Cookbooks & Food

Perhaps more responsible than anyone for the revolution in the way we eat, cook, and think about food, Alice Waters has "single-handedly chang[ed] the American palate" according to the New York Times. Her simple but inventive dishes focus on a passion for flavor and a reverence for locally produced, seasonal foods.

With an essential repertoire of timeless, approachable recipes chosen to enhance and showcase great ingredients, The Art of Simple Food is an indispensable resource for home cooks. Here you will find Alice's philosophy on everything from stocking your kitchen, to mastering fundamentals and preparing delicious, seasonal inspired meals all year long. Always true to her philosophy that a perfect meal is one that's balanced in texture, color, and flavor, Waters helps us embrace the seasons' bounty and make the best choices when selecting ingredients. Fill your market basket with pristine produce, healthful grains, and responsibly raised meat, poultry, and seafood, then embark on a voyage of culinary rediscovery that reminds us that the most gratifying dish is often the least complex.

From mass-produced lagers to craft-brewery IPAs, from beers made in Trappist monasteries according to traditional techniques to those created by innovative local brewers seeking to capture regional terroir, the world of beer boasts endless varieties. The diversity of beer does not only reflect the differences among the people and cultures who brew this beverage. It also testifies to the vast range of plants that help give different styles of beer their distinguishing flavor profiles.

This book is a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated compendium of the characteristics and properties of the plants used in making beer around the world. The botanical expert Giuseppe Caruso presents scientifically rigorous descriptions, accompanied by his own hand-drawn ink images, of more than 500 species. For each one, he gives the scientific classification, common names, and information about morphology, geographical distribution and habitat, and cultivation range. Caruso provides detailed information about each plant's applications in beer making, including which of its parts are employed, as well as its chemical composition, its potential toxicity, and examples of beers and styles in which it is typically used. The book also considers historical uses, aiding brewers who seek to rediscover ancient and early modern concoctions.

This book will appeal to a wide audience, from beer aficionados to botany enthusiasts, providing valuable information for homebrewers and professional beer makers alike. It reveals how botanical knowledge can open new possibilities for today's and tomorrow's brewers.

The oceans are burning. The deserts are flooding. UFOs are real, according to Congress. There's also the threat of nuclear war, regular war, and we're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. What better moment than now to take a big, long celebratory drink? We did it! We ruined everything! Don't stress--Cocktails for the Apocalypse contains the secrets to survival in unprecedented times. These new (and classic) cocktails from best-selling author Jennifer McCartney will help readers remember to enjoy what we've got and laugh when we need to. Recipes include the Martian Martini, to welcome our new overlords; the Virtual Cosmo, since remote work is the new hell reality; and the Nuclear Sunrise, so you get plenty of tequila to enjoy while soaking up the radiation poisoning. No matter the occasion, there's an easy-to-make cocktail here for you and yours.

"Like having a long dinner table discussion with a fascinating friend ... A pure joy to read." --Los Angeles Times

"Delightful ... [An] ebulliently written and unobtrusively learned survey." -Harper's Magazine

Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious--or at least edible. But these tools have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food.

In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson takes readers on a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of objects we often take for granted. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide machines of the modern kitchen, but also the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks.

Blending history, science, and personal anecdotes, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be and how their influence has shaped food culture today. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.

In Cooked, Pollan discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements--fire, water, air, and earth--to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer.

Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan's effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse-trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius "fermentos" (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us.

The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.

An Italian-American Cookbook for the Modern Home Kitchen

For millions of Italian-American families, the food we grew up with didn't come from restaurants. It came from the kitchen. From simmering pots of tomato sauce and trays of baked ziti to Sunday gravy and desserts that took patience, tradition, and love.

As families moved beyond the Little Italy neighborhoods of cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia and spread across the country, much of that everyday cooking tradition slowly faded. This book helps bring it back.

This cookbook is for anyone who wants to recreate authentic Italian-American recipes in a modern home kitchen. It shows how the dishes many of us remember from childhood can be made with simple ingredients and clear, practical guidance.

It's also for people who love Italian food but have mostly experienced it through restaurant meals or supermarket shortcuts. If you've ever reached for a jar of tomato sauce and wondered how to make a real homemade Italian tomato sauce, fresh pasta dishes, or classic comfort foods the way Italian families have for generations, this book shows how surprisingly simple and rewarding it can be.

More than just a collection of recipes, this is a guide to traditional Italian home cooking. Along the way, you'll learn the techniques, principles, and small details that make these dishes taste the way they should.

Inside you'll learn how to prepare beloved Italian-American favorites, including:

- Rich, slow-simmered homemade tomato sauce

- Classic baked ziti and traditional pasta dishes

- Handmade gnocchi

- Savory family recipes passed down through generations

- Authentic desserts like homemade cannoli, Italian lemon ice, and ricotta pie

Each chapter explains not only how to cook these dishes, but why they work. The goal is to help home cooks build confidence while learning the traditions behind some of the most beloved Italian comfort foods.

Because Italian-American cooking has always been about more than food. For generations, the kitchen table has been the center of family life, where stories are shared and traditions are passed down.

Today many children and grandchildren of Italian immigrants have married into families from all backgrounds. Which means that if you want a tray of baked ziti, a plate of gnocchi, or a batch of homemade cannoli, you may have to learn to cook it yourself.

This book makes that possible.

Clear, approachable, and full of authentic flavor, it's designed to help anyone bring traditional Italian-American cooking back to the family table.

Put on an apron, start the sauce, and cook the way generations before us did. It might even make your mother proud.

Ferment gives you all that's needed to start your fermented foods adventure--whether you want to make simple pickles, dive into lactofermentation, or discover flavor-packed meals to cook with your homemade (or store-bought!) ferments.

Pickles and ferments bring so much flavor and variety to meals, and they're much easier to make than they seem. Enter third-culture cook and fermenting expert Kenji Morimoto, who shows just how simple it is to introduce homemade kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, miso, super-quick pickles, and more into your everyday cooking with delicious, gut-healthy results.

Recent research encourages us to eat thirty plants a week to help our microbiome to thrive. Thanks to Kenji's inventive, globally inspired recipes, eating fermented foods becomes a pleasure as well as the healthiest choice. Whether it's Kimchi Onion Bhajis served with Cilantro and Mint Miso Chutney, Green Bean Miso Soup with Curried Crispy Lima Beans, Kombucha Sorbet, or Preserved Rhubarb and Mixed Berry Pound Cake, this is flavor-forward food like you haven't seen before.

Part one shows you how to make your own ferments and pickles, giving you all the trouble-shooting advice and step-by-step guidance you need, plus plenty of Kenji's unique spins: think Watermelon Rind Kimchi, Pumpkin Miso, and Koji Chimichurri. Part two introduces easy and irresistible apps, dinners, desserts, and even cocktails to make with them. (Or, if you prefer, you can prepare them with your favorite store-bought products instead.)

Ferment is a stylish and practical cookbook that will help you bring this ancient technique into your own kitchen.

This edition has been adapted for the US market.

Michael Pollan's Food Rules prompted a national discussion helping to change the way Americans approach eating. This new edition illustrated by celebrated artist Maira Kalman--and expanded with a new introduction and nineteen additional food rules--marks an advance in the national dialogue that Food Rules inspired. Many of the new rules, suggested by readers, underscore the central teachings of the original Food Rules, which are that eating doesn't have to be so complicated and that food is as much about pleasure and community as it is about nutrition and health. A beautiful book to cherish and share, Food Rules guides us with humor, joy, and common sense toward a happier, healthier relationship to food.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.

New York Times Bestseller * The inspiration for the TV series starring Dan Aykroyd

"There aren't many books this entertaining that also provide a cogent crash course in ancient, classical and modern history." -Los Angeles Times

Beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola: In Tom Standage's deft, innovative account of world history, these six beverages turn out to be much more than just ways to quench thirst. They also represent six eras that span the course of civilization-from the adoption of agriculture, to the birth of cities, to the advent of globalization. A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century through each epoch's signature refreshment. As Standage persuasively argues, each drink is in fact a kind of technology, advancing culture and catalyzing the intricate interplay of different societies. After reading this enlightening book, you may never look at your favorite drink in quite the same way again.

Alana Chernila has these phrases taped to her fridge, and they are guiding principles helping her to stay present in her kitchen. They also provide the framework for her second book. In The Homemade Kitchen she exalts the beautiful imperfections of food made at home and extends the lessons of cooking through both the quotidian and extraordinary moments of the day. Alana sees cooking as an opportunity to live consciously, not just as a means to an end.

Written as much for the reader as the cook, The Homemade Kitchen covers a globe's worth of flavors and includes new staples (what Alana is known for) such as chèvre, tofu, kefir, kimchi, preserved lemons, along with recipes and ideas for using them. Here, too, are dishes you'll be inspired to try and that you will make again and again until they become your own family recipes, such as Broccoli Raab with Cheddar Polenta, a flavor-forward lunch for one; Roasted Red Pepper Corn Chowder, "late summer in a bowl"; Stuffed Winter Squash, rich with leeks, chorizo, apples, and grains; Braised Lamb Shanks that are tucked into the oven in the late afternoon and not touched again until dinner; Corn and Nectarine Salad showered with torn basil; perfect share-fare Sesame Noodles; Asparagus Carbonara, the easiest weeknight dinner ever; and sweet and savory treats such as Popovers, Cinnamon Swirl Bread, Summer Trifle made with homemade pound cake and whatever berries are ripest, and Rhubarb Snacking Cake.

In this follow-up to Alana's wildly successful debut, The Homemade Pantry, she once again proves herself to be the truest and least judgmental friend a home cook could want.

An enticing history of food and drink in Western art and culture

Eating and drinking can be aesthetic experiences as well as sensory ones. The Hungry Eye takes readers from antiquity to the Renaissance to explore the central role of food and drink in literature, art, philosophy, religion, and statecraft.

In this beautifully illustrated book, Leonard Barkan provides an illuminating meditation on how culture finds expression in what we eat and drink. Plato's Symposium is a timeless philosophical text, one that also describes a drinking party. Salome performed her dance at a banquet where the head of John the Baptist was presented on a platter. Barkan looks at ancient mosaics, Dutch still life, and Venetian Last Suppers. He describes how ancient Rome was a paradise of culinary obsessives, and explains what it meant for the Israelites to dine on manna. He discusses the surprising relationship between Renaissance perspective and dinner parties, and sheds new light on the moment when the risen Christ appears to his disciples hungry for a piece of broiled fish. Readers will browse the pages of the Deipnosophistae--an ancient Greek work in sixteen volumes about a single meal, complete with menus--and gain epicurean insights into such figures as Rabelais and Shakespeare, Leonardo and Vermeer.

A book for anyone who relishes the pleasures of the table, The Hungry Eye is an erudite and uniquely personal look at all the glorious ways that food and drink have transfigured Western arts and high culture.