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And now…on to the many runners-up in this bounteous season of cookbooks. First, let’s review the top 10, originally posted here with write-ups:
Now, on to the shortlist!
Exciting New Bakery-Cafe Book
Flour, Too: Indispensable Recipes for the Cafés most Loved Sweets & Savories, by Joanne Chang
Transporting Lowcountry Vacation-in-a-Book
Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen, by Matt Lee and Ted Lee
Botanically Literate and Versatile Reference
Vegetable Literacy, by Deborah Madison
Intriguing Re-Boot of Played-Out Category
Modern Mediterranean: Easy, Flavorful Home Cooking, by Melia Marden
All-in-One Chinese Cookbook
Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, by Fuchsia Dunlop
Solid Grilling Reference; Also Useful as a Doorstop
The Grilling Book, by Adam Rapoport and the editors of Bon Appétit
125 Reasons You Did Not Need to Eat Bacon
Bacon Nation, by Peter Kaminsky & Marie Rama
One-Stop Shopping, Soup to Nuts, for the Gluten-Free
Gluten-Free Girl Every Day, by Shauna James Ahern with Daniel Ahern
Euro-licious, Designy Browse Book
Home Made Summer, by Yvette van Boven
Wear Your Food, Don’t Eat It (mostly beauty products made from food)
Gifts from the Garden: 100 Gorgeous Homegrown Presents, by Deborah Robertson
Dandelions – If You Can’t Weed ‘em, Eat ‘em.
Cooking with Flowers: Sweet & Savory Recipes with Rose Petals, Lilacs, Lavender, and Other Edible Flowers, by Miche Bacher
Yes, There *Are* Still Pastas You Haven’t Yet Made
Pasta: Classic and Contemporary Pasta, Risotto, Crespelle, and Polenta Recipes, by the Culinary Institute of America
Protein-filled Book for Manly Cooks with Manly Style
Guy Gourmet: Great Chefs’ Amazing Meals for a Lean & Healthy Body, by Adina Steiman & Paul Kita
Arty British Vegetable Lovers’ Book
River Cottage Veg, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Quirky Dolce Vita Book
Friends at My Table: Recipes for a Year of Eating, Drinking, and Making Merry, by Alice Hart
Best Gift for the Beach Cottage
Fish Market: A Cookbook for Selecting and Preparing Seafood, by Kathy Hunt
Irresistible Little British-style Baking Bites
Short & Sweet: The Best of Home Baking, by Dan Lepard
Sweets, not Sweat
Slice & Bake Cookies: Fast Cookies from Your Refrigerator or Freezer, by Elinor Klivans
This Time You Really *Will* Like Quinoa
The Complete Gluten-Free Whole Grains Cookbook: 125 Delicious Recipes from Amaranth to Quinoa to Wild Rice, by Judith Finlayson
Highly Suggestive Writing About a Dairy Product
Di Bruno Bros. House of Cheese: A Guide to Wedges, Recipes, and Pairings, by Tenaya Darlington
Look, It’s a Ginkgo Tree! Can I Eat it?
Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat, by Ellen Zachos
Don’t you just love cookbooks and cookbook reviews? Download a copy of CookShelf, the cookbook-rating app, for yourself! It’s updated every week with reviews of the latest and greatest in cookbooks – and new best-of lists.
Don’t forget to download CookShelf so you can be the first to see my top 10 summer cookbook picks!
Don’t forget to download CookShelf so you can be the first to see my top 10 summer cookbook picks!
When one of my favorite NPR producers emailed me last month to say that, due to budget constraints, NPR would not be running the cookbook roundup this summer, I was terribly sad. The summer cookbook roundup has been a happy tradition here – a parade of festive, partying, grilling, beach-loving books that are publishers’ last hurrah before the slow months of July and August. Now, it seemed, there would be no cocktails and grilled clams and corn fritters and lobster rolls. (And NPR wouldn’t be the only one facing budget constraints.)
But then I thought, what’s to stop summer cookbook roundup from happening anyway? I’ve got the cookbooks. I’ve got a blog. I’ve got a cookbook-rating app. And am I, or am I not, a full-time cookbook reviewer? So I decided I’d run it right here, on the Wednesday before Memorial Day – that’s May 22nd. Save the date! And for those who have the CookShelf app, you’ll be able to see my picks first of all, when the app refreshes late Tuesday night.
So stay tuned, folks. Cookbook roundup may be nothing but a jumble of Alpha-Bits right now. But in five short days, you’ll have the summer’s best cookbook picks on your screen and at your fingertips.
Flowers are nice. Perfume is nice. But rhubarb-ginger fool is even better.
(Even if you had to make it yourself.)
Actually, it’s not called “Mom’s Secret Stash” – that’s just what I call it. The story has a more NPR-appropriate title: “Try a Do-It-Yourself Mothers’ Day” . The idea here is that sometimes the best person to come up with a delicious treat for Mom on her special day is…Mom. I’m not saying you shouldn’t accept, enjoy, and appreciate the pancakes in bed, the crayon cards, the champagne at brunch – if you are so lucky as to get those. I’m just pointing out that there’s no harm in doing a little bit of the spoiling yourself.
By the way, some of your loved ones will want to get you a cookbook for Mother’s Day. So as to avoid getting stuck with some random grilling book you hate, direct them to CookShelf, the cookbook-rating app, now available for iPhone/iPad or Android devices. On it, you can read about many of the recipes and cookbooks featured in this story, including this incredible matzo candy from Susan Feniger’s Street Food.
Read Try a Do-It-Yourself Mothers’ Day at NPR’s Kitchen Window here.
When a chef accustomed to working in restaurant kitchens writes a book, there is one hazard. And when a book is published in a US edition after being converted from its metric original, there is another. Orient Express illustrates the perils of both, while still having much to offer the adventurous cook. These are palate-goosing, spine-tingling recipes, and some of them are fast. But the unforthcoming instruction style and erratic measures may have you pulling your hair out before all is said and done.
The real question, of course, is: has “Orient Express” been loaded onto CookShelf, the cookbook-rating app? Can I read your reviews on my iPhone/iPad or Android device? Why yes, it has! And yes, you can! This Wednesday and just about every Wednesday, CookShelf gets updated with new material, so be sure to accept all updates when they are offered to get the latest cookbook news.
Click here to read today’s review of Orient Express in the Boston Globe. (Hit the paywall? Use this PDF link.)
The authors of Kitchen & Co. are British bloggers billing themselves as “French & Grace” (that’s Rosie French and Ellie Grace). They’ve got a beautiful vision of the good life that’s reminiscent of Canal House Cooking on our side of the pond.
The recipes are freewheeling, colorful, and full of global borrowings. Headnotes are whimsical and evocative: A dessert for a rosy-shadowed evening, A garden lunch for two, Teatime and the leaves are falling. Execution-wise? They’re sometimes uneven. But it does make a charming gift.
Click here to read today’s review of Kitchen & Co.in the Boston Globe. (Hit the paywall? Use this PDF link.)
Loyal readers may have noticed that there’s been some radio silence here at the site for the last couple of weeks. What’s up?! you may wonder. We haven’t stopped cooking. And we definitely haven’t stopped eating. Cookbooks are still being reviewed, recipes are still being tested, greens are being planted and chickens, scolded (they learned to cross the road to the library last week! and it wasn’t because they wanted to borrow the latest cozy mystery. The next day, they got an electronet fence.)
sneak peek!
No, the reason for the blog pause has been a flurry of frantic, behind-the-scenes activity on my Big New Project. It’s a cookbook-rating app! to be called CookShelf and published by Sutro Media. In fact, it is the first ever cookbook-rating app on the market.
With an initial database of over 200 titles, CookShelf will offer rankings and ratings on different criteria, like Skill Level and Giftworthiness. It’ll have mini-reviews, links to recipe-tested full reviews where available, peeks inside the books, filters for sorting out cookbook types, usability data (like page layout and recipe speed), buy links, and more.
In short, CookShelf will provide the expert recommendation you need to buy a cookbook you’ve never seen before with confidence – whether it’s for yourself or somebody you love. (Hello, Mother’s Day!)
So, for the last several weeks I’ve been furiously developing a rating system, analyzing books, writing capsule reviews, entering and hyperlinking data, and sometime in the next couple of weeks – when we’ve made it through Apple’s queue – the app will launch.
Stay tuned! Cookbook expertise at your fingertips is on the way!
