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Books: CookBooks: Cake Decorating
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbellyby Anthony Bourdain List Price: $14.00 Available from Amazon $10.78 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page Product Review Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection. But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn From Publishers Weekly Chef at New York's Les Halles and author of Bone in the Throat, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business. His fast-lane personality and glee in recounting sophomoric kitchen pranks might be unbearable were it not for two things: Bourdain is as unsparingly acerbic with himself as he is with others, and he exhibits a sincere and profound love of good food. The latter was born on a family trip to France when young Bourdain tasted his first oyster, and his love has only grown since. He has attended culinary school, fallen prey to a drug habit and even established a restaurant in Tokyo, discovering along the way that the crazy, dirty, sometimes frightening world of the restaurant kitchen sustains him. Bourdain is no presentable TV version of a chef; he talks tough and dirty. His advice to aspiring chefs: "Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: 'Shut the fuck up.' " He disdains vegetarians, warns against ordering food well done and cautions that restaurant brunches are a crapshoot. Gossipy chapters discuss the many restaurants where Bourdain has worked, while a single chapter on how to cook like a professional at home exhorts readers to buy a few simple gadgets, such as a metal ring for tall food. Most of the book, however, deals with Bourdain's own maturation as a chef, and the culmination, a litany describing the many scars and oddities that he has developed on his hands, is surprisingly beautiful. He'd probably hate to hear it, but Bourdain has a tender side, and when it peeks through his rough exterior and the wall of four-letter words he constructs, it elevates this book to something more than blustery memoir. (May) Copyright 2000 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries)by Sue Grafton List Price: $26.95 Available from Amazon $16.98 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly Kinsey Millhone has kept her appeal by being distinctive and sympathetic without craving center stage. While some mysteries that provide the PI's shoe size or most despised food create a forced and intrusive intimacy, a master like Grafton makes the relationship relaxed and reassuring. Millhone's life is modest and familiar, though her love life, now featuring police detective Cheney Phillips, tends to be oddly remote. This 19th entry (after 2004's R Is for Ricochet) adopts a new convention: Millhone's customary intelligent and occasionally self-deprecating first-person reportage is interrupted by vignettes from the days surrounding the Fourth of July, 34 years earlier, when a hot-blooded young woman named Violet Sullivan disappeared. Violet's daughter, Daisy, who was seven at the time, hires Millhone to discover her mother's true fate. Violet had toyed with every man in town at one time or another, so there's no shortage of scandalous secrets and possible suspects. Constant revelations concerning several absorbing characters allow a terrific tension to build. However, the utterly illogical and oddly abrupt ending undermines what is otherwise one of the stronger offerings in this iconic series. One million first printing; Literary Guild, BOMC and mystery Guild main selection. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From AudioFile In her nineteenth mystery, Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton's no-nonsense gumshoe, takes on a cold case--the question of what happened to a shady lady who disappeared 30 years earlier. In a refreshing change in the alphabet series, Grafton alternates between Millhone's first-person point of view and third-person flashbacks that depict the life of the missing woman in 1953. The device works well, especially for narrator Judy Kaye, Kinsey's alter ego on audio, who capably goes beyond the first-person narrative. Some stalwarts of the series may be unhappy that there's less of Kinsey than usual, but Grafton's approach gives the audiobook a bit more complexity than its predecessors. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. |
Vegan with a Vengeance : Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rockby Isa Chandra Moskowitz List Price: $16.95 Available from Amazon $11.02 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly To appreciate this quirky vegan cookbook, readers must welcome the author's offhand, rambling style. A chatty Brooklynite who hosts her own public access cooking show, she scatters stories about her mother, her friends and her politics among recipes for goodies like Fresh Corn Fritters and Curried Split Pea Soup. In one anecdote, she writes that her mother liked the scones from "one of those overpriced French cafes in Union Square," prompting the author to create Glazed Orange scones in her mother's honor, and the sweet, rich result rivals the average "overpriced café" model. BBQ Pomegranate Tofu is actually baked, not barbecued, but still the tofu is rich and smoky, terrific over rice or packed into heroes. Even better, the vegan iterations of Spanakopita and Seitan-Portobello Stroganoff so closely approximate the traditional versions that even the pickiest eaters would happily trade one for the other. And although there's no chicken broth in Matzoh Ball Soup, the vegetable stock is hearty enough to cure the fiercest cold. Best of all, and rare in a vegan cookbook, the author provides several appealing dairy-free desserts that are tasty enough to fool most omnivores, yet unique enough to thrill any vegan who just can't face another tofu ice cream bar. Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Joan Jett "This fun and creative book is delicious for people like me, who don't eat pets!" |
The Out-of-Sync Child has funby Carol Stock Kranowitz and T.J. Wylie List Price: $15.95 Available from Amazon $10.37 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Book Description This companion volume to The Out-of-Sync Child presents activities that parents of kids with Sensory Integration Dysfunction can do at home with their child to strengthen their child's abilities-and have some fun together along the way. About The Author Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A., a preschool teacher for over 25 years, has a special interest in children with Sensory Integration Dysfunction. She collaborated with leading SI authority Lynn A. Balzer-Martin, Ph.D., OTR, to develop an innovative program to screen young children for this disorder. Ms. Kranowitz writes and speaks regularly about the subject and is a consultant to schools wishing to provide SAFE activities for strengthening all children's healthy neurological development. |
Engaging Autism: Helping Children Relate, Communicate and Think with the DIR Floortime Approachby Stanley I. Greenspan List Price: $26.95 Available from Amazon $17.79 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly Greenspan and Wieder (The Child with Special Needs) start out by redefining autism in realistic yet positive terms which open the door for successful intervention: instead of focusing solely on the autistic spectrum, a more flexible axis measuring progress, on which placement is not fixed, can give parents and children a "a healthy developmental trajectory," taking into account such goals as "showing intimacy and warmth communicating with gestures and talking meaningfully." The authors give readers a pragmatic approach to thinking about people on the autistic spectrum, including specific ideas for enhancing connectivity and communication in people of any age, most of whom "rarely advance intellectually above the ten-to-twelve-year-old level when they could progress far beyond the level of concrete thinking," if only there were a curriculum that would "challenge them to do so." Most of the text is used to help develop an engaging program for someone with autism, including resources and examples, in order to address "relationships, specific behaviors, the creative use of ideas, and the various processing areas." This is essential reading for caregivers, parents and friends of people on the spectrum, as well as compelling reading for anyone who wants to learn more about autism. Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Library Journal, starred Review 04/12/06 "[An] excellent book…The definitive guide to Greenspans respected 'floortime' methodilluminatinghighly recommended." |
The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostessby Hostess List Price: $12.95 Available from Amazon $9.97 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Book Description In 2005, as part of Twinkies’ 75th anniversary celebration, Hostess put out a call for recipes, asking people to share their ideas for cooking—yes, cooking—with Twinkies. Hundreds of people from across the country responded with an amazing collection of homegrown, creative, and sometimes wacky recipes. Nostalgic, colorful, and a delight for the whole family, this is the perfect book for the Twinkie lover in all of us. Publisher Description * The official Twinkies cookbook, showcasing hardcore fans’ recipes for fun, new ways—sweet and savory!—to enjoy Twinkies. * Includes more than 50 recipes and 20 full-color photographs. * Features a historical introduction to the Twinkie, complete with archival photographs and advertisements. About Twinkies: "The Twinkie is the perfect postmodern artifact, a pop culture staple." —Baltimore Sun "The genius of Twinkies is they are exactly what they are—amazingly simple and tres elegantes." —Jane Stern, coauthor of Roadfood "[The doctor] said it wouldn’t hurt me, so I even ate a Twinkie in intensive care." —Ninety-year-old Twinkie-eating legend Lewis Browning, Washington Post Selected Recipes: Twinkie Sushi Twinkie Burrito Pigs in a Twinkie Pumpkin Twinkie Bread Pudding Peanut Butter and Jelly Twinkie Cake
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The Cake Bookby Tish Boyle and John Uher List Price: $39.95 Available from Amazon $25.17 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Book Description "There's something magical about the process of makinga cake from scratch, a process that transforms a few simple ingredients—butter, sugar, flour, and eggs—into culinary artistry." —Tish Boyle From the Inside Flap Cakes are the edible symbol of life's celebrations, and this comprehensive resource is a celebration of cakes and the love and artistry that go into making them. Tish Boyle, the award-winning author and editor of Chocolatier and Pastry art & Design magazines, unlocks the secrets to baking great cakes, with nearly 200 irresistible recipes and practical guidance on ingredients, equipment, and techniques. The Cake Book includes recipes rangingfrom pound cakes and coffee cakes tomeringue, mousse, and ice cream cakes to fillings, frostings, and more. Throughout, color and black-and-white photographs and drawings show you important techniques and spectacular end results. A difficulty rating with each recipe helps you decide which to make, depending on how much time—or ambition—you have. You'll find recipes for traditional favorites, like Deeply Dark Devil's Food Cake and Apple Cake with Maple Frosting, as well as intriguing variations, such as Jasmine and Ginger Plum Upside-Down Cake, Hazelnut Vanilla Cheesecake, and White Chocolate Strawberry Meringue Cake. Complete with decorating tips and techniques, a troubleshooting table, and a comprehen?sive listing of sources to help you find the best equipment and ingredients, this book is an essential reference you'll always turn to, whether you're new to cake baking or are an accomplished pastry chef looking for fresh ideas, inspiration, and recipes. From simple cakes for everyday get-togethers to layered creations befitting special occasions, The Cake Book will help you bake the perfect cake every time.
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Debbie Brown's Enchanted Cakes for Childrenby Debbie Brown List Price: $23.95 Available from Amazon $15.57 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Book Description Enchanted Cakes for Children contains over 20 endearing characters and scenes, including familiar characters from favorite fairy tales such as the Snow Queen, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. You'll also meet several new characters from the world of make-believe, such as friendly elves and bewitching mermaids playing with sea creatures. Clear, step-by-step text is complemented by color photos of each cake. Cake decorators of all levels of experience will soon be producing delightful cakes that will enthrall children and adults alike. About The Author Debbie Brown is an accomplished cake decorator, author, and teacher who started her career making imaginative birthday cakes for her own three children. She is the author of several other best-selling cake decorating books. |
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