Looking south, with flavor

Remember a few weeks ago when we were thinking about what defines "American" cooking?  I don't think we arrived at any conclusions, but what an interesting conversation!  This week, a cluster of books forced me to recognize that even the term "American" is hard to agree upon. What prompted this thought was the rapid upsurge of Latino or Latin American… read more

Famous at Home

This past week, I began putting together a preview of the fall and winter cookbooks I'm looking forward to--you'll see it soon in this space.  As I was paging through press releases and stacks of advance copies and catalogue lists, I couldn't help noticing something.  Here's a short list of what I noticed.  I'm pretty sure you'll see the same… read more

New book choices

You may not have seen so much as a single leaf turn, but fall is here in the cookbook world.   And what a fall it is shaping up to be!  There will be hundreds and hundreds of titles, as usual, but even a small selection will capture the breadth, depth, and grandiosity of what's coming out in the next few… read more

Someday books

I think we all have cookbooks we keep around and never use.  Books all about appetizers, say, but who has time to entertain?  Books on Malaysian cuisine, for the day we find a bigger Asian grocery, one that stocks the ingredients.  Books on butchering hogs, because, well, you never know.  And books on making your own beer, which mostly remind… read more

“American cooking” – what’s it to you?

A fat package in the mail got me thinking this week.  It was The Great American Cookbook, by Clementine Paddleford--a revised edition of an older Rizzoli publication, How America Eats.  I peeked inside and saw curried potato salad from Arkansas, apple muffins from Washington, oyster pie from New York, borscht from Michigan.  I saw sauerbraten from Colorado and barbecued shrimp from Hawaii.… read more
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