Just for show

When you have several hundred cookbooks (or even over a thousand, as I know some of you EYBers do!), it's hard to admit that some of your books aren't for actual cooking. But it's true, isn't it?  There's at least a half-dozen books on my shelf that are strictly for looking at.  I've never even contemplated attacking one of the… read more

The matter of exotics

Happy Year of the Dragon, everybody!  Today, there are dragons in every Chinatown and every Chinese storefront.  There are even dragons in every Chinese restaurant, in the form of xiao long bao ("little dragon buns" or Shanghai soup dumplings.  Actually pork.)  or maybe "Dragon Meets Phoenix" (Actually shrimp and chicken).  I think this betrays a certain fascination with exotica, or at least… read more

Best cookbooks of 2011

At the end of every year the lists of Top or Best or Favorite cookbooks start appearing. For the 3rd year running we've compiled all these lists for the Eat Your Books Best of the Best Cookbooks list. This year we're delighted to announce joint winners - Momofuku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi and Plentyby Yotam Ottolenghi. The list is an amalgamation of 195… read more

Add Recipes from any* food website to your Bookshelf!

Few people source their recipes from just one place. We're spoilt for choice these days with great cookbooks, enticing magazines, those wonderful recipes friends pass on to us, and who hasn't seen a recipe on a website that they'd love to cook one day. Keeping track of all your recipes from all these sources is now possible - you can… read more

An ode to culinary bookstores

My son and I spent the last few days in San Francisco, that gastronomic paradise, because I had a couple of book readings and a companion ticket burning a hole in my pocket.  What a splendid town for a pair of adventurous eaters!  We stuffed ourselves with tacos and dim sum and Bi-Rite ice cream, sushi and banh mi and… read more

Ron Suhanosky

Our guest cookbook author this month is Ron Suhanosky, author of Pasta Sfoglia and, most recently, The Italian Table.   Suhanosky, currently the chef at Nonna's Table on theUpper Eastside, shared his thoughts about writing cookbooks.  I was interested to learn what he considers the most difficult part of the process--scaling down to 4-6 servings per recipe!  I've often thought it's almost two completely different… read more

6:00 timesavers, am and pm.

I'm testing a slow cooker cookbook this week, and it's making me consider (or re-consider) the ways we try to conserve time as cooks.  It was only last year that I came to slow cookery, and I instantly loved the convenience.  Strictly speaking, a slow cooker isn't a time-saving device so much as a time-banking one.  You still have to invest a… read more

The winnowing

The first week of January: holiday roundups are over, and after a week of bingeing on festive food I need to get back on my treadmill, which kept getting covered in books throughout December.  Time for cookbook cleanup!   Only problem is, somewhere between 200 and 300 books came in over the fall, I want to keep them ALL, and… read more
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