No comments about Manchester on a Plate.

2 comments about Restaurant Service Basics.

1. The book explains how a restaurant is operated thoroughly. The book has pictures to allow easy comprehension. The roles of the entire team from Owner to buss, they're all in there. Explains everyone's task and gives projects to practice on to get a first hand experience. I recommend this book to all business owners and managers. Great book even for waiter/waitress wanting to improve their service.



2. I bought this book based on the editorial and customer review. Service basics is an overstatement. Do not buy this book unless you have never dined in a restaurant. It will not help you at all if you know anything about the business. The book is filled with helpful gems like "The course that is usually served first is the appetizer. The appetizer is a food item served before the meal..." Wow thanks! What's a Napkin? The computerized service system is at least 10 years behind industry standards and serving from the left with the left hand is not the way it is always done. Stick with the Culinary Arts Institutes "Remarkable Service" It is by far the best there is.

5 comments about Time for Tea: Tea and Conversation with Thirteen English Women.

1. You'll love this book if you like England or tea. The writer is an unusally skilled interviewer and her subjects reveal more than you would ever expect from an English woman. They don't always say the expected thing!

   The photography and presentation are excellent. Recipes are included. This is a lovely gift for someone else or for yourself. It's a charmer.




2. I feel like I have had Tea with 13 different women and come away with 13 delicous recipes! The description of the countryside,and cities made me feel as if I was right there, I think I could actually hear the church bells ringing! The sharing of their lives was a fascinating read. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for such a book!



3. This book is enchanting, it touches the soul and reaffirms traditions such as tea time, in its many forms. The ladies in each chapter are as different as jasmine tea and Earl Gray and delight, each in their own way. The recipes are wonderful as well. I would recommend this book for any tea lover, or lover of tradition in our lives, the special rituals that shape us early on and touch us deep insde.



4. If you love tea and all that goes with it, you'll certainly enjoy this book. It doesn't have a lot of technical information about tea, but that doesn't matter and that's not the focus of this book. What it does have is "coziness" to spare. As far as I know, this book is unique in the tea literature in that it explores how people view the tea ceremony (or tea break) and the part that having tea plays in their lives--and who knew it could be this fascinating?
   
   One elderly lady is an expert (and award-winning) maker of clotted cream and bemoans the fact that the standard loose tea bought in the market is just dust anymore instead of leaves (a result of mechanization where leaves are not left whole but are cut, torn, and curled). Another lady works for D. J. Miles tea company, a small privately-held tea business in the country side, and gives an interesting glimpse into the business end of tea. The ladies interviewed by the author come from different walks of life, but their commonality is they take time out for tea. They have found it to be a comfort, a break and respite from the cares of daily life, and a time to gather friends and loved ones and enjoy each others company. It's a shame that the traditional afternoon tea is apparently falling on hard times in England, but not with these ladies. They recognize the value of taking time out for tea and just the sheer pleasure of a cuppa with a bite to eat--no apologies needed! Each lady, by the way, also provides a few recipes for tea time treats. I've not tried any of them, but they generally sound tasty.
   
   One little side note: I work for an English boss who introduced me to English brand teas. Let me tell you, they are FAR superior to anything you can buy in American markets. Even though they are not premium teas, they are stronger and have more complex and interesting flavors than American brands. I highly recommend PG Tips, Yorkshire Tea (Regular and Gold), and Barry's (an Irish brand) for hot tea--all loose leaf, of course. All make excellent hot or iced tea. The British have not taken to iced tea, probably because the only kind they've tried comes in bottles and cans--no wonder they think it's nasty! You can find English tea all over the internet, (...) You'll get your purchase quickly, and some companies put in a few samples to try.
   
   Put the kettle on, brew some English tea, and sit back and relax with this charming, entertaining, and fascinating little book. I guarantee that stress will vanish!



5. When I started reading this book, I quickly became engrossed and decided to read one chapter everyday with a cup of tea envisioning myself in England sitting and chatting with the ladies or maybe just listening to their stories.
   
   One of the ladies, married with children, was once a ballerina who then enrolled in a school to study law when she was in her mid thirties. She shared her story about how awkward she felt when she found her classmates were all teenagers and how she juggled in her study with the support of her family.
   
   I truly enjoy reading this book. It gives insight and make me reflect on my own life experiences.
   As the other reviewer wrote, put the kettle on, brew some English tea or any kind of tea, sit back and relax with this charming, awesome and inspiring little book. Blow away the stress from our mind !

1 comments about Fruits of the Desert.

1. after living in San Diego for 20 years, I decided to return home. I missed the desert foods my grandmother use to prepare. So here I am and I have all this bounty at my doorstep. I never learned how to use it. So began my search for a cookbook that used "desert fruits" the way my family enjoyed them. I found many cookbooks, but the recipes were so complicated and were geared to the professional cook. I found this book @ Tohono Chul Park while browsing in the gift shop. It features delicious ways to use a prickly pears, saguaro fruit and taparey beans.

2 comments about Dinner at Buckingham Palace.

1. I did not buy this book for the recipes. I thought, and was correct, that perhaps this book might offer photographs of the Royal Family I had never seen in print before. The story of how this book came about is a wonderful story by itself. Read it and find out who the man was behind it's creation. There are private photos of the Queen Mother, the Queen, and a young Prince Charles that are ready for framing. And that is what I plan on doing this weekend. While I must purchase another copy to keep, I am going through my copy to remove the wonderful shots and frame them. My kitchen is decorated with numerous photos of the Royal Family. And yes, I have Union Jack rugs on the floors as well. The recipes are wonderful, but the photographs and stories are worth buying the book for. If you are an Anglophile as I am, or a huge fan of the Royals, this is the book for you.



2. This is a wonderful book, full of history from Queen Victoria to the present, with lovely photos of the Royal Family- A MUST for Anglophiles, and cooks alike! Included are dinner services for Royal Formal dinners, and all the dishes served. There is also a food glossary- very helpful.
   This book is from the diaries of a former Butler, a man who grew up in service with his father under the reign of Queen Victoria. A very interesting read- I loved it!

1 comments about Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire: The first complete translation into English.

1. Some of the buzz among today's cooking enthusiasts concerns classic recipes or modern departures from them. Arguments arise among cooks over what are "mother" sauces in France; people point to the latest coffee-table cookbook for its "classic" recipes.
   
   But if you're interested in anything like that, why not go to the source, Escoffier? Recipes in the "Gee See" (or "Zhay Say," depending on your native tongue) organized much of this subject in the first place. Escoffier's Guide Culinaire has always been available for those who are interested. ISBN 0831754788 is the reissue of Cracknell and Kaufmann's English translation of the 1921 Flammarion edition in French. Including unvarnished comments from its original time and place: "It may be of interest to note that the authentic type of Indian curry is not suitable for European tastes, but the flavor of the above sauce is generally acceptable." Such opinions (far more numerous in, for instance, the popular 1961 Crown "Larousse Gastronomique"), honestly included in the reprint rather than being edited out to flatter modern "tastes" in turn, add to the historical interest of this edition.
   
   The Guide Culinaire, the French national professional cookbook, is where the "classic" recipes were organized and popularized by Georges Auguste Escoffier. It is what the Nouvelle Cuisine of the 1970s rebelled against and what the neo-traditionalists rediscover. It begins with Recipe #1 which is a brown stock, ends with #5012 for a wine punch. It is the direct source of an Internet signature file I used on and off since the 1980s (mostly "off," in recent years):
   
   "Foundation or Basic sauces -- Espagnole (brown sauce), Velouté, Béchamel, tomato." [Recipes 16-26, by the way.]
   
   (Cooks may argue with each other about what are "mother" sauces. But they mayn't argue with Escoffier.)

5 comments about English Bread and Yeast Cookery (Revised).

1. Not just a cookbook, though there are plenty of recipes. Not merely a history, though abounding in historical sources and anecdotes. Not a textbook, but with enough theory for just about anyone. Not literature proper, but Ms. David's prose flows beautifully. The book is simultaneously informative, thoughtful, engaging, useful and most of all a pleasure to read. The book is equally at home in the kitchen as the living room. Simply a wonderful book.



2. The sensuous aroma of baking bread filled my mind as I read the exquisite prose of Elizabeth David. Perfect for those who have the original old English oven and owning your own flour mill will increase the enjoyment of making these rare breads. As I devoured my domestically produced delights, an almost orgasmic pleasure assaulted my sensory organs. There are no greater pleasures in the world than these.



3. `English Bread and Yeast Cookery' by Elizabeth David hides, behind its very unassuming title, one of the very best books on bread baking I have seen and possibly Elizabeth David's very best work, in a body of work which includes some of the great classics in culinary writing from the last 60 years.
   
   For starters, the book is much more than a collection of English bread baking recipes. In the 592 pages in this edition, bread recipes don't even start until page 255. The first half of the book deals with just about everything you ever wanted to know about how residents of the British Isles, beginning with the pre-Roman Celts ground wheat into flour, what kind of ovens they used to bake bread, and how all this evolved through the Roman occupation, the Saxons, the Normans, and the modern English, especially how things changed with the industrial revolution.
   
   The first part, nearly half the book covers `History and Background' with chapters on:
   
   Grains, Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oats, and Pease
   Milling
   Flours and Meals
   Yeast
   Salt
   Liquids and Fats
   Eggs, Dried Fruit, Sugar, Spices and Flavorings
   Malt Extracts
   Bread Ovens
   The Bread Factories
   Shapes and Names of English Loaves
   Moulds and Tins for Bread
   Storage of Meal and Flour
   Storage of Bread
   Weights of Loaves and the Assize of Bread
   Weights, Measures and Temperatures
   Weighing and Measuring Equipment
   The Cost of Baking Your Own Bread
   
   It should be evident from this list of chapters that the material in this book goes far beyond bread baking on a largish island in the North Atlantic. The analysis in the last of these chapters alone may be worth the price of admission. What is doubly surprising is that these chapters include material which seems more at home in a book like Rachael Carson's `Silent Spring' than a book on bread recipes. This is a bit less surprising when we realize the book was written in the 1970s, not too far removed from food rationing left over from World War II and before the widespread popular concern in England with the nutritious value of food.
   
   The second half of the book, the recipes, clearly also goes beyond what you would expect from the average English tea room. The chapters here are:
   
   Bread
   Baps and Rolls
   Manchets and Mayn and Payndemayn
   Crumpets and Muffins
   Notes on French Bread
   The Pizza and the Pissaladiere
   Quiches with Yeast Dough
   Sausage in Brioche Crust
   Yeast Leavened Pancakes and Oatcakes
   Dumplings and Doughnuts
   Regional and Festival Cakes and Fruit Breads
   Yeast Buns and Small Tea Cakes
   French Yeast Cakes
   Soda Breads
   Bakestone Cakes or Breads
   Toast
   
   Since there is a chapter on Soda Breads, it is evident that the book covers more than just yeast breads. The yeasted pancakes also highlights the fact that our modern baking powder leavened hotcakes are a relatively new invention, as baking powder was not commercially available until the middle of the 19th century. Yeast, on the other hand, has been around and used in beer making since prehistoric times. And, with just a little technique, it was free for the asking from ambient spores in the air.
   
   In case you are curious, a bap is the breakfast roll of Scotland and manchets and mayn and payndemayn are old English names (found in the `Canterbury Tales' and other old documents) for enriched white breads baked for and eaten by wealthier classes.
   
   If you are a serious foodie, a serious amateur or professional bread baker, or simply seriously, or even frivolously interested in bread, you must get a copy of this book. Even if you don't read it from cover to cover, it's a great reference on the history, science and technique of breadbaking. It's only weakness may be that it is not as up to date on modern American bread ingredients as you may find in a King Arthur cookbook or `bible' from Rose Levy Beranbaum. But then, there are hundreds of pages of material you will find here and virtually nowhere else in an in print book.
   
   Very highly recommended!!!



4. This book is what culinary writing should be: comprehensive, thoroughly researched, reliable, unimpeachable. My only complaint is the title: this book is about the history of English baking, not a cookbook of baking as it currently exists in England. If you have ever wondered what English bread used to be like, and are conversely appalled by what is sold by the English today as bread, this book is for you. The author has systematically studied entire libraries of cookbooks of centuries past, and culled and adapted recipes that are of current interest.
   
   The author reveals the true travesty of modern English bread baking. Most such recipes use chemical leavening, e.g. baking soda and/or baking powder, which produces what we have come to know of as English bread, e.g. masonry material but not human food. Indeed, much flour sold in England today is `self rising' flour, which is the English equivalent of American pastry flour with a little baking powder mixed in. The author has revived the original bread and pastry and baking recipes of centuries past that use yeast as leavening; as such, they are airy, light, chewy, good baked goods. The author has devoted entire chapters to rolls, fruit breads, crumpets and English muffins, bread, and cakes, all of which use yeast and are closer to baked goods in modern day France and Italy rather than England.
   
   The chapter on fruit cake (bread) is especially illuminating. Current incarnations of said recipe conjures images of inedible bricks. The recipes expounded by the author are authentic, historical ones thoroughly vetted, and resemble panettone, brioche, and stollen of modern baking, and not the travesties of American holiday sales.
   
   The first half is an impressive reference of tools, ingredients, history, techniques, and stories about bread in Britain of centuries past. It is a valuable book for bread bakers to have on the shelf. Many bread baking book authors give large credit to this book.
   
   One complaint about the format. The TOC lists only the chapter titles, and not the recipes contained therein; some chapters, like the bread chapter, have dozens of recipes. Like many current bread books, this one has disappointingly vague descriptions about how long to knead breads, properly proofed, and how to tell when it is properly baked. Judging by the recipes, the author tends to prefer softer, under developed breads.



5. The introduction to the original US edition by Karen Hess has been replaced by a puff-piece of foodie journalism and to add insult to injury the table of contents lists the original introduction. Get the original!

1 comments about The Three Chimneys: Recipes & Reflections from the Isle of Skye's World Famous Restaurant.

1. Visiting Scotland last summer, we were lucky enough to reserve a table at this remote and wonderful restaurant. We snapped up the cookbook immediately, partly because we love to cook, but also because the photographs of Skye are so much better than any we managed to take. As a cookbook, it is true to the simple, exactingly prepared food served at 3 Chimneys, featuring lots of seafood, beautiful broths and local dairy. Consequently, these recipes work only if the ingredients are perfectly fresh, because they have nowhere to hide: if your mussels are sauced, the sauce is made from their own broth. The shortbread (which is deceptively light) lives and dies by the quality of the butter used. And when approached this way, glorious food results. Ms. Spear is careful to explain the steps of each recipe, the order in which recipes should be made (like a lot of restaurant food, there are recipes within recipes)and how much time to plan for each. That said, it's not a perfect cookbook. You will need a scale that measures grams. The recipes seldom reveal how many servings will be produced (4 to 6, in my experience). And there are little mysteries sprinkled throughout: what is "medium oatmeal", and is it used raw or cooked? The cooking times are too short for steelcut oats, and I can't believe Ms. Spear uses instant rolled oats. However, even these quirks feel true to the spirit of a place that gives the diner less a slick, packaged restaurant experience than a gift of passionate care for beauty and sustenance.

No comments about Summer Cooking (New York Review Books Classics).

2 comments about Apicius, a Critical Edition Wi an Introduction And English Translation.

1. No wonder they didn't want to release this into the open market. The publisher is way too proud of the packaging. Releasing this at a more reasonable price would have at least doubled or tripled the sales! The work is excellent, with many new insights on Roman cooking by two noted scholars in the field. The new and fresh look, the background data, the recipes themselves, are all worthy of your time, but the price of the book has kicked it out of the hands of the casual cook and put in into the price range of severely dedicated hobbiests and scholars, a great disservice to the many readers who have an interest in this subject. There are several almost as good works for a much more reasonable price. I'd wait for a used or discounted version, unless you are really into the subject! I confess, I am happy to own the book, but I did NOT and would not pay full cover price for this work!



2. It's true that there are editions that cost less. But despite the steep price, it is worth every penny.
   The cooperation between Latin scholar Grocock and recreatonal cook Grainger has resulted in a book that can be used for serious research as well as creating your own Roman meal. To do that however, you'll have to have some experience in interpretating recipes that give no amounts, cooking times or oven temperatures. If you want to have a ready-made Roman cookbook, I'd advise Cooking Apicius: Roman Recipes for Today, also by Sally Grainger. But then you won't have ALL the recipes, and you'll miss out on the thirty recipes from the 'Extracts of Apicius' by Vinidarius (5th century), who used another redaction of 'De re coquinaria'.
   Worthwile extras: a glossary, original sources on Apicius, cooking and luxury dining, named recipes in Apicius, an article on garum and liquamen, and a concordance of recipes with earlier editions.