1 comments about After the Hunt: Louisiana's Authoritative Collection of Wild Game & Game Fish Cookery.

1. A glorious pictorial; educational, beautiful and totally fun! Cookbook collectors, it's a definite. Even if one never prepared a dish (say not!) it is a beautiful object.

5 comments about Cold-Smoking & Salt-Curing Meat, Fish, & Game.

1. We got this book in the library and decided that it needed to be part of our collection at home.This is a great book for do-it-yourselfers. Those of us that want to take the middle man out, raise and cure your own meat this is the book for you. It also has some great recepies in the back.



2. A very disappointing book. The descriptions are to vague and are of little use to anyone other then someone with absolutely no knowledge what so ever of this subject. I got more information surfing the net for 45 minutes then this whole book has cover to cover. What good is a book that feels the need to include a recipe for a ham and cheese sandwich? If you are looking for information on smoking and curing meats I highly suggest you look into one of the other books on this subject. This book is not the money.



3. This slim volume, while interesting, did not provide the depth I had been hoping for. However, what really ticked me off is that the index is horrible. I was particularly interested in a recipe for cold-smoked salmon. There is one in the text, but it doesn't show up in the index. Of course the author also suggests cooking the smoked salmon before eating -- yeah, that would be great on a bagel!



4. I bought this book for our son inlaw, He seems happy with it after having a good look but has not tried anything out of it at present



5. I am a food professional and consulting chef with many years experience curing and smoking. I found much of the information to be incorrect and some of it unsafe from a food handling, curing, and smoking perspective. There are much better sources of information available, both in books and on the Internet.

5 comments about Sushi: Taste and Techniques.

1. Absolutely loved this book. I like to make my own sushi and this book is simply amazing. Excellent photos with very detailed instructions.
   
   I especially like the section with all the different types of fish and how to cut each one.



2. The photos in this book are beautiful and inspiring. I cannot read it without wanting to make sushi.
   
   Contents include under these major categories:
   -Basics
   -Making
   -Eating
   
   The best part is the simple and clean photography, especially of the fish which the show what they look like both whole (scales and all) to cut up.
   
   The "pressed sushi" section is my favorite, very impressive!



3. Excelent book with lot of pictures to show the final result.



4. I am a semi-professional chéf. I saw this book in a friend's library and fell in love with it. I bought one myself recently and found it even better as I read it. I highly recommend it.
   
   I have 2 more sushi (at home) books in my library. They are also quite good but this one is superior. Detailed descriptions, beautiful pictures and perfect knowledge. There's no need for another sushi book.
   
   Also, congratulations to DK publishing and authors Kimiko Barber & Hiroki Takemura on such a masterpiece.



5. My family and I found this at a local farmers' market in the book and magazine section and put it in the cart. We then went around picking out the fish, rice and other items we would need to make sushi using the recipes found inside. For a group of people who had never made sushi before, this book made it approachable and within our reach.
   
   The etiquette and background information make it even more valuable, as we've learned things from the book that we take with us when we go to sushi restaurants. Highly recommended!

4 comments about America Eats!: On the Road with the WPA - the Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts That Define Real American Food.

1. What a way to spend the summer! all of the good food, the bad and great philosophy of american food!



2. An entertaining and educational read, likely to spawn much culinary experimentation and perhaps regional exploration.



3. This book makes me homesick for some great food and fun times at the county fair! Well written, with interesting old photos. Interesting to learn about traditions in food and fun around the country.



4. Lots of information that is germane to the era and no longer works in current society....but is was somewhat interesting.

5 comments about Le Bernardin Cookbook: Four-Star Simplicity.

1. `Le Bernardin Cookbook' by highly regarded seafood chef Eric Ripert and restaurateur Maguy Le Coze (cofounder of the restaurant with her brother Gilbert) is the first case where I wished I could give a half a star. In many ways, it is a classic restaurant cookbook which is better than average in many ways, but I usually need a little more than `better than average' to give five stars. In comparison to Rob Feenie's `Lumiere' cookbook I reviewed yesterday, `Le Bernardin' exceeds expectations in the following ways:
   
   It is almost entirely a cookbook for all sorts of fish, based primarily on classic French recipes. This means that if you had a shelf of 100 famous restaurant cookbooks and wanted a recipe for fish, you could immediately go to either this book or Bob Kinkead's recent restaurant book, depending on whether you wanted something from Brittany or Baltimore. Oddly, this book also shares with the Kinkead book the fact that at least one recipe author (Bob Kinkead and Gilbert Le Coze) for each book was entirely self-taught.
   
   The story behind this book is about as endearing and as interesting as they come. `Le Bernardin' was originally opened in Paris by brother and sister Le Coze in 1972, after the siblings spend their early life together helping their parents run a struggling little restaurant on the coast of Brittany. After an initial splash and failure based on no experience, they ultimately succeeded in Paris. They followed this with opening the Manhattan restaurant in 1986, just as culinary consciousness in New York made it worth their while to open a restaurant which specialized in fish. All of this would be very ordinary if it were not for the incredible affection brother and sister had for one another, ended with the death of Gilbert at the age of forty-eight in 1994, just a year or two after hiring classically trained Eric Rippert as executive chef at the Manhattan restaurant.
   
   The recipes, many the creation of unschooled Gilbert, tend to be much more original than what you may find in the standard fish cookbooks by Mark Bittman, James Beard, and Alan Davidson. None of the classic bistro recipes for mussels (which you will find in Tony Bourdain's `Les Halles' book) are here. While some tend to the involved, fish recipes tend to be involved primarily in the preparation of stocks, nages, butter sauces and court bouillons. If you get the techniques for doing these things well, many of the recipes devolve into very simple preparations, befitting the generally fast cooking times for fish.
   
   Each recipe has a separate headnote from each author, and the counterpoint between them is almost worth the price of the book in itself. It is not uncommon for Madame Le Coze to really hate a recipe that Monsieur Rippert has just praised up and down the avenue. She usually comes around in the end, but the honesty is so unexpected that you start looking forward to contretemps in the next recipe dialogue.
   
   The recipes are organized in a very satisfactory way for a restaurant book on fish. The first chapter is an especially good collection of recipes for the basics. These are for the stocks, nages, butter sauces and court bouillons cited above. This is one of the few cookbooks I can thing of which includes a shrimp, lobster, and clam stock recipe. And, near and dear to my heart is the fact that the chicken stock recipe cooks for only three hours! The following eight chapters on fish dishes is just a little mixed, in that two chapters represent courses, `Salads' and `Appetizers' while six chapters represent the techniques `Raw Fish', `Poached and Steamed Fish', `Sautéed Fish', `Roasted Fish', `Grilled Fish', and `Shellfish'. The penultimate chapter on `Big Parties' gives seven over the top recipes for entertaining, most giving eight servings rather than the usual four to six servings. The last chapter on desserts seems relatively long, giving 31 recipes, including three for basics such as pastry cream, hazelnut-almond cream, ganache, and sweet pastry dough. With all the pastry books available, you will not be buying this book for the desserts, but it does add to the book's value. As usual, some of the dessert recipes are quite involved.
   
   There are no chapters or separate recipes for vegetables, as all the vegetable side dishes are included in the recipe for the seafood. This means many of the fish recipes may not be as complicated as they seem from their length if you removed the vegetable garnish, but that would take away the cachet of serving a dish as done at the great and famous Le Bernardin!
   
   Ultimately, this book deserves more than four stars because it is a restaurant cookbook that is more valuable than a source of instructive recipes to read. It has lots of great fish recipes that can be made by an amateur at home, as long as you have access to high quality ingredients. My only disappointment in reading the book is the feeling that there is simply no way I would be able to get the kind of fresh fish used by Le Bernardin unless I opened a restaurant in an Atlantic seaport.
   
   The mantra for this book that should be intoned as you look for a recipe is to respect the differences between the fishes. Things that work for skate will not work for tuna and vice versa. Respect the fish and you will be rewarded.



2. A lovely book from one of our favorite New York restaurants. The recipes are flavorful and delicious.



3. If you have a large kitchen staff in your home, or 2-3 days to prepare a meal this is the book for you. The recipes are impractical for anyone at home and I don't understand why they would make a cookbook with such lengthy and involved directions and call it four star "simplicity"



4. The recipes of the best seafood chef in the U.S.
   Great food, very hard recipes.



5. Hello everybody,
   here two lines about this book, too much housewife focused, i was expecting some good tips or any suggestion that can be implemented in a professional environment. Maybe could help if you can highlight clearly the target of clientele.

5 comments about I Love Crab Cakes! 50 Recipes for an American Classic.

1. This book has lots of information about types of crab meat and the recipes are easy, fun and taste great. I've made a couple of the recipes and they were all the best crab cakes I've ever made.



2. I purchased this book as a gift.The receiver is a gourmet cook and it's hard to find a cookbook he doesn't have.He has tried a few of the recipes and found them to be exceptional. I was a recepiant of a crab cake dinner at his home, and it was delish.



3. This book has amazing recipes in it for making crab cakes. I am new to cooking seafood and this cookbook makes great variations of crab cakes. I just love it!



4. I Love Crab Cakes was a gift to my husband, he is the cook in our household. This book has a bounty of wonderful crab recipes. I would recommend this book to everyone that has a love of crab cakes done in allot of different ways.



5. Whether you want to learn to make Crab Cakes and/or feel confident enough to make them for dinner parties this is the perfect book. The recipes are easy to follow, every one (7 so far) I have tried has been outstanding. I've also found that I will be able to create my own recipes from what I've learned making these. It makes a great gift for cooks of all abilities that love crab cakes!

5 comments about Fish & Shellfish: The Definitive Cook's Companion.

1. No more searching through a string of specialty cookbooks for that fresh idea for tonight's dinner. Look no farther.



2. I got this for a gift for a friend from NJ. He was always complaining about there never being recipes for obtuse fish, shellfish and bi-valves. When he opened this book, he didn't put it down for 2 days. He is STILL raving about it! Kudos!



3. If you have ever had a question about any type of sauce this is the book to own! The basic for every sauce begins with good stock and that is not overlooked in this book!! It is a must have!!



4. Anything you could possibly want to know about fish, how to buy them, when to buy them, where to buy them, and the best possible way to cook them is ALL in this book. The recipes are all fairly simple - any home cook with a moderate amount of experience should be able to execute them easily. There are also a number of helpful resources like sauces, how to filet (and when not to), and different cooking techniques to achieve different flavors and results.
   
   If you're serious about eating more fish or getting more adventurous with the way you cook it - this is a must have.



5. This book is to be a gift and it answers all the questions I would think a person would want to know about the subject of fish and shellfish. I believe it will make the kind of cookbook that will be useful, and also open the door to many kinds of dishes that one may not know about.

5 comments about Fish Forever: The Definitive Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Preparing Healthy, Delicious, and Environmentally Sustainable Seafood.

1. This book is really a great seafood cookbook. I learned how to search out healthy seafood and then cook it in a simple but tasty way.



2. FISH FOREVER: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING, SELECTING, AND PREPARING HEALTHY, DELICIOUS AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD is for neo-pros and chiefs who would choose sustainable seafood, and is written by the owner of the Monterey Fish Market in San Francisco who has supplied such seafood to some of the nation's best chefs. His guide blends an international recipe book with in-depth profiles of both fish types and discussions of fish health issues and concerns. Access to a range of fish types is required, but any library catering to patrons who love to cook seafood must have this, with its bright centerfold of photos and detailed fish cooking insights.



3. I have always enjoyed fish when I go to restaurants but the fish market and cooking fish scared me. 'Fish Forever' gives me the information to select and cook great seafood dishes. The results of the recipes are spectacular. I am lousy cook, but the recipes are so easy to follow, they improved my cooking. The book is also an interesting look at fishing and the seafood business.



4. As both an amateur home cook and a devotee of sustainable seafood, I think this is the best sustainable seafood cookbook on the market. The recipes are simple and healthy, and the factual information is well-balanced. I highly recommend this cookbook!



5. This is an absolutely essential cookbook for your kitchen if you are a serious cook. The recipes are beautifully presented, and are not difficult to prepare. They don't require a lot of hard to find ingredients. You know you are eating wonderful food, as it was meant to be prepared. Taste the fish. Can't recommend it more highly.

5 comments about Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood.

1. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch guide has been tucked into my wallet for a couple of years now, but even with its straightforward green, yellow, red categories, I've found myself staring at restaurant menus in bafflement. How can salmon fall into all three categories and how do I know which one I'm ordering???
   
   Grescoe's book has thinned the fog surrounding the world of seafood. In interesting and easy to read chapters, the book explores the oceans from the bottom of the food chain all the way to the top, and provides a well-rounded explanation of the issues facing the seafood industry and the environment.
   
   Though I had anticipated a doomsday narrative that would shatter my love of seafood, instead it has left me feeling empowered to ask the right questions and make better choices.



2. While I was reading Bottomfeeder, I was sometimes craving fish (sardines, especially!) and sometimes thinking I never wanted to eat another fish (farmed salmon) or shrimp again.
   
   Bottomfeeder is a real eye-opener about where our seafood comes from and how its future is in jeopardy. Ever wonder how Red Lobster gets sooooo many shrimp to feed soooo many people all over the country? And ever wonder why those shriimp all exactly (pretty much) the same size?
   
   Surely you've heard that salmon is plentiful because there are salmon farms. Want to learn how gross those farms are? Read this book.
   
   Luckily, as a seafood lover, Grescoe writes about sustainable fish populations and does give very good, clear direction about what sorts of fish -- what species, and how and where they are fished or produced -- one can eat without feeling like one is contributing to the eventual demise of species, and isn't harming one's health with too much mercury, antibiotics or other nasty chemicals.
   
   I loved reading about Grescoe's adventures in eating seafood around the world. Descriptions of sardines made my mouth water, descriptions of pufferfish made me recoil. This is an adventure in eating good food, and an education in how (as the subtitle says) to eat ethically in a world of vanishing seafood. I hope everyone who eats a lot of seafood will read it.



3. Science hurts my head. In college I couldn't make it through a semester of biology. The textbook was incomprehensible and the teacher's carefully prepared PowerPoint slides wasted. It was all just gibberish. Science, especially life sciences, was definitely not for me.
   (Science was somewhat redeemed the following year in my astronomy and geology classes. Still tedious and boring, but at least I `got' it. Whereas I'm still unable to remember basic parts of cells or DNA. Ribosomegolgibodynebulei what?)
   
   But I try to be a good little environmentally-friendly girl and recycle, bring fabric bags to the grocery store, buy vegetables at farmer markets and patronize local businesses rather than big box corporations. (Amazon remains my huge weakness and exception to that rule.) Bottomfeeder was impulsively requested because of the catch phrases "eat ethically" and "vanishing seafood." I love to eat fish, but I never really cared about where it came from. There's plenty of fish in the sea, right? This book has completely revolutionized my thoughts.
   
   A combination o travel writing and scientific research, Taras Grescoe hunts down local seafood delicacies from around the world (Bouillabaisse in Marseilles, bluefin tuna sashimi in Japan) and traces the fish's journey from the ocean to the dinner table. In addition to mouth-watering descriptions of exotic dishes, he has written a condemning exposé of the world's destructive over-fishing. By decimating the ocean floor with massive bottom-trawlers and wastefully throwing hundreds of tons of bycatch (fish caught in giant nets with fishermen's intended prey but are too small or the wrong species to sell) the fishing industry is on a collision course with disaster.
   
   But Grescoe isn't all bad news. In each chapter he focuses on a certain species and shares the best way to get it with minimal negative impact. If there is no good solution to be found he suggests tasty alternatives. He also highlights possible suggestions and experimental attempts to bring fish populations back to sustainable levels. His message is dire; if the industry doesn't change we're looking at a future of not sushi and salmon steaks but "peanut-butter-and-jellyfish" sandwiches. (When a natural ecosystem is upset due to key species removal or pollution, algae and jellyfish are often the only creatures left.) But it is not without hope. Take the time to read this book; with seafood consumption on the rise and TV shows like "Deadliest Catch" gaining popularity Bottomfeeder contains information that all consumers must know.



4. an amazingly insightful and well written book that covers all angles without bias. an indispensible read for every serious living being. you will be delighted and mortifed by the events which take place in this in this fast paced incredible journey into the depths of what seems to be the undeniable self destruction of one of our most precious resources. those with week stomachs beware. i am not easy make queasy but this book which is part monster movie and part homers odyssey had me cringing a lot. a must must read. it will change your life.



5. I ordered this book in April but didn't get around to reading it until now. I found the book interesting and absorbing if a bit depressing, but I got to page 56 and the next page after that was a repeat of page 25 from earlier in the book, and this duplication of pages from the previous chapter went on like this for 30 pages and then...it skipped ahead to page 89.
   
   I'm rather annoyed that I've missed out on 30 pages of the book, and I can't return it since it's been more than 30 days since I purchased it.

5 comments about Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking.

1. This is the best book I have found for preparing and cooking all types of fish. This book is particularly useful as a gift for someone who wants to serve fish to others, but cannot or will not eat it themselves due to allergies, illness etc. If the directions are simply followed, it will turn out great and you don't need to sample the dish before serving (unless, like me, you just can't help yourself!).



2. This book was ordered as a gift. The recipient, my daughter, called me and said she went through the book and has marked off all the recipes that she wants to try. Her best friend is jealous and wants one too!



3. a little outdated but still gives great advice and good recipes. all you ever wanted to know about cod but were afraid to ask.



4. This book opened up a world of cooking fish that I had missed throughout my life. Great recipes, great explainations. Exceptional. I have been giving it as a gift to my fishing buddies.



5. As with How to Cook Everything, many of Bittman's recipes could not have been tested before publishing and seem as though they were concocted at his desk.