No comments about Better Homes and Gardens Mexican Cook Book.

1 comments about Tortilla Lovers Cook Book.

1. We bought this as a gift. And from what we have tasted it has come in very very handy. All the recipes are easy to follow and very descriptive. If you really don't know much about tortillas or if you are an expert, this book could give you a little helping hand. A great buy! Give it as a gift today.

5 comments about El Paso Chile Company.

1. One of my most used cookbooks - since I am in "the land of bland" I have to rely on this more than ever. Of special note is the grits recipe - a real winner for any brunch.



2. This is a great cookbook that is more New Mexican/ Border in flavor than Tex-Mex. The red enchiladas are so good. I usually make them twice a month for my family. I have made almost every recipe in this book and every one has been a winner.



3. This is an outstanding cookbood and easy to use. Every recipe I've made has turned out great and wow's my family and friends. I put it in my top three most frequently used cookbooks.



4. There are a lot of cookbooks out there purporting to be "Tex-Mex". Most of them are charlatans. This is the Real Deal. When I was a kid, my mom even made "Texas Trash" for when company was coming over. She would always tell me, "Just don't tell them what it's called". Of course, the company loved it, as did I. She also made just about everything else in this book. This is what I grew up on. About the only thing she wouldn't make were Tamales, they are a "PITA" to make without help, a point mentioned in this book, she would buy them pre-made. If you like or want to learn Tex-Mex, "This is the one !". Authentic Tex-Mex !



5. I have owned this cookbook for over 10 years and it is my favorite and most used. Well written and easy to follow, the Texas Border Cookbook demonstrates many of the classic Texas recipes including salsas, guacamole, chili (5 different variations), enchiladas and chicken fried steak. If you enjoy southwestern food this cookbook should be in your collection.

2 comments about Macho Nachos: 50 Toppings, Salsas, and Spreads for Irresistible Snacks and Light Meals.

1. I'm not a great cook but I thought I knew how to make nachos. Boy, was I wrong! The recipes in this book take nachos to levels I never dreamed of. Now I can make them not just as a snack but as a full meal. Even my girlfriend wonders where I suddenly learned how to cook.

   If you want to salivate, buy this book just for the photos.




2. I own thousands of cookbooks, and this is one of the better one topic books I have run across. All the recipes are easily prepared with easy to find ingredients, and of the 10-12 I have made so far, all have been very tasty. This book will get you out of the typical beef and bean type nachos and into a new world of taste. A lot of the combinations also make excellent pizzas.

5 comments about Mexican Cookery.

1. The receipes were easy to follow and when I cooked for my Mexican friends, they love it! Used it for four years, until the movers lost it! Recommend that you buy this book.



2. Growing up in a Mexican kitchen myself, was able to re-create some of the dishes my mother made using this cookbook. All of the ingredients can easily be found at your local supermarket. Super easy to follow directions. Excellent, excellent book to own. She's got wonderful marinades for the carne asada and BBQ chicken. The enchilada recipes are superb.



3. I originally purchased this wonderful cookbook in the early 1980's. I found it very interesting to read from cover-to-cover as it offers many helps and describes all of the traditional ingredients in authentic Mexican dishes. The illustrations made it easy to follow the recipies and to end up with a wonderfully delicious and colorful dish. I wish to thank Barbara Hansen for a wonderful job and only wish she would find the time to put together another book as wonderful as this. I understand she can still be located at the Los Angeles Times' food section in California. Thanks for letting me express my thoughts.



4. After reading a review, I purchased Mexican Cookery many years ago. Coming from a Mexican background I found the receipes to be the closest to authentic Mexican cuisine I have ever seen in a Mexican cookbook written in English. Just like grandma and Mama used to cook.I have given several copies away as presents to people who I know enjoy authentic Mexican food.



5. Very authentic! The Enchiladas de Pollo and the Enchiladas Queso are both amazing. Try to find a copy if you can.

No comments about Mexican Cookery.

5 comments about Seasons of My Heart: A Culinary Journey Through Oaxaca, Mexico.

1. I just want to concur with the other reviews and add that Susana Trilling is a brilliant chef, period -- in Mexican cooking or otherwise. I don't understand it, but she really knows how to balance flavors in a way that is unique, compared to similar recipes I've followed. What makes one chef good and another great? I don't know - but she's got it, whatever it is!



2. These tamales were delicious with lots of chili-laden pork wrapped with a specially coarse ground masa mixture and wrapped with banana leaves and finally wrapped in Al foil and steamed. While not done in the same mole variation as Trilling shows on p261, they were called the same on the menu board. They had a homemade creamy red salsa available on request too. I've had these cheap, savory, and filling lunches a few times, and taken them home and reheating them in a microwave for a nice snack.
   
   This is a wonderfully illustrated cookbook has many black & white pix of people & illustrations and also 16 pages of color plates of people and food. While this unusually organized cookbook is separated into microclimates of Oaxaca, a small state south of Mexico City, I found the chap 7 on Tuxtepec as having the most savory sounding recipes.

   Be aware that this cookbook is quite vegetarian and fish oriented, for example, in chap 6 for the mountainous region of the state, there were 16 recipes with only one with meat. There were no menudo recipes or any recipes with variety meats, such as calves' foot, tongue, and tripe in the entire book.

   I found her book at a local library along with Diane Kennedy and Rick Bayless. Kennedy's classic Cuisines cookbook was my first introduction in Mexican cooking many years ago.




3. After recently attending a cooking class by Susana Trilling, I can attest to the wonderful recipes in this book. Not only that, but Susana is a wonderful person with great knowledge of the culture.

   However impressive the recipes may be though, there is a huge problem with this book. Many of the recipes in the book call for ingredients that can't be found even in a speciality mexican store, and some are unique to Oaxaca itself. While this in itself is not a problem, Susan does not provide any help with suitable substitutions for those unique ingredients. For an advanced cook maybe this isn't a problem, but for a beginner or intermediate cook, this makes the book nearly unusable. In general, the recipes are quite involved and complex in comparison to other mexican cook books I have seen.

   I would not recommend this book to someone who is newer to cooking or does not live in an area where an ample supply of mexican cooking ingredients can be found. Perhaps Susana will make a second addition for us newbie cooks that provides us with better alternatives.




4. Some twelve years ago chef Susan Trilling said goodbye to an alive New York City catering business to follow her heart to a remote and exotic region of Mexico - Oaxaca. Today, deep in the heart of this Mexican state is Rancho Aurora, home of the Seasons of My Heart cooking school and inn.

   A companion to the well received National Public Television Series, Seasons of My Heart is a tribute to the people, culture and cuisine of this far-off area which has remained virtually untouched. "Oaxaca invites a deep appreciation of Mexican culture," the author writes. "Here time has stood still in the small village where I went to visit my husband for the first time. I was enchanted with every burro laden with corn going to the mill, every horse-drawn cart filled with alfalfa for the cows and horses......"

   A veritable armchair travelogue, this colorfully illustrated volume takes readers to a tomato lunch in the field, to harvest time by dawn, to a traditional wedding feast, and to see a primitive altar laden with dishes for religious holidays.

   Trilling wisely not only shares these treasured recipes, but offers her personal alterations and advice for successfully preparing them in American kitchens. Imagine sitting down to a platter of "Tamales De Ragas" (Chile and Tomato Tamales) with its appetizing marriage of sweet tomatoes and onions or "Empanadas De Mole Amarillo (Baked Mole Amarillo Turnovers), which are often prepared to order on charcoal grills set up outside local churches.

   Seasons Of My Heart nurtures not only bodies, but minds and imaginations as well.
   
   - Gail Cooke




5. Seasons of my Heart is the best book on Mexican recipes from Oaxaca I have ever read and owned. Living in Columbus, Ohio I have been able to find all of the ingredients required for most recipes. There are individual recipes which by themselves would make this book worthwhile owning. To name just a couple of these, the basic chicken stock recipe, the tortilla soup recipe and the three milk cake are extraordinary and easy. It is well written and the instructions are easy to follow. It is a very treasured cookbook in my collection. Anybody who enjoys great food, and in particular Mexican food should have this book.

5 comments about The Cuisines of Mexico.

1. We've had this book for years and have enjoyed most recipes - there was one lackluster soup we tried. The duck mole is so amazing and easy!! We even tried it with watercress in place of radish leaves and used leftover cornmeal & ground walnuts (used to coat our souffle pans) in addition to the pumkin seeds she calls for - excellent! We finally mastered her Mexican rice - you really do need to put the cloth on it at the end - but so delicious!!! The turkey mole makes for a great change for Thanksgiving!



2. This is actually the second authentice Mexican cuisine cookbook that I have purchased. The recipes are very authentic (from what my Mexican friends have told me) and I can tell you from personal knowledge that the recipes are delicious. Among my favorites are the frijoles recipes and duck mole. I would consider this book a must have for any kitchen that serves or seeks to serve authentic Mexican food.



3. Several factors have conspired to keep most North Americans
   and Europeans from grasping the wonder and complexity of
   Mexican food.
   First, there's the smoke screen created by greasy-spoon and
   fast-food imitations. It's hard to imagine great tastes when
   you've just gobbled down a two-buck taco that smells a bit
   funny. In fact, it's hard to find real examples of wonderful
   Mexican food outside of that country.
   Then there's the question of fashion: in the first
   world we are eating a slimmer and healthier cuisine these
   days and a lot of Mexican dishes with their high saturated
   fat and sodium, seem to be the opposite of that.
   There's also the problem of hard-to-find ingredients and the
   taste of cornmeal which is problematic for those of us
   raised on wheat-breads and pasta.
   
   So Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico is both a cook-
   book and a revelation. Just the acknowledgement that there
   are more than one Mexican cuisine will be a surprise for many.
   Her discussion of the ingredients and procedures of those
   cuisines will be a revelation to even most sophisticated
   cooks. This discussion comprises the first of three parts of
   the book and as a prod to the imagination, is worth the price
   of the book. Kennedy's view of kitchen equipment is Mexico-
   centric and one could imagine an update that included more
   on food processors, blenders and pressure cookers.
   Then the recipes begin. Contrary to the title's promise, they
   are not organized geographically, but rather by food type. Some
   of these recipes are breathtaking. Two moles, the poblano and
   the green mole with duck will probably change the way you
   think about stews forever.
   The recipes for beans could keep you entertained for a month.
   Frijoles colados y refritos a la Yucateca can be modified to
   make an almost-instant treat that's remarkably healthy. (see
   the Amazon.com site for Beano )
   You should also take some time to learn from Buñuelos (fritters)
   and the remarkable Budins-puddings that unite vegetables and
   cheese.
   This book is the perfect gift for any imaginative cook.
   
   --Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
   the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN
   9781601640005



4. Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico is a fabulous book for those who are interested in making the best tasting Mexican food you have ever had. Not only are the recipes fantastic, but she also includes detailed explanations of ingredients and a pronunciation guide. This book is worth every penny just for part one, which is the ingredients and procedures. You will learn everything you need to know in order to cook truly authentic and fantastic Mexican food.
   
   While Diana Kennedy does offer a source list for ingredients, I would like to add that the online store Mesa Mexican Foods offers many of the authentic Mexican ingredients needed to make Diana's great dishes.



5. I am currently on my second copy of this book. Someone 'borrowed' my first copy and never returned it--if you have a copy with recipes for scampi, minestrone, and dolmas handwritten on the back pages, please email them to me! And do try them, they are wonderful.
   
   For many years, it was difficult (if not impossible) to find a really good Mexican food cookbook that contained truly authentic recipes. I'd seen books that purported to offer recipes for 'Mexican' foods, only to discover that they just weren't quite right--example: one had a recipe a for a batter, claiming that flour tortillas are 'Mexican crepes'! When I originally discovered the tome, The Cuisines of Mexico, on the bookshelf of a friend, I became entranced.
   
   Not only did the author of this book go to great lengths and difficulties to research authentic recipes and methods, but she also painstakingly tested and recorded her observations. Something I've noticed over the years is that recipes, like language, often drift from their origins until it is nearly impossible to discern how they used to be made. With this book, you get the best of all worlds--both original recipes/methods, as well as adaptations and suggestions/room for modernizing recipes and techniques.
   
   After reading about how a simple dish of Mexican rice cooked over an open fire tasted and smelled to Ms. Kennedy, I adapted a recipe using fresh (homegrown) tomatoes and peppers--roasted on the barbeque using mesquite chips to give them that nice smoky flavor she found so wonderful--that I cook in my rice cooker. All of my friends (many of which are of Mexican descent) say it is 'the best.' At our town barbeques, it is invariably the first thing gone--and I have a really big rice cooker. Thank you, Ms Kennedy.
   
   All hail Diana!

4 comments about El Charro Café Cookbook: Flavors of Tucson from America's Oldest Family-Operated Mexican Restaurant.

1. As American regional cuisines go, Southern and "Mexican" are my two favorites. And while I found the Sterns' "Blue Willow Inn Cookbook" somewhat disappointing (not their fault, I think), this trip to Tucson was much more satisfying. Not Tex-Mex or New Mexico-Mexican, the Sterns classify El Charro Café as "Tucson-Mexican," a fascinating and unique blend that makes this "Roadfood Cookbook" well worth the vicarious trip.

   Part of the advantage here is that the charro culture celebrated at El Charro Café is much more foreign to most Americans than is the Southern comfort food of the Blue Willow Inn. A good percentage of the value of this book is in introducing that culture to the wider reading public (who knew there was so much history and significance behind the stereotypical black outfits generally associated with mariachi bands?). But there's a lot of value in the delicious-sounding recipes too. Far from the "fried and covered in cheese" nature of "Mexican food" as it's often presented to us, these menu items are varied, colorful, and generally pretty healthy.

   So hit the road again, Stern fans. Grab a tostada grande and a glass of sangria, and let our favorite foodie writers take us on another culinary adventure.




2. I have eaten at El Charro in Tucson, and the food is fantastic. I spent some time looking at this book and plan to buy it. I was concerned that the book wouldn't clearly indicate how the food got to be some darn good. In other words, the recipes wouldn't have anything out of the ordinary--the secret was in the kitchen staff's know-how. Thankfully, these recipes have some obvious differences from typical Mexican cookbook recipes. For example, El Charro uses tons of garlic--they blend it with water to make a puree that finds its way into most of their recipes. I'm certain this "garlic dosing" contributes to their greatness. Another item that caught my eye is the use of condensed milk in their refried beans--I've never seen that before. Having eaten them I can say it works! Last point: make sure you try the barbacoa recipe. El Charro's barbacoa enchiladas were so delicious I nearly fell off my chair in the dining room. They use pickling spice in the recipe--another gem. The food is great....and the book is different enough to warrant adding this to the shelf next to Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy.



3. I am a Tucson Native far from home (living in Japan) and although I have not read the book, I can certainly say that El Charro's is great Mexican food! Whenever we go home it's a sure stop. I just finished ordering the book, can't wait til it arrives!



4. Having been an early fan of Jane and Michael Stern, it is disappointing to see that they've simply "copied" (not quite the right word, but it suffices) another and better book, while leaving out the better parts. Face it, the full title of this book is "The Flores Family's El Charro Cafe Cookbook"..."with recipes by Carlotta Flores", and that book is available here at amazon.com. The Stern derivative simply reorganizes the order of the recipes in Sra. Flores' book and omits most of the "notitas" and cultural material.
   
   Do yourself a favor and buy the original (ISBN: 1555611214), which we use regularly, taking advantage of the helpful "notitas" and learning something more about Tucson and Arizona border culture.
   
   Here's the product description of the original:
   
   El Charro Café is famous throughout the United States and the world for its vibrant, fresh Mexican food and fiesta-like atmosphere. In this beautifully illustrated color hardcover cookbook, owner and chef Carlotta Flores shares her recipes, her family history and her love of this flavorful cuisine.
   
   Carlotta includes prized family recipes as well as those that make El Charro a Tucson delight and tradition. She tells stories of the four generations of her family who have worked at El Charro since its beginnings in 1922, making it the oldest family-run restaurant in the Southwest.
   
   A glossary of Spanish terms and foods helps you learn your way around a Mexican menu. You'll learn the secrets to making authentic, traditional Sonoran Mexican dishes and also ways to make light, healthy and equally delicious newer ones. You'll absorb tortilla etiquette along with the recipes for El Charro's savory sauces and soups.
   
   Photographs of the patio and restaurant are interspersed with "notitas" (little notes and tips) and Carlotta's stories. The heart of the book: Wonderful recipes, including all the classic dishes you expect from a Mexican restaurant as well as ones that may be new to you such as Puerco con Mangos (pork with mango sauce), Tacos de Camaron (shrimp tacos), Almendrado (almond meringue pudding), and Capirotada (Lenten bread pudding).
   
   Vegetable dishes such as Rajitas de Nopalitas y Cebollitas (sautéed prickly pear with onions and green chile), Enchiladas de Hongos (mushroom enchiladas), Papas Molidas de Navidad (mashed potatoes with green chile and salsa) will open your eyes and tastebuds.
   
   A book so representative of Tucson that is was chosen for the City of Tucson's Millennium Time Capsule.

5 comments about My Mexico: A Culinary Odyssey with More Than 300 Recipes.

1. `My Mexico' by leading authority on Mexican food, Diana Kennedy is her eighth book, seven of which are on Mexican cuisine. This easily puts her in the forefront of writers on national cuisines, along with Julia Child, Penelope Casas, Marcella Hazan, and Diane Kochilas. It even puts her ahead of the very well known writer, educator, and Chicago restaurateur, Rick Bayless, who has paltry four books on Mexican food to his credit.
   
   I have reviewed Ms. Kennedy's ninth book, `From My Mexican Kitchen', which I consider a real gem among treatises on the techniques of national cuisines. It goes into various techniques, especially baking, on which Ms. Kennedy is a certifiable expert, to a level of detail that one rarely sees in other books. The current book under consideration is much different from the later volume and should expect to find a much narrower audience.
   
   `My Mexico' is a personal culinary diary, with echos of a John Steinbeck `Travels With Charley' air about it. Like many other culinary surveys, it is organized by Mexican province rather than by type of dish. And, unlike Ms. Casas' excellent `Delicioso!' culinary geography of Spain, with lots of interesting summaries of characteristics of the various regions, Ms. Kennedy is purely the tourist in this book, dwelling on the specific people and places and dishes she encounters in her travels throughout Mexico.
   
   As an aside, I will add the opinion that Ms. Kennedy seems to find much ugliness in the urban development, congestion, lack of good highways, and disappearance of natural beauty in her beloved Mexico. The recitation of changes she finds distasteful make one wonder how her affection for the country survives the uncontrolled and somewhat corrupt development in Mexico. But then, she talks about the food and all seems forgiven.
   
   As someone who is not nearly as familiar with Mexico as I have come to be of Italy, France, Germany, or England, the first thing I miss is a good map. This absence is especially noisome as this is about culinary geography, regardless of how personal. The second thing I miss is a listing of recipes by type of dish. As all recipes in the text are located by region or state, many of whose names are unknown to me, a listing by primary ingredient or course in the style of most cookbooks would make this book much more valuable to the novice to Mexican food. The book does include an alphabetical listing of recipes, but since it is alphabetical by Spanish name, it doesn't do me much good. I can barely find my way around culinary Italian, let alone Spanish. My study of German does little good in the largely Latin world of culinary diversity.
   
   This is the kind of book that will be enjoyed primarily by people who already know and love Mexico. I get the picture of such readers being hobbits at Bilbo Baggins 111th birthday party with their feet up on the table and nibbling to fill in the odd, empty corners of their generous stomachs. This is the book for people who would not learn much from yet another book of familiar Mexican recipes. I would get pleasure out of a similar book on German or Austrian cuisine as I have been to many places in Germany and I believe there are not enough books concentrating on Austro-Hungarian cuisine.
   
   Ending on a positive note, I relish the discovery in this book of a culinary treatment of cuitlacoche (on page 456), the fungus that grows on corn and which I understand it is a great delicacy in Mexico. I have been familiar with this foul looking stuff for many years, but I first encountered its culinary interest on the very first Food Network `Iron Chef America' show pitting Bobby Flay against Sr. Bayless of Frontera Grill. I was really rooting for Bayless, who lost by a single point to Flay, and I was left wondering, with Alton Brown, who was the brave soul who first looked at the stuff as something good to eat. Well, Ms. Kennedy fills us in on the subject.
   
   Highly recommended for all who can't get enough of books about Mexican food. For all other, check out Ms. Kennedy's other books.



2. This is a book every lover of fine cuisine must read. It gives a whole new face to Mexican food. I loved Diana Kennedy's tales of how she came to find the various recipes, the harrowing journeys into the country to find the recipes she'd heard of, her description of the people she encountered in kitchens, over open fires, in little inns.
   
   Reading the book makes you want to explore the country, try all the different foods, and try to prepare the foods as well. You can lose yourself in the book. It is written so well that you can taste and smell every detail of Kennedy's description.
   
   This is not just a cookbook, it is a journey into a wonderful culture, and culture "junkey" that I am, I relished every word.



3. it's like going to mexico everytime you read it and the recipes are very authentic and tasty. this is my all time favorite book.



4. This is a wonderful book. Reason I give 4 stars is that it needs pictures of the recipes.
   
   Also, It would be nice to have it in Spanish as well.



5. No one has better brought Mexican cuisine into the forefront of world gastronomy, and this book assembles a privileged collection of recipes, ingredients, techniques, as well as anecdotes on their discovery and preparation. Diana Kennedy, an adventurer in her own right, is a monument to diligence, against the background of her love and appreciation for Mexico's villages, landscape and singular intricacies, which she explores at will.