Chef Jason Atherton on cooking at home

Jason Atherton's pedigree is impressive: Gordon Ramsay's Maze, El Bulli, his own London restaurants, and outposts in Hong Kong and Singapore. While these establishments feature complex foods, the Michelin-starred chef has a simple philosophy when it comes to cooking at home. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Chef Atherton describes his views on seasonal food, what he considers essential… read more

Literal chef’s plates

Daniel Boulud's new Washington, DC restaurant, DBGB Kitchen and Bar, represents a homecoming of sorts. Boulud worked in DC when he first arrived in the U.S. thirty years ago. When it came time to decorate his new establishment, he enlisted his chef friends for an art project. Over 100 chefs from across the U.S. to painted small plates in a manner representing famous… read more

Scriptures for the cook

The third edition of The Spice and Herb Bible came last week, and I did what I always do.  I looked up "fenugreek," and sighed with satisfaction.  There were four solid pages on fenugreek, with its name in 20 different languages, its history, its uses, and a detailed rundown of the plant's anatomical parts. I look up fenugreek because it… read more

Discovering sumac

Some ingredients go from obscure to rock star seemingly overnight, and one recent example is sumac. Sumac's meteoric rise can be attributed in large part to authors emphasizing Middle Eastern flavors like Yotam Ottolenghi and Louisa Shafia, but the spice is now popping up everywhere. Indexed blog The Kitchn tells us why we should have sumac in our spice cabinet,… read more

Of baking and bartering

Baking bread can be cathartic. So it was for Malin Elmlid, who started making her own sourdough in 2007 as an escape from her day job. She quickly became enamored with breadmaking and pursued the hobby passionately, honing her skills along the way. Fast forward a couple of years and one of her loaves ended up with a friend of… read more

Featured Cookbooks & Recipes

Do you find other people's comments on recipes helpful? Have you written your own recipe Notes? It's a great way to remind yourself how a dish turned out and share your experience with the EYB community. On each Recipe Details page you'll find a Notes tab. Adding online recipes to your EYB Bookshelf is a really great way to expand… read more

Celebrate Oktoberfest

We're in the midst of Oktoberfest celebrations, which recently began in Munich. While people think of it mainly as a beer festival, Oktoberfest originated as a celebration for the wedding of Prince Ludwig to Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. Today it's celebrated across the world with delicious German foods like sausages, Käsespätzle (cheese noodles), pretzels, and sauerkraut. It's a special food holiday for me since I hail from a town that celebrates… read more

Goodbye, free bread basket

The familiar restaurant scenario where the waiter brings you a basket of bread to nibble while you are perusing the menu is fading into oblivion (at least in the U.S.), according to this Yahoo! Food article. The recent lawsuit by shareholders of Darden (parent company of the Olive Garden restaurant chain) brings this trend to light. Investors objected to the unlimited free… read more

September 2014 Cookbook Roundup

Every month Susie Chang reviews new cookbook releases and notes trends in the United States. And she may also occasionally throw in a review of a "not-quite cookbook." And for our non-U.S. members, Jane and Fiona provide similar reviews for new Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand releases. US Hold on tight!  Fall cookbooks are coming in profusion. September seems… read more

Cooking together for extra pleasure

If you enjoyed the book Julie and Julia, or if you just like exploring the recipes of a particular author, be sure to check out our latest addition to the EYB Forum. It's called "Cooking together with an author" and follows the success of a topic titled "Cooking together with Diana Henry." Members can now add their favorite author (or blog!) and… read more

Kitchen re-thinks

I had a dinner party this weekend.  There were 10 of us (plus my teenage son), and we had a blast.  I barely cooked at all - just some dessert, a pork roast, and some grissini - because everybody brought something.  The best part was that several of us were cooking at once, and there was room.  My kitchen's on… read more

Me & My Cookbooks – Yotam Ottolenghi

It would be an understatment to say that Yotam Ottolenghi is a popular cookbook author. His vegetarian cookbook Plenty  graces more EYB member Bookshelves than any other single book in the EYB Library. And there is great excitement amongst EYB members at his newest book Plenty More, published this month in the UK and Australia and in October in the USA.… read more

Cookbook store profile – Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks

In the late 1990s, Barbara-Jo McIntosh envisioned an epicurean's delight, where food lovers and cooks of all abilities would find inspiration. She opened Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997.  Author of the bestselling Tin Fish Gourmet, Barbara-Jo served on the prestigious James Beard Foundation Awards cookbook selection committee for six years.  In 2003, Vancouver Magazine honoured… read more

Complete Diana Henry recipe index

Attention Diana Henry fans - we're excited to announce that we've just completed indexing all of her recipes, 2,851 in total! This includes all of Diana's cookbooks from Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons to A Change of Appetite, every recipe in her Sunday Telegraph columns, every magazine recipe, and recipes found on her website. The Sunday Telegraph recipes are indexed as… read more

Featured Cookbooks & Recipes

At Eat Your Books we want to bring you the best recipes - our dedicated team searches out and finds online recipes excerpted from newly indexed cookbooks and magazines. New recipes from the best blogs are indexed daily and members index their favorite online recipes using the Bookmarklet all the time. Below you'll find this week's recommendations from the EYB team.… read more

Embrace the ebb and flow of seasons with Annabel Langbein

Popular author Annabel Langbein follows the rhythms of her New Zealand garden in her latest cookbook, Through the Seasons. EYB members in Australia and New Zealand can enter our contest for a chance to win one of three copies of the book. And check out our  events calendar for Annabel's book tour of New Zealand. She celebrates the timeless cycle of growing, harvesting, cooking,… read more

Cookbook Giveaway – Through the Seasons

Through the Seasons is Annabel Langbein's 21st cookbook and features recipes inspired by her New Zealand garden's ebb and flow throughout the year. You can read our author interview with Annabel where she discusses the cookbook as well as her food philosophy.  And check out our events calendar for Annabel's book tour of New Zealand. We're delighted to offer 3… read more

Alta Editions Kickstarter features a “pioneering digital cookbook”

Alta Editions, publisher of award-winning digital cookbooks like Laurent Gras: My Provence and The Journey, was launched a couple years back as a project inside a large mobile content company. Earlier this year, the team that started Alta purchased the business from the parent company. This independence, while fostering continued innovation in digital cookbooks, comes with a catch: fewer resources… read more

Stamp of approval

The U.S. Postal Service is honoring five influential chefs in a new series of postage stamps. The Celebrity Chefs series recognizes icons like teacher and author James Beard, whose stamp is now available for pre-order (it will be officially released September 26). According to the U.S.P.S. website, these chefs "invited us to feast on regional and international flavors and were… read more

Behind the scenes with a cookbook editor

Have you ever come across a cookbook that made you think "wow, someone was brave to take a chance on this book"? Then you'll love reading about cookbook editor Rux Martin of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She specializes in cookbooks, narrative nonfiction on food, and diet books, and has worked with storied authors like Dorie Greenspan, Mollie Katzen, Jacques Pépin, and Ruth Reichl.… read more

Faster! Easier! Simpler!

At the end of this month, Nigel Slater's Eat will be published (in the U.S., anyway.  I think it came out in fall of last year in the UK).  I'm a fan of most Slateriana, so when the book arrived this week, I dove right in.  Instead of the usual Slater ramblings in lush prose, I found a trim little… read more

Netflix announces The Chefs Table documentary series

    Food lovers are eager to learn about their favorite chefs' opinions, techniques, and paths to culinary success. Even if we don't have the opportunity to eat at their restaurants, for some chefs we can catch a glimpse of them through their cookbook writing. Soon Netflix will make it easier to discover what makes world-famous chefs tick with a documentary series set to debut… read more

Featured Cookbooks & Recipes

Did you know adding online recipes to your EYB Bookshelf is a really great way to build your personal recipe collection? You can now do this even if you have a free membership! Try it out now and see how easy it is. Browse the recipes below, choose one that appeals, click on the link, and add it to your… read more

Pick a perfect pear

  Crisp mornings and shortening days herald the arrival of fall and with it, fall fruits such as pears. Jacques Pépin notes in Sweet Simplicity that pears are regarded in France as "the king of fruits," and indeed pears shine in both sweet and savory applications. Indexed blog The Kitchn's provides a refresher on how to choose, ripen, and store pears. Unlike… read more

After 25 years, Food Arts says farewell

It's always sad to see a much-loved food publication come to an end. It seems to be happening with increasing frequency in the digital age, and the latest to fold is indexed magazine Food Arts. According to Inside Scoop SF, the magazine's September issue is its swan song. There is no word yet on what will happen to its online… read more
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