice pudding doesnt turn out right, after following the directions to the letter....you can safely say that a cookbook was poorly written.
   
   Simply dissolve sugar in milk, then add rice and simmer on low for 15-20 minutes? Hardly. I started out with a low flame....and was still waiting for the rice to soften 45 minutes later. I made rice pudding out of the Good Housekeeping Cookbook, and I'd much sooner make rice pudding their way----you start out with a boil (to cook the inner core of the grain of rice), and THEN reduce to low and simmer. Works every time.
   
   Ms. Abdennour should also mention to the novice, that it is necessary to stir the rice pudding continuously, or it will stick to the pan and BURN. However the word "stir" was not even mentioned in the recipe! This may seem like common sense to most, but cookbooks should be written at the level of a novice.
   
   The rice in my pudding ended up having a hard, uncooked center. And when I went to taste it (aside from the bitterly hard rice) I felt there was way too much sugar.
   
   In addition the cookbook has a strange format...the pages are numbered but the recipes are indexed not by page number but by recipe number (they are actually numbered from 1 on up) I much prefer good old fashioned page numbers---whats wrong with that?
   
   Also, the author seems to be unfamiliar with the names of certain items in the West. When a recipe calls for "gullash" this corresponds to our "phyllo dough" however the author seems to not know that we have a word for this....so she describes it as "fresh, paper thin sheets of dough at your local bakery"....gee thanks, that would help the novice cook! I know that she is describing phyllo dough, but would a novice know?
   
   In addition, I made kuftat ras al asfur. Again, following the instructions to the letter resulted in a bland tomato sauce.
   
   Some recipe instructions amounted to no more than four sentences, when surely they are a bit more complex to make and worth describing in a bit more detail.
   
   There are better Arabic cookbooks out there...I just haven't found them yet. This cookbook is suited to someone who is familiar with making these dishes....maybe then they can fill in the details which Abdennour fails to mention. But then one wonders, why would these people need a cookbook in the first place?



4. Well... first of all DO NOT click on the link to "buy these books together" (referriing to the amazon offer to buy this book and her other book "Egyptian Cooking, a practical guide") as this book contains ALL the recipes in the first edition, along with additional recipes. You will be WASTING your money as i did (I gave the first edition away, no need to keep it, for me I bought them years apart, for you it will be money down the drain or a headache with the return) Amazon should NOT be offering them together.
   
   Being that this book basically consists of the other book and then some, I will go over in a nutshell the comments i made of the other as they also apply here.
   
   Its good for the basics if you're already familiar with the cuisine. The arabic/english spice translations are helpful. Her instructions are thoroughly lacking, so if you are not an experienced cook, or are not familiar with egyptian/middle eastern cooking, you might have a hard time with the recipes as they would have benefited from a little more description. (for more on that see my review of the other book) They are written in a very matter of fact way, just mix, shape, saute..... They don't really sound very appealing. The recipe numbers not corresponding to page numbers is annoying but you get used to i (the recipes are numbered, page 1 might have recipes 1-3, page 2 recipes 4-6, page 3 recipes 7 and 8, and the index refers to the recipe number, not page number so the recipe for falafel could be recipe 6 which would be on page 2), as well as the fact that to make a recipe containing tomato sauce, you've got to refer to the tomato sauce recipe on another page (consisting of tomato sauce, salt and pepper).
   
   The additional recipes are not egyptian and are really not of any value to me as there are tons of other middle eastern recipe books out there that are FAR better than this one.
   
   The only reason I would recommend this book at all is that it is specifically Egyptian, and if you are even reading this review it probably means you want an Egyptian cookbook (rather than a generic Middle eastern cookbook.) If that is the case, then i would consider going with "My Egyptian Grandmother's Kitchen" by Magda Mehdawy, as she has pictures with all her recipes and at least that gets your taste buds going (oh, yeah that was also a problem with Abdennour's books, you could read the whole thing and not be all that impressed by anything). I would pair that with either Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food (Five Star) or Mary Bsisu's The Arab Table (Also 5 Stars). When you want to cook something, first try to find it in one of the latter books, if you can, read the recipe, then refer to Mehdawy's book and see the Egyptian take on it. Of course Roden and Bsisu books are not going to have all the Egyptian recipes that Abdennour's has, but you will see the difference in the instructions immediately.
   
   I rated the first edition 3 stars because at the time I reviewed I couldn't find other egyptian cookbooks, Abdennour had the whole market. With Mehdaway's cookbook, (and another Egyptian one that i just spotted but havent bought yet, Abdennour has lost the sole claim on the Egyptian cookbook market, thus this second edition isn't as valuable or necessary. So i am rating it 2 stars.

No comments about Food in California Indian Culture (Classics in California Anthropology).