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Best Gifts for Readers and Cooks

November 8, 2009 in book review, cookbook, gifts by Kim | 9 comments

Every Christmas morning, I ask my kids “what’s the best gift?” and they respond “A BOOK!”  Last week, my daughter asked which books I would like for Christmas.  My son, the teenager that he is, responded that he was just going to give me a note telling me to read the books he gave me last year.  My husband reminded him that I’m the one that buys the gifts, so my son may want to rethink his strategy. 

We’re hoping to help you with your holiday shopping.   We’re encouraging you to shop at an independent bookstore by rewarding one lucky shopper, our official Holiday Helper, with an ABA gift card.  Additionally, as we did last year, we’ve asked booksellers, experts, and opinionated people to recommend various genres of books (regardless of when they were published) as gifts for the holiday season.  This year we’re launching our Best Gifts for Readers lists with cookbooks.

Catherine Ettlinger started Unconfidential Cook, a unique food blog with scrumptious recipes contributed by her and her readers.   Catherine’s theory is that many of us are happy to share our cooking experience, hence the name ‘unconfidential cook’.  From the chatting on her blog, she’s right.  To complement her blog, Catherine hosts unconfidential cook dinners where the guests bring a dish and the recipe, then eat every thing in sight.   I’ve been to three of the dinners and they are a Los Angeles foodie treat.  The perfect pairing of great food and interesting conversation, each evening combines the necessary ingredients for a lovely meal.  I asked Catherine for her cookbook recommendations, and while she mentioned that much of the innovative recipes and culinary writing is online, these cookbooks were so terrific, every foodie should own one:

lost dessertsLost Desserts by Gail Monaghan:  If you think one of your all-time favorite desserts has vanished forever with the demise of a restaurant or the retirement of a chef, don’t despair. Monaghan has gathered dozens of legendary recipes and assembled them with mouth-watering photos by Eric Bowman. You’ll never make a dessert again without first referencing this beautiful book.  (Kim’s comments:  I’ve seen this cookbook at Catherine’s house and it is a work of art.  More importantly, I’ve tasted a few of the desserts and they are more than calorie worthy.)

 The Art of Simple Foodby Alice Waters, Clarkson Potter:  There are more than 250 recipes in this book by the champion of  the phrase “eat locally and Read the rest of this entry »

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Julie & Julia – The Way To Cook

August 22, 2009 in book review, cookbook, film by Kim | 4 comments

julia-child-the-way-to-cookKelsey and I spent a summer evening visually savoring the delights cooked up in Julie & Julia.  Meryl Streep’s portrayal of a determined but light-hearted Julia Child attending Le Cordon Bleu and then painstakingly writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking, intertwined with Amy Adams as Julie Powell, the lost secretary who changed her life by cooking all 524 recipes in a year, showed us the importance of practicing their passions.  We cheered when the aspic recipe fell on the floor because none of us wanted to watch anyone eat it.   The desserts were a hit all around (we’re game to try eating a whole chocolate cake with our hands), cooking a lobster may defeat us, and boning a duck we would probably throw our hands up at, but we’re all willing to cook something beyond hamburgers.  We’re thinking the beef bourguignon; a pivotal recipe is several scenes.  Julia describes herself as “fearless” in the kitchen and her example reignited my desire to cook.

Excited to dive into Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I leafed through it at the bookstore.  Every recipe had multiple steps and a long list of ingredients.  I cap out at 5, maybe 8, ingredients and a page of instructions made my head ache.  I put the book down.   Mastering the Art of French Cooking is not The Way to Cook, Julia’s book that first taught me how to cook. 

Prior to marrying Keith, I prepared one dinner for him.  It was a given that he would be the cook in the family and with 5 recipes under his belt, his knowledge surpassed mine.  One year later, I couldn’t bear to eat another bite of any of those recipes.  Keith’s parents came to the rescue by giving me The Way to Cook. Read the rest of this entry »

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Great Read with Dinner Plans Provided

June 27, 2009 in book review, cookbook by Kim | 1 comment

entertaining-disasters-cover

Catherine Ettlinger of Unconfidential Cook and many other astounding feats, is a long time friend of both Claire and me.  Unconfidential Cook is not to be missed.  The premise of the blog is that people share the wonderful recipes that they find and use.  There are easy recipes (those would be the ones I use) and some more challenging (those are the ones I request that Catherine make when I’m at her  house).  Claire swears by the flourless chocolate cakewhich I have even made and it’s one of the best chocolate cakes ever.  However, the biggest impact Unconfidential Cook has had on our life are school lunches.  We’re all sick of sandwiches and Catherine has stacks of advice for alternatives, many are just choosing great appetizers to bake while the kids are eating breakfast, then wrap up, and drop them in the lunch bag.  Moreover, Catherine’s husband Bruce photographs all of the food and you just want to eat your screen looking at the scrumptious offerings.  While I’m on vacation, Catherine chipped in the following post.  She refers to her “Unconfidential Cook” dinners which she has graciously included me, they are full of wonderful food and even better conversation.  I spent one evening talking to Nancy Spiller and then loved her book, Catherine shares why:

Nancy Spiller, author of Entertaining Disasters: A Novel (with Recipes),was one of my mystery guests at The Second Unconfidential Cooks’ Dinner—that is, I had never met her; she is a friend of my friend Susan. Her book continues a tradition of fiction with food that began for me way back when Nora Ephron wrote Heartburn (I’ve been making her vinaigrette—6 T olive oil, 2 T red wine vinegar and 2 T Dijon mustard—to great acclaim for decades). I pretty much love everything I’ve read in the genre. Really, what more could a girl want than good writing/eating?

The premise of Nancy’s novel is simple. The heroine, FW…freelance Food Writer…is about to host a dinner party, and to say she’s suffering a bit of stage fright is an understatement at best. FW has been writing for years about her fabulous dinners in all the journalistic nooks and crannies in LA’s celebrity/culinary scene. It’s expected that a meal at her well-documented hillside home surrounded by gorgeous gardens will be nothing less than a 5-star extravaganza with, of course, the most sought-after A-list guests.

Hard to live up to? You betcha, especially since it’s all been lies. She’s fabricated every scrumptious detail about every coveted invitation to Read the rest of this entry »

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Diesel Books, Now in Brentwood

February 16, 2009 in bookstore, cookbook, graphic novels, location by Claire | 2 comments

The neighborhood gains a new bookstore

When you live in Los Angeles, you get used to that feeling of urban anonymity wherever you go, but the first time I walked into the new Diesel Books in the Brentwood Country Mart, I glanced down at the guest list and immediately spotted the name of one of my closest friends just a few rows above where I was about to sign up for their email newsletter, and I suddenly felt like I lived in a small town.

Diesel just opened up a few months ago, less than five minutes from my house.   Locals like me who live near the Country Mart tend to go there regularly for their Reddi Chick fix, since they have the best rotisserie chicken and ribs in Brentwood.  (Also possibly the only rotisserie chicken and ribs in Brentwood.)  You order at their take-out counter, then sit outside in the courtyard, either close to the fire or far away from it depending on how warm it is.  (When it’s really warm, there’s no fire at all, of course.) Read the rest of this entry »

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Recommended Reading for Chanukah

December 19, 2008 in cookbook, recommended reading by Claire | No comments

Back in the early fall, I recommended a book for the high holidays, but that book was actually Kim’s pick.  I mention this only because the truth is that there is only one book for me when it comes to learning about or rejoicing in Jewish celebrations and holidays, and that’s G’DEE by Helen Fine.

To put it succinctly, G’DEE taught me everything I know about the Jewish holidays.  Really.  Everything. 

It’s a children’s book, with colorful illustrations, and it tells the story of twins, a brother and a sister, who get sent a goat by their relatives in Israel.  (I think “g’dee” means goat in Hebrew.)  The book then follows a year in the twins’ life, as marked out by the Jewish holidays.  Because G’dee is a very young goat, the siblings make a point of teaching him the meaning of the holidays and explaining the ways in which they observe and celebrate them, from a Purim puppet show to fasting on Yom Kippur.

G’dee is your typical goat (I assume), good-natured, eager to please, and extremely hungry at all times.  Fortunately for him, Jewish holidays–as described in this book–center largely on the special foods that are eaten for symbolic or joyous reasons.   So G’dee basically eats his way through the Jewish holidays.  The book always made my mouth water.   Read the rest of this entry »

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