Impulse buys!

May 27, 2014 by
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Just the other day I was reminiscing with friends about what it felt like to shop for The Perfect Thing - that feeling of exhilaration and delight! the thrill of the hunt!  It was reminiscing because as I've gotten older, The Perfect Thing has gotten a little less important to me, supplanted by The Best Value.  There are whole categories… read more

Wanderers

May 20, 2014 by
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Eat.  Travel.  Write a cookbook.  It's not a common formula in these tight-belted days, but every once in a while some intrepid spirit pulls it off.  Some come by it through mixed heritage, like Tessa Kiros of Falling Cloudberries or Exotic Table's Aliya LeeKong, some by happenstance.  But all have culinary adventures and the urge to chronicle them. When I see these… read more

Fancy franks

May 13, 2014 by
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"Eat your Coney Island," says Ryan O'Neal to then-10-year-old Tatum O'Neal in the bittersweet 1973 comedy Paper Moon, itself set during the Great Depression.  Coney Island?  I thought.  What's he talking about?  That's a hot dog, obviously.   But I guess it was a bit of period dialogue, because the American love affair with the hot dog really did start at… read more

One True Recipe . . . or a Rainbow Mosaic?

May 6, 2014 by
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Sometimes people ask me, "What's your favorite food?"  which is ridiculously hard to answer, of course, as any EYB member knows. If we didn't love all kinds of food, we wouldn't have all kinds of cookbooks, and if we didn't have all kinds of cookbooks, we wouldn't need to know what's in them; ergo, we wouldn't be here. Once you… read more

Food writers and their books

April 29, 2014 by
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This week, Ruth Reichl's Delicious! arrived in the mail - her first novel, though far from her first book.  I've been getting press releases for at least six months, so it wasn't a surprise.  But with the Beard book awards taking place this week - I'm going, for the first time - I've been thinking about food writers and the kinds… read more

April 2014 cookbook roundup

April 28, 2014 by
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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 Isn't it funny how warm weather can have different effects on… read more

Cookbooks as teachers

April 22, 2014 by
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Do you remember what it was like when you first learned to cook?  And you had to learn everything for the first time, whether it was jointing a chicken or roasting a pepper?  Now, you probably aren't even aware of just how much you know, except for when you're teaching someone who's new to cooking themselves.  Then you remember that… read more

Spring resolutions…and the books to go with them

April 15, 2014 by
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I finally got into the garden this weekend - anybody else?  It wasn't much of a start, but I put in arugula and spinach, favas and peas.  It's the start of the growing season, when there's nary a weed or a pest (except for ticks - I've seen plenty of those already), and good intentions go hand-in-hand with wild ambition.… read more

Let’s Talk Lunch

April 8, 2014 by
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 As I write this, I'm thinking about lunch, one of the three highlights of my day.  Dinner is recipe testing, breakfast is usually the same thing every day, but lunch is.....a mystery.  Sometimes (often) it's leftovers from dinner.  Sometimes it's the remains of something I just photographed for work.  Sometimes it's just...whatever I can find. When I worked in an… read more

What’s up with France?!

April 1, 2014 by
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I thought it was my imagination at first, but book after book seems to insist: France is back - in case you ever thought it went away.  Maybe it's because we're all sick of winter and dreaming springtime-in-Paris dreams. Maybe it's because once again, people are saying butter is not evil.  Maybe that Provence, 1970 book last year was the trigger.… read more

March 2014 cookbook roundup

March 25, 2014 by
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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 U.K., Australia, and New Zealand releases. USA You know it's spring when the first grill books start turning up… read more

Gear Books

March 25, 2014 by
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Whether your own microclimate has bought into it or not, spring is here, which means that in theory publishers will be taking their annual 8-week hiatus from publishing slow-cooker cookbooks so they can concentrate on grill books. I always wonder at the everlasting popularity of slow-cooker books.  I mean, slow cookers are so forgiving - you could be off by… read more

What’s the Number One thing you look for in a cookbook?

March 18, 2014 by
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Those of us who collect cookbooks are seekers.  We must be, because not one of us could argue that we need another cookbook -so we must be looking for something when we acquire another. When I think about the cookbooks I've been happiest to add to my collection, I see that they've appealed to me in many different ways.  Some, like Japanese… read more

New edition of a classic cookbook

March 11, 2014 by
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Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone first came out in 1998, quickly attaining canonical status among both the meat-free and the pro-vegetable.  10 years later, there was an anniversary edition, and now, only 6 years after that, there's a revised edition. The 10-year anniversary edition, to my mind, didn't have much to add to the original; I concluded it was… read more

“Recipes and Stories”

March 4, 2014 by
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In early 2011, I was scratching my head trying to think of an appropriate subtitle for my book, A Spoonful of Promises.  I know! I thought.  I'll use "Stories and Recipes"!  That sounds like something I'd want to read.  I thought about the way my stories reminded me of the short piano pieces I'd grown up learning, and in a moment… read more

February 2014 Cookbook Roundup

February 25, 2014 by
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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 U.K., Australia, and New Zealand releases. USA February's an interesting month in cookbook land.  It's kind of a grab… read more

E-cookbooks: Love ’em or hate ’em?

February 25, 2014 by
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I hear that every year, more e-cookbooks are published and sold.  Yet few people I know seem to use them (even though everyone seems to use online recipes at some point or another). It occurred to me that maybe I just hadn't put the question to people directly. So, EYB members, how about you? Do you use e-cookbooks? I'm thinking… read more

Postcards from the Cake Frontier

February 18, 2014 by
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As longtime readers of this blog know, I have a sort of fascination with the excesses of cake decorating (I'm not immune to decorating excesses myself, but my weakness lies on the cookie front).  Anyway, every once in a while I like to visit the far frontiers of cakery to see what the natives are doing.   This week's excursion was… read more

Valentine’s Day: In or Out?

February 11, 2014 by
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What's a food lover to do on Valentine's Day - especially when it falls on a Friday? On the one hand, you know it would be nice to go out to dinner, particularly if you're a couple and date night doesn't come around as frequently as you'd like.  On the other hand, as an informed eater, you know that Valentine's… read more

How long will it take?

February 7, 2014 by
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This post appeared at my blog this week.  I'm sure Eat Your Books members have a wealth of recipe-testing shortcuts and tools too - feel free to borrow my tips and share your own!  --Susie. Like anyone who regularly uses cookbooks,  I've often found a vast disconnect between how long I think a recipe will take and how long it… read more

Second chance cookbooks

February 4, 2014 by
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There are some cookbooks that become your favorites right away. They seem to spring into your hands shouting " Use me!", and within a couple of months they get so beat up it looks like they've been in the family for generations. But then there are the other cookbooks - the ones you put aside for no very good reason,… read more

Fantasy cookbooks

January 27, 2014 by
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As the polar vortex shuts everybody in with their seed catalogues and board games, I thought I'd play a little imaginary game of my own.  It's my job to test and rate already-published cookbooks.  What if I started on the other end and dreamed up cookbooks I'd like to see? - ones that I've not yet seen on the market… read more

January 2014 Cookbook Roundup

January 27, 2014 by
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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 U.K., Australia, and New Zealand releases. __________________________________________________________________________ U.S.A.: That silence you hear?  It's cookbook publishers, not taking any risks… read more

Cooking clubs

January 21, 2014 by
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This year, my eternally-under-renovation kitchen has finally gotten to the point where I can comfortably have friends over for dinner.  I can usually squeeze them in between family obligations about once a month, and they are truly one of my great joys. Our family is lucky enough to have a number of close friends who are terrific cooks and adventurous… read more

Out-of-season cookbooks

January 14, 2014 by
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Today's post is brought to you by The Weather.  Here in New England, we're enduring a cold, heavy rain.  It's slowly eroding the mountains of gritty snow piled next to driveways and parking lots, but it's not quite warm enough to melt the underfoot ice that sends you sprawling after one ill-judged step.  It's slow cooker weather, cocoa weather, roast… read more
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