5 comments about The Art of Romanian Cooking.

1. As an avid cook, I highly recommend this book, full of origical recipes based on Romania's history and traditions. There is a huge selection of recipes to choose from: meat, fish, soups. And the best things are in the desserts chapters. I especially liked the walnut budinca. And the ingredients are easy to find anywhere and the recipes easy to follow. The authors little stories are also very interesting.



2. Romania is usually included in general cookbooks about the Baltic nations, so it's refreshing to see it earn its own acclaim in The Art Of Romanian Cooking, a specialty cookbook which covers everything from appetizers such as Fried Cheese Papanasi to Tongue with Olives. The historical commentary accompanying many of the dishes is also fascinating and inviting.



3. We recently visited the country and enjoyed the food so much that we wanted to try it at home. This book was a great resource for what we wanted.



4. Personally I am a romanian and as you see from my reviews I only review what I am passionate about or different items regarding Romania. This item in particular is a good thing to buy if you are interested in learning more about Romanian cooking. Romania has several unique meals as well as different ways of cooking some common day things than the US. Any of you ever hear of pork gelatin/pork jello? Well, it's not what you think but actually a mix of pork, gelatin and other spices served during the holidays in Romania and quite tastefull. You might also be surprised about some Romanian appetizers and how good or different they taste. This book is also very good for those of you who have gone out to Romania tasted and liked the cooking but had a hard time getting original recipes for some of the things you tasted. Who better to show you this than someone who had actually lived there as this author.
   Many people I have met personally were very pleasantly surprised at some of the tastes of Romanian food and its appearance while some have it at some special ocassion as.. well something different. If you ever wanted to try Romanian deviled eggs, the Romanian meatballs "mici" or other types of foods then buy this book. Hope you enjoy and I wish you a taste of Romania in every bite.



5. For someone used to American (and western) cooking, it is better than its Romanian counterpart, which I just bought upon a recent visit to Romania.
   Recipes are clear and easy to follow.
   Lya.

5 comments about The Cuisine of Armenia.

1. I have used various editions of this classic cookbook over the years, and it remains one of my all-time favorites. Unlike the 1998 edition, which fell apart after only a couple of weeks, this new one is much better made and is holding up very well. Also, the quality of the illustrations is far superior.

   Uvezian has done an admirable job of presenting hundreds of mouthwatering and healthful recipes in her characteristically clear and concise style. The dishes described are rich and varied, the simple-to-follow instructions explain exactly what to do, and the ingredients called for are easy to find. The recipes from the Caucasus, which were unknown in America before the original hardcover edition of this book came out, are in themselves worth the purchase price.

   "The Cuisine of Armenia" is a real treasure. Not only is it a must have for every Armenian household, it belongs in the library of every enthusiastic cook.




2. The Cuisine of Armenia is a great book. I bought this book for my sister and she realy liked it. The book reveles that some foods that Turks and Arabs say comes from them is realy Armenian. Sicne Armenians lived under Turkish and Arabs rule for a long time some of our food were taken from us and became "Trukish". It has all the recipes of all Armenian foods. If the book had pictures it wil have been easier to understand how to make the foods. A great book for all those who want to make great tasting Armenian cuisines.



3. This is a very fine cookbook that provides a large number of mouth-watering recipes written in a clear and straightforward style. Dishes from both Eastern and Western Armenia are included, as are a number of Uvezian's own creations that are steeped in the Armenian tradition. Although the book lacks color photos, it does have a stunning color shot of Ararat Pilaf (two peaks of rice shaped like Great and Little Ararat) on the cover and includes beautiful drawings of dishes that are placed at the beginning of each chapter. I especially like the two illustrations that make striking use of old Armenian churches as a backdrop as well as the elegant medieval Armenian manuscript illumination that borders both the title page and the table of contents. Since this volume is moderately priced (and a great value considering the treasure that lies within it), expecting it to contain color photos would be unrealistic; the cost would have been prohibitive. Actually, the directions are so easy to follow that pictures are unnecessary. I would much rather have a cookbook like this that offers an extensive selection of outstanding recipes in addition to a tremendous amount of helpful and necessary culinary information, plus some lovely illustrations. Although Uvezian has provided a generous amount of enlightening historical material that traces the roots of Armenian cuisine far back into antiquity, she has wisely avoided trying to pinpoint the origins of the dishes, a task impossible to accomplish due to the long tradition of cultural and culinary interchange in the Middle East and Caucasus. As she explains, in addition to preserving their repertoire of national dishes, Armenians have skillfully assimilated foods of other peoples in the region and, conversely, a number of Armenian recipes have become part of the cuisines of other cultures. Until a time machine is invented that allows us to go back into the past without being impaled on someone's sword, it is probably best for us not to argue about origins but to celebrate the extraordinary creativity and diversity of Armenian cuisine as presented to us in this exceptional cookbook and to savor the delectable results it produces with joy and gratitude.



4. without compromising flavor. Armenian food is is full of history and meaning and reflects the foods native to their land.
   This book is written by an Armenian woman who knows her food! Her recipes are easy to understand and there are suggestions for side dishes as well. Reading this cookbook is reading the love of the authors' heritage and the respect she has for this great world cuisine. Everything I have made from this book has made my Armenian husband rejoice.



5. I bought this book about thirty years ago when I first began to cook and I have been a fan ever since. The author has the gift of being able to put together a recipe in a simple, easy to follow, readable way. Over the years I have cooked the majority of recipes in this book and even ordinary sounding ones like baked chicken with tomatoes are exquisite. The recipe for baklava which calls for a longer cooking time than any other I've ever seen is the only one ever use and the most delicious I've ever eaten.An intriguing and delicious dessert is apricots with whipped cream, an invention of the author. Ms. Uvezian's touch turns every recipe, even the most basic, into a real treat.this is not a book I would ever part with.

5 comments about The Best of Croatian Cooking.

1. Croatia's turbulent history has resulted in a varied cuisine seldom reflected in regional cookbooks, and The Best of Croatian Cooking provides an excellent selection of over 200 dishes from classic main courses to desserts. Recipes have been modified for easy preparation and American kitchens but are filled with appeal and retain their cultural authenticity.



2. Before my trip to Croatia I wanted to become acquainted with Croatian cuisine. Also, I collect cookbooks from my travels, so this way I had the book in hand BEFORE I left and didn't have to search for it in Croatia. I have already tried several recipes which are simple and good. I was pleased with my purchase.



3. There alot of receipes that include pork or are pork. You can subsitute lamp or beef for some. The book is very imformative though. Some receipes come with little back grounds on where they come from and their use in holidays. So if you eat pork. Good book. If not.. Well it's still has some good stuff in it.



4. `The Best of Croatian Cooking, Expanded Edition' by Liliana Pavicic and Gordana Pirker-Mosher is published as a member of `The Hippocrene Cookbook Library' which seems to focus on all those national and regional cuisines which will appeal to a sizable emigrant population, but which is not covered by the mainstream foodie literati. This would be just about everything except French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, `Mediterranean', Moroccan, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, German, Russian, Turkish, Lebanese, and Jewish cooking. Their real forte is for small central and eastern European nationalities such as Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian cooking. I am especially drawn to several of these national cuisines, having some relatives from Hungary and Slovakia.
   
   The problem with these books in general and with this volume in particular is that amateurs in both culinary skills and journalistic or scholastic skills write them. We are not reading minor league Paula Wolferts here. That is not to say there is nothing of value here. In fact, the intellectual discoveries one can make in this book may be even more interesting than the culinary ones. Croatia lies squarely in the confluence of three culinary dynamos. Directly to the west is Italy, especially the leading culinary region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. To the north is Vienna, the capitol of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, of which Croatia was a part for several centuries. To the south is Greece and Turkey, the heart of the old Ottoman Empire who was Croatia's landlord before the Austrians took over. So, Croatian cuisine is a great gemish of world class influences, with a bit to add on its own, being, like Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a fertile site for grape growing and, therefore, wine making.
   
   The authors take seriously their interest in giving a good picture of the regional cuisines of Croatia, except that they fail to handle this task effectively. Their first lapse is that they neglect to include a map of modern Croatia. I would consider this a flaw even in a book about well-known Italy. When you are covering Croatia, the omission is deadly, since the modern borders are highly irregular, shaped as it is like an hourglass tilted at a 45 degree angle, with its base on the Adriatic. When I checked my trusty Oxford Atlas of the world, I saw things of which this book gave me little inkling. And yet, it was not much help, as the book deals with provincial names, which are very difficult to see on a small-scale map.
   
   The next failing is that they don't identify the regional source of the various recipes, after going to so much trouble to identify the culinary characteristics of each province, they don't say from which province each recipe comes. It would be very interesting to know if a strudel recipe comes from a province closer to Vienna or closer to Greece.
   
   Speaking of strudel, the one reason I would buy this book is because it has a recipe for both strudel dough and for cabbage strudel. This reason is not compelling, as if you already own Rose Levy Beranbaum's `The Pie and Pastry Bible', you already have a whole chapter of strudel, but our authors give us a fair approach, but few tips if things go wrong. For that, you will need to go to Beranbaum.
   
   Since we are at the confluence of three very well known cuisines, there is really very little here which is new to the experienced culinary eye. There are novelties, especially among the simpler dishes, so that the book may be a truer picture of the cuisine of poverty than most books on Italian cuisine, but the similarities are such that if you already have lots of Italian cookbooks, especially Lydia Bastianich's `La Cuisine di Lydia', you will not get much that is new (Bastianich grew up in Istria, which is now part of Croatia).
   
   My last comment is that I think the authors may have gone just a bit too far from their roots to standard American cooking practice in that their most common cooking fat is `cooking oil'. I am willing to bet that the traditional Croatian cook, like their Italian and Greek neighbors primarily used either olive oil, pumice oil, lard, or butter, not corn or safflower oil.
   
   If I were to pick a single recipe that makes this book worthwhile for the cookbook collector, it would be the squid and potato salad, in spite of the fact that the title and ingredients say `squid' and the procedure says `cuttlefish'. This is just another dropped detail which makes the book less than perfect.
   
   Recommended for the foodie cookbook collector. Highly recommended it you have a Croatian background.



5. If you need to keep the Croatian culture in the family, you need to have this book on home!

5 comments about Kibbee 'N' Spice and Everything Nice : Popular and Easy Recipes for the Lebanese and American Family.

1. I love this book. It has clear, easy instructions, nutrition information and color pictures. Very yummy!



2. this book is extremely simple to read and understand and very much like the country recipes from rural lebanon that my grandmother (sita) used to make.



3. I have really enjoyed owning this cookbook. My great-grandparents were from Lebanon so I've grown up eating Lebanese food but this was the first Lebanese cookbook that I've seen where the recipes are just like what I used to eat at Sittee's house on Sunday after church. Also, I want to add that the recipes are relatively easy and require ingredients that you can get at your local grocery store.
   
   I HIGHLY recommend it!



4. This book is well laid out with a myriad of Lebanese dishes. The Author being Lebanese-American has adapted the recipes easily to the American Kitchen and Supermarket. Everything I have tried out of this cookbook has been delicious. I grew up eating this kind of food and the smells and flavors take me back. I would highly recommend this book for anyone that wishes to learn and more importantly eat Lebanese food. The copy I have has nutritional information with each recipe. The only reason it didn't get 5 stars is because I would have like more pictures and to have them with the recipes themselves. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.



5. Simply and understandably written for anyone who cooks Lebanese food or not, great cookbook, bought 5 for giveaways to my family

2 comments about Lulu's Provencal Table.

1. `Lulu's Provencal Table' by renowned culinary writer and editor, Richard Olney is one of the best works in the very select genre of what might be called `culinary anthropology'. The works I know in this field are few in number but very high in quality and in the rewards for interested readers.
   
   The leading work in this field is certainly `Honey from a Weed' by Patience Gray. Other notable titles are `The Cook and the Gardener' by Amanda Hesser and `The Tuscan Year' by Elizabeth Romer. Befitting Olney's influence, almost all of John Thorne's essays also belong to this tribe of writing. Also befitting this influence, it is Thorne who writes the new introduction to this very substantial work. In this piece, Thorne cites Madeleine Kamman's `When French Women Cook' as another member of this select tribe. I cite this in deference to Thorne's expertise in the area and I hope to review it very soon.
   
   Like my reviewing of `Honey from a Weed', I owned the book for almost a year before I opened it up and I deeply regret my delay, as this is a vicarious culinary pleasure of the first order. The subject / cook / interviewee of the book is Lucie Tempier Peyraud, known to all as `Lulu', the wife of the important French vintner, Lucian Peyraud and co-owner of Domaine Tempier, a vineyard and dwelling `nestled in the hillsides outside the neighboring fishing ports of Bandol and Sanary, some ten miles from Toulon and thirty miles from Marseilles.' Author Olney became friends with the Peyrauds shortly after purchasing a very run-down cottage near Domaine Tempier, before he was the renowned culinary writer he was to become with his books on French cuisine and his editorship of the Time-Life series of books on world cuisines.
   
   Olney was talked into doing this book by another Peyraud friend, Alice Waters, whose Chez Panisse has been a buyer of Peyraud wines for many years. The inspiration for the book is Lulu's great cooking experienced by Olney for decades, and experienced by Waters during frequent trips to Provence on wine testing and purchasing expeditions. In fact, according to Thorne, it was Waters who initiated the project and talked Olney into carrying it to publication.
   
   On the surface, the book may appear to be just another Provencal cookbook, similar to several titles from the likes of Patricia Wells and Lydie Marshall. And, it can be used in this way, but it is much, much more.
   The book was built out of interviews by Olney of Lulu as she prepared her various dishes. As Lulu was the consummately instinctive cook, she rarely knew on a conscious level exactly how much of a particular ingredient she uses for most recipes. As one reads Olney's asides on this archeological aspect of the interviews, one senses they are reading the captured essences of an ephemeral form of cooking which arises out of a great love of the art and the ingredients to the cooking.
   
   This is also what makes this such a great `reading' cookbook, yet it is not a culinary memoir with recipes added in here and there, which always play second fiddle to the narrative. Every other recipe offers important hints on general cooking technique such as the suggestion to leave the outer membrane on squid to add to the flavor and to search out the leafy bible tripe from the cow's third stomach, a very delicate addition to the traditional honeycombed tripe from the second stomach. While this is a relatively simple form of cooking, it is not primitive, as many recipes especially the famous French daubes take many hours to prepare, even with the addition of major modern kitchen equipment such as the blender and the food processor, which Lulu and Olney use frequently.
   
   Waters describes Lulu's cuisine as `la cuisine de bonne femme', which may be loosely translated into what Emeril Lagasse labels as `a food of love thing'. This is part of the reason this is both simple, but requiring a great amount of attention. This style of cooking will fail if it gets only half your attention, the other half being spent with Opra, the Knicks and Lakers basketball game, or an errant adolescent not quite old enough to be counted on to stay out of trouble on its own. This means that this book jumps to the top of the list of books I recommend to people who like to read cookbooks. It also jumps to the top of my list as a source for Provencal cooking. Since both author and subject are true to the terroir of coastal Provence, there may be a few recipes, such as the classic nine page long recipe for Bouillabaisse which you will not be able to duplicate as you may simply not be able to get whole rascasses, wrasses, combers, and John Dory's. Scribe Olney is true to his mission of describing how Lulu actually cooks, but he does transpose an aside here and there for us New World suburbanites so we may approximate the classic dishes.
   
   I heartily agree with Thorne when he says that the first sixty pages of the book can easily be left to a later time, as it is largely a `pro forma' recitation of the history of Lulu, Lucian, and their Bandol vineyard. The real action starts on page 61 with `Lulu's Kitchen: Recipes'. This recipe by recipe table of contents demonstrates that this is a really serious cookbook that just happens to be a great culinary read as well. The recipes cover all standard courses and food ingredients, with each and every recipe being a part of Lulu's real cuisine. There are no fillers here, so you will find no bread baking recipes, as it is apparent that Lulu did not bake her own bread.
   
   This is an important culinary book, a superb mix of cookbook and memoir of the Provencal terroir and style. Very highly recommended.



2. Richard Olney probably came closer to perfection as a cookbook author than any other American. His books are exquisite models of focus, structure, warmth, and practicality, and his treatment of food and wine somehow manages to be simultaneously perfectly balanced and highly personal. Next to Olney's cookbooks and vinyard monographs, the oevres of James Beard and Julia Child, for example, feel overblown, oversold, and downright sloppy.
   
   Olney's warmhearted incision is the perfect match for the home cooking of Lulu Peyraud. Mm Peyraud is the Marseille native, mother of seven, keystone of the Bandol food and wine community, renowned home cook, and owner-operator of Domaine Tempier, widely considered the finest vinyard of France's Mediterranean coast. Most famously, she is gratefully credited by Alice Waters, Kermit Lynch, Jeremiah Tower, Paul Bertolli, and a host of other American food heirarchs with being their inspiration and touchstone. But for years before America found the simple pleasures of expertly-prepared, highly-local, regional foods, Lulu and Richard were cooking lunches for each other under their respective grape arbors. This book is a broad sample of those meals. In it, Olney documents the preparation, from farm and fish-market to plate, of Mm Peyraud's favorite family meals. Each recipe is presented with notes on ingredients, irregularities and seasonal adjustments in Mm Peyraud's preparations, lucid explanations of techniques, and reminders to keep things loose. The result is a highly-informative glimpse into the regional cuisine that forms the culinary hunge between France and Piedmont-Liguria. This cuisine is one of the world's most satisfying, and I believe that this book is its greatest Testament.
   
   I won't single out any recipes this time. The book is full of stunners from salad to desert. Buy this book and a couple of bottles of Domaine Tempier [a rose and a red, for starters], and serve those wines, chilled Provence-style, with a sampling of these magical dishes. Serve them, if at all possible, under a grape arbor on a hot, sunny day in an ocean breeze. And raise a glass to Lulu and Richard for their generous hospitality.

5 comments about The Village Baker: Classic Regional Breads from Europe and America.

1. This book is good because of two reasons: It gives you a lot of authentic and traditional recipes and shows you how to use them. Joe Ortiz seems to be very forthcoming in that respect, that he teaches the techniques of the professional baker to a larger audience. He will teach you how to make bread without commercial yeast, but rather using home-made starters that will use "wild yeast" fromt he air. A bread like that can take about a week to make. The author is also very clear about the fact, that only experience can make you proficient home baker and that you will need well developed senses to decide when the dough can be taken to the next stage of its development. This means, you sometimes have to change a recipe slightly. Sometimes he will use recipes with a reduced amount of water to make the dough easier to handle, but in such cases a remark is added to the recipe (professional bakers seem to be used to handling very wet doughs with ease).
   
   Reading this book really is like getting a glimpse into the inner workings of a professional bakery. There is a chapter about professional recipes that will yield dough quantities in the 80 lb range. First, I totally disregarded that chapter because I thought it's not of interest to the home baker, but then I discovered that it included a lot of good remarks about baking in general, that will improve your skills as a home baker too.
   
   A book you can really sink your teeth into with a wealth of amount of material to study.



2. I give this bread book the lowest possible rating, because it is worthless to the home baker, author comments not withstanding. If you are already a decent bread baker and wish to be a great one, this book is absolutely essential; for the rest of us, forget it. If you have worked in a boulangerie washing pans and weighing out flour and wish to become a journeyman bread baker, or a home baker who knows what a direct method bread is and can make one without a recipe, this book is a must have. It will show you techniques, methods, and philosophies that will make a great bread maker out of a mediocre one. In spite of the faulty instructions, I had no trouble with the breads I tried, and found the recipes to be reliable, even when baking something for the first time. If you already know your way around the bread kitchen and want to take the next step, this book is one of the few I know of that will get you there.
   
   This book is a collection of the bread making techniques the author has learned over the years from small, artisanal boulangerie in France. The author has made the serious mistake of assuming that since these artisanal bakeries make small batches using no fancy or modern equipment, that the home bread baker can duplicate them; nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the recipes in the book require experience and judgment to properly execute.
   
   The main value of this book is as a repository of recipes and methods for high quality and flavorful breads as practiced by hard working bakers laboring away in small, neighborhood boulageries. It is a good antidote to the fluffy, flavorless mass-produced breads you will find in supermarkets both in this country and France. Many bakers have become famous using the recipes in this book, and only a small portion of the recipes have been commercially exploited; in this, there is much potential. Astonishingly, there is a collection of 4 dozen professional, ready to use commercial baking recipes; these are valuable recipes collected from some very famous and very successful boulangeries in France. In fact, most of the recipes in the first part of the book are scaled down versions of these professional bread recipes, which the author has adapted with varying success. Even here, however, the author has erred by not making the ingredient tables consistent; a few are in baker's percentage, but not all, the english and metric amounts are not always equivalent (something the author could easily have fixed by spending a few minutes with a calculator; as is, you have figure it yourself and scribble the correct numbers in the page margins).
   
   One significant problem is that the author starts throwing around important terms, like levain, sourdough, starter, sponge, or poolish, without explaining the meaning of the various terms; indeed, in some cases the author uses these terms incorrectly. An experienced baker will be able to know the difference, but not the typical home cook trying to make bread. The author also commits the ultimate baking sin: measuring flour in cups and not weight, even worse not telling you how that flour is measure. A cup of flour can weigh anything from 3 to 5 ounces, depending on how you measure it. The difference is between great bread and an awful disaster. It also would have been nice to have a recipe listing in the table of contents or chapter headings, as there really are not that many recipes in the book.
   
   It has chapters on ingredients, leavening, procedures, France, Italy, Germany, U.S., professional, and bread sculpture.



3. I'm sure I'm a novice but the bread I baked from this book was great .I tried three recipes and was hooked !!! My famliy and friends begged for more . Now if amazon just carried it (mine came from the library)



4. Joe Ortiz's book is superb. He clearly loves his art, and communicates the joy of baking to the reader. The book is also very informative. The early chapters explain, very carefully, point by point, the techniques of baking that have been developed over many centuries by european bakers. Then follow the recipes, from artisan bakers in France, Italy, and Germany. (The sources of the recipes are named). ''You should never hurry a natural process'' the author says, ''either of baking bread, or writing a book''. That sums up his philosophy in a nutshell.



5. I just learnt that this book will be reprinted in July 2009. Although there is still one year to go, it is worth waiting.

5 comments about Chef for All Seasons.

1. Rather than a culinary version of "A Man for All Seasons," Gordon Ramsay's "A Chef for All Seasons" is a wonderful collection of great (read "Scottish") recipes.
   
   (...)



2. `A Chef for All Seasons' by the English high tempered chef, Gordon Ramsay looks like and is very much of a `follow the trend' book, just as `healthy eating' and `quick cooking' themes are bandwagons on which cookbook writers jump to squeeze another ounce of interest out of their audience for their latest book. Unlike some other seasonally or calendar oriented books such as Alfred Portale's `The 12 Seasons', Nigel Slater's `The Kitchen Diaries' and Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette various `Twelve Month' cookbooks, the recipes in this book offer little real guidance to when it is best to make these various recipes. As the author himself says, for him, summer begins in early May and most of the best produce is available closer to autumn than in high summer.
   
   Except for a very few fruits and vegetables such as fava beans and strawberries in spring, tomatoes and corn in late summer, there is little reason aside perhaps from cost from restricting oneself to strictly seasonal produce, except for price. While my favorite local supermarket carries excellent asparagus the year around, it's price jumps from $1.99 to $2.99 in late summer, to drop back a dollar in March, and briefly drop to $1.69 (a pound) in May and June. So, I don't eat asparagus at $3 a pop, but do eat it every other month. Similarly, I don't make dishes with beefsteak tomatoes quite as often in the winter and spring as I do in high summer, but I don't eschew them entirely in winter. So, unless you are willing to literally graph out prices and availability of produce based on supermarket prices in your area, most seasonal considerations seem like a waste of time. Because, if you can't get it at all (like fresh fava beans in October), the question is moot, and if you can get it at a reasonable price and at a reasonable quality, the small difference between seasonal and off seasonal produce shipped in from Chile probably won't make a big difference to you, especially when you are looking at Master Ramsay's recipes, where the prep and cooking time are worth far more than that extra dollar you may pay for off season blueberries.
   
   The other side of the coin is that Gordon Ramsay's recipes are very, very good without using excessively expensive ingredients except as options and they are (relatively) easy for `haute cuisine' dishes. So, this book is more of an argument to select Gordon Ramsay as your primary source for fancy dishes, instead of Eric Rippert or Albert Portale or Tom Colicchio or Joel Robuchon or Michael Romano or Charlie Trotter. Compared to many of these chef / authors, Ramsay is equally as fussy, but manages to follow the dictum of using the best ingredients and being as careful as possible not to muck them up. And, unlike some of his preachier colleagues, he concentrates on the simple procedures rather than on the gratuitous yapping about using fresh ingredients. For us in the peanut gallery, we pick the best that we can get without traveling 20 miles out of our way. Even foodies have a life beyond cooking and marketing.
   
   For those of you unfamiliar with Ramsay's style, it is very, very French in technique with lots of creamy sauces, soups, and confits. It may not be the kind of thing you would pick for a low calorie diet, but it is not quite as fat laden as the provincial cuisine of southwestern France (see Paula Wolfert's excellent new edition on the subject). As usual, the most sprightly and revealing blurb on the back cover comes from the always eloquent Tony Bourdain, who describes this as `...food porn at its most lush...', a far more original approbation than the overworked `decadent'.
   
   I confess I was not immediately as impressed with this book as I have been with some of Ramsay's other books, but this is largely due to what seems like less general information on cooking technique and more space on the recipes themselves. There is, however, still a fair amount of gems on various foods here. For example, he gives an excellent argument for preferring your mangoes firm and not quite ripe to the squishy red ones soft to the touch. But, the very best part of the book for the foodie cook is the last section on `basic recipes and techniques', especially if your library is not already filled with tomes from Jacques Pepin, the CIA, and James Peterson on basic kitchen skills. The most interesting recipe here is the one for `Vegetable nage' that on the surface is very similar to a vegetable stock, but it seems to be a cross between a veggie stock and a court bouillon. It is not cooked as long as stocks and it seems to have a longer refrigerator life than meat or fish stocks. While this is a classic French term and concept, I have not seen recipes for it in many other books. By pure coincidence, I noticed a very similar recipe in the book `Full On Irish' by Irish Michelin starred chef, Kevin Dundon which he describes as a kitchen garden vegetable stock. I don't even recall seeing this in Deborah Madison's great works on vegetable stocks.
   
   All of Ramsay's measurements are Yankee friendly, as everything is measured by cup, spoon, or count and not by gram or liter. He also does a better job of displaying ingredients lists so that units and ingredient names are all put on separate lines or columns. Unfortunately, he does not do this in the `basic recipes' section. But, since almost all items are simply counts, the problem is not acute.
   
   This is another reason to make Gordon Ramsay your celebrity chef/writer of choice, especially as his books are reasonably priced and very attractive to look at, with full oversized pages of well-chosen pics (but without captions!).
   
   Recommended.



3. Gordon Ramsay's A Chef for All Seasons is a cookbook you can use for those super special occasions: when you want to impress those friends, who love to cook themselves, or when you just want to eat really awesome food yourself. A lot of the recipes call for expensive ingredients, like lobster, goose fat, the obligatory truffles and foie gras. But there are also quite a few recipes with more common ingredients, which are real gems. I just want to mention the Veal Chops with a Cream of Winter Vegetables (even Gordon calls this "a nice recipe for a mid-week dinner") and the Pillows of Ricotta Gnocchi with Peas and Fèves.
   
   The recipes is divided into four chapters, one for each season, which is a great plus in a cookbook. Each chapter contains recipes for starters, entrees and desserts. The last chapter is Basic Recipes and Techniques, which contains instructional photographs. Finally, the index has entries for each ingredient used.
   
   It's great fun to read about how things are done in Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, e.g. "Boil the potatoes still in their skin until just tender. Drain and peel them while hot. (We do this wearing rubber gloves to protect our hands.)" in the recipe for Pillows of Ricotta Gnocchi with Peas and Fèves.
   
   His perfectionistic style makes some recipes seem harder than necessary. After following his recipe closely the first time I make it, it is usually easy to see some shortcuts without sacrificing the quality of the end product (I imagine that Gordon will wholeheartedly disagree with this).
   
   To conclude, I would highly recommend this cookbook for the experienced cook, who wants to surprise others (or her/himself) with great food.



4. If only Gordon Ramsay had been writing cookbooks when I was learning to cook some 50 years ago, I never would have bought another series of cookbooks. He's that good.



5. Not only is this cookbook chocked full of interesting recipes, but it is gorgeous! The photos accompanying each season are breathtaking - if you can appreciate the subtle beauty of food itself.
   
   First off, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Chef Ramsay enjoys the flavor of lavender and chocolate as much as I do! I used to make white chocolate and lavender truffles for the spring and I was thrilled to see a recipe for "Mille-Feuille of Chocolate with Lavender": a light dark chocolate ganache with steeped lavender piped over layers of puff pastry. He even serves lavender flavored ice cream on the side! Simply beautiful.
   
   Obviously, the chapters are divided by the four seasons. At the beginning of each chapter, Chef Ramsay informs us as to why the vegetables, fruits and meats belong in each season. Followed are the recipes which may seem a bit daunting to the average chef. As in his other books, there is a good mixture of easy dishes that make this cookbook worth its weight.
   
   Spring recipes that were fun and easy included "Whiting with Lemon and Parsley Crust", "Ricotta Gnocchi with Peas and Fava Beans" and "White Chocolate and Lemon Mousse".
   Summer recipes include "Lobster with Mango and Spinach Salad", "Poached Salmon with Gewürztraminer Sauce" and "Loin of Beef with Watercress Puree".
   Fall recipes that were a joy to make are "Lentil and Langoustine Soup (I substituted Cray Fish for the Langoustine)", "Tomato and Parmesan Gratinee Tarts" and "Monkfish with Creamy Curried Mussels" (a bit expensive but makes a great romantic dinner for two!). Winter recipes we enjoyed were "Smoked Haddock and Mustard Chowder", "Seafood in Nage with Carrot Spaghetti" (you do have to make the Nage(a vegetable broth) ahead of time but it is totally worth it!) and "Veal Chops with a cream of Winter Vegetables" (we actually substituted the Veal for Chicken and it worked well. Pork chops might also work, but you are not going to get the same texture.)
   
   Again, at the back of the book is a plethora of cooking techniques, broth recipes and miscellaneous kitchen information.

5 comments about The Food and Wine of Greece: More Than 300 Classic and Modern Dishes from the Mainland and Islands.

1. I have hundreds of cookbooks... I know its sounds nuts. I am a very adventurous cook. I'll try anything... from Indian, to Japanese to Italian to "Good Old American" to Vietnamese and of course Greek (my favorite) and much more in between.
   
   Out of all my cookbooks (including all my Greek cookbooks)this is the one I use most. It is beat up, stained, falling apart and hanging on by a thread. That is how much I use this book.



2. I'm Greek and love Greek food of course, but I've lived in the USA most of my life and only get to experience the true Greek dishes when i visit family in Greece. This is a great book of Greek dishes, they are very authentic and i have enjoyed trying something new each week.



3. I was raised on the recipes found in this book. Diane makes even the most seemingly complicated recipes manageable. I gave the book out as gifts this holiday season. I highly recommend it.



4. I spotted it in a local book store and wasn't that impressed. There's tons of info and recipes which I'm sure are authentically excellent however what put me off is the poor, dark gray paper pages and lack of bright, high resolution color photos like you find in other cookbooks. I love to see how the dish is supposed to look like so I can know I'm preparing it the right way. Having to use a cookbook that looks more like a dusty, mystery novel is not too helpful nor inspiring.



5. I made a couple of items from this book for a Greek friend's party- and they were great. I cannot pronounce the cookies I made (but he did, and knew them)- they had interesting spices and wine (!) and orange juice in them- as well as a walnut and honey filling. Really good! My friend vouched for the recipe's authenticity.

3 comments about A Taste of Croatia.

1. Karen Evenden's book describes sailing the Mediterranean, specifically the Croatian coast, in beautiful detail. It is a great way to escape from the long, cold winter and be transported to another world full of sunshine, friendly people and delicious food. The recipes are easy to follow and full of fresh, seasonal ingredients. If the reader isn't fortunate ehough to visit Croatia, at least he/she can savor the cuisine.



2. Did you know that throwing a couple of corks in the cooking pot with the octopus while simmering will make it more tender? It seems to be a custom practised widely in Croatia. This is only one tidbit of added information in the Cook's Notes in this exciting travel memoir and cookbook written by a "fearless foodie." With attention focused on Croatia as a travel destination, you can use this book to prepare for your trip and enjoy the recipes when you return.



3. This is a wonderful travel memoir. I learned so much about the country of Croatia and it's culture. The writing made me want to visit Croatia myself. We look forward to sampling the recipes. They sound delicious. The ingredients are fresh and easy to find.

1 comments about Making European Breads: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-172 (Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, a-172).

1. easy for the novice baker! well worth the $! Easy step-by-step instructions and it doesn't take 3 days to make the bread! Well written...highly recommend.