New Cookbooks to Enjoy

 

Cook your way across Louisiana with beloved chef Kevin Belton’s newest cookbook! Kevin Belton’s fourth cookbook and television series focuses on the amazing food found throughout Louisiana. The star of New Orleans Cooking with Kevin Belton heads to multiple parishes found across Louisiana to explore dishes and unique flavor profiles associated with each area of the state. Kevin Belton’s Cookin’ Louisiana has 78 recipes (3 from each episode of the coordinating TV series) along with a generous helping of Kevin’s captivating stories and humor. Recipes include Smoked Meat Loaf with Sweet Glaze, Louisiana Fish on the Half Shell, Cane Syrup Cake, Pumpkin Soup, Fried Alligator Bites, and Shrimp Scampi Risotto. (from Amazon.com)

A Feast of Wonder! Gastro Obscura: a Food Adventurer's Guide written by Cecily Wong is created by the ever-curious minds behind Atlas Obscura. This breathtaking guide transforms our sense of what people around the world eat and drink. Covering all seven continents, Gastro Obscura serves up a loaded plate of incredible ingredients, food adventures, and edible wonders. Ready for a beer made from fog in Chile? Sardinia’s “Threads of God” pasta? Egypt’s 2000-year-old egg ovens? But far more than a menu of curious minds delicacies and unexpected dishes, Gastro Obscura reveals food’s central place in our lives as well as our bellies, touching on history–trace the network of ancient Roman fish sauce factories. Culture–picture four million women gathering to make rice pudding. Travel–scale China’s sacred Mount Hua to reach a tea house. Festivals–feed wild macaques pyramid of fruit at Thailand’s Monkey Buffet Festival. And hidden gems that might be right around the corner, like the vending machine in Texas dispensing full sized pecan pies. Dig in and feed your sense of wonder. (from Amazon.com)

A Weissman once said"...can we please stop with the barrage of 2.3 second meals that only need 1 ingredient? I get it…we’re busy. But let’s refocus on the fact that beautifully crafted burgers don't grow on trees." Ironically this sounds a lot like he's trying to convince you to cook, but he's really not. Is this selling the cookbook? The point is that the food in this book is an invitation that speaks for itself. Great cooking does, and should, take time. Now is the time to double down and get your head in the cooking game. Or you know, don't. Maybe get someone else to cook this stuff for you...that works too. How can you know if something is your favorite if 50 to 80 percent of the stuff you've been eating was made by someone else? Butter, condiments, cheese, pickles, patties, and buns. For a superior and potentially even life-changing experience, you can (and should, to be honest) make these from scratch. Create the building blocks necessary to make the greatest meal of your life. While you're at it, give it the Joshua Weissman—or your own—twist. As Joshua would say, “If you don’t like blue cheese, then don’t use blue cheese.” From simple staples to gourmet to deep-fried, you are the master of your own kitchen, and you'll make it all, on your terms. With no regrets, excuses, or apologies, Joshua Weissman will instruct you how with his irreverent humor, a little bit of light razzing, and over 100 perfectly delectable recipes. If you love to host and entertain; if you like a good project; if you crave control of your food; if fast food or the frozen aisle or the super-fast-super-easy cookbook keep letting your tastebuds down; then Joshua Weissman: An Unapologetic Cookbook is your ideal kitchen companion. (from Amazon.com)

The story of Hawaiian cooking, by a two-time Top Chef finalist and Fan Favorite, through 100 recipes that embody the beautiful cross-cultural exchange of the islands. Even when he was winning accolades and adulation for his cooking, two-time Top Chef finalist Sheldon Simeon decided to drop what he thought he was supposed to cook as a chef. He dedicated himself instead to the local Hawai‘i food that feeds his ‘ohana—his family and neighbors. With uncomplicated, flavor-forward recipes, he shows us the many cultures that have come to create the cuisine of his beloved home: the native Hawaiian traditions, Japanese influences, Chinese cooking techniques, and dynamic Korean, Portuguese, and Filipino flavors that are closest to his heart. Through stunning photography, poignant stories, and dishes like wok-fried poke, pork dumplings made with biscuit dough, crispy cauliflower katsu, and charred huli-huli chicken slicked with a sweet-savory butter glaze, Cook Real Hawai‘i will bring a true taste of the cookouts, homes, and iconic mom and pop shops of Hawai‘i into your kitchen. (from Amazon.com)

More (Digital) Cookbooks to Tease Your Palate

These featured cookbooks are available on our hoopla digital app. Enjoy flipping through these recipes and not messing up your book while trying a few of them out for your family!

The New Homemade Kitchen: 250 Recipes and Ideas for Reinventing the Art of Preserving, Canning, Fermenting, Dehydrating, and More is by Joseph Shuldiner. Revive the lost arts of fermenting, canning, preserving, and creating your own ingredients. The Institute of Domestic Technology Cookbook is a collection of 250 recipes, ideas, and methods for stocking a kitchen, do-it-yourself food-crafting projects, and cooking with homemade ingredients. The chapters include instructions on how to make your own food products and pantry staples, as well as recipes highlighting those very ingredients-for example, make your own feta and bake it into a Greek phyllo pie, or learn how to dehydrate leftover produce and use it in homemade instant soup mixes. Each chapter includes instructions to make your own pantry staples, like ground mustard, sourdough starter, and miso paste. Complete with recipes that utilize the very ingredients you made. Filled with informative and helpful features like flavor variation charts, extended tutorials, faculty advice, and instructional line drawings. Also included are features like food-crafting charts, historical tidbits, 100+ photos and illustrations, how-to's, and sidebars featuring experts and deans from the Institute, including LA-based cheese-makers, coffee roasters, butchers, and more. From the Institute of Domestic Technology, a revered food-crafting school in Los Angeles, each chapter is based on the school's curriculum and covers all manners of techniques-such as curing, bread-baking, cheese-making, coffee-roasting, butchering, and more. Complete with beautiful food photography, this well-researched and comprehensive cookbook will inspire chefs of all levels. Great gift for food-crafters, food geeks, food pioneers, farmers' market shoppers, as well as people who feel nostalgic for a slower way of life.

American drummer, DJ, producer, designer, culinary entrepreneur, music educator, and bestselling author Questlove brings you Mixtape potluck: a cookbook. What if Questlove threw a potluck dinner, and everybody came? He picked the guests. The guests picked the recipes. The result is the ultimate potluck cookbook. Questlove is best known for his achievements in the music world, but his interest in food runs a close second. He has hosted a series of renowned Food Salons and conversations with some of America's most prominent chefs. Now he is turning his hand to creating a cookbook. In Mixtape Potluck Cookbook, Questlove imagines the ultimate potluck dinner party, inviting more than fifty chefs, entertainers, and musicians-such as Eric Ripert, Natalie Portman, and Q-Tip-and asking them to bring along their favorite recipes. He also pairs each cook with a song that he feels best captures their unique creative energy. The result is not only an accessible, entertaining cookbook, but also a collection of Questlove's diverting musical commentaries as well as an illustration of the fascinating creative relationship between music and food. With Questlove's unique style of hosting dinner parties and his love of music, food, and entertaining, this book will give readers unexpected insights into the relationship between culture and food.

Half the Sugar, All the Love: a family cookbook features 100 easy, low-sugar recipes for every meal of the day is by Jennifer Tyler Lee and Anisha I. Patel, MD, MSPH. Would you feed your child a candy bar for breakfast? Of course not. And yet today our children routinely consume three times the recommended daily allowance of added sugar, which puts them at an unprecedented risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, excess weight, and even nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. These doctor-approved recipes that cut the sugar (by half—or more!) without sacrificing the flavors our families love. It’s an eye-opening education, a program of healthy eating, and a cookbook chock-full of easy, delicious recipes all in one. Pass the breakfast bars!

Let's Fix Lunch! by Kat Nouri makes it easy (and fun!) to prepare meals that are good for you and good for the planet. This eco-friendly cookbook features delicious, waste-free recipes for sandwiches, salads, soups, snacks, and more. An inspiring guide for anyone who wants to do their small part to save the earth, Let's Fix Lunch! makes it simple to create a sustainable, waste-free home. - Easy-to-make recipes for all home cooks - Includes more than 50 simple tips for reducing food waste and plastic use - Features a handy guide to buying in bulk, meal prepping, and food storage This eco-conscious cookbook is written by Kat Nouri, founder of the beloved, environmentally friendly kitchen brand Stasher. Let's Fix Lunch! is the perfect kitchen companion for eco-conscious parents and office workers. - Brims with bright, vivid photographs of tasty dishes and beautifully packed lunches - Perfect for anyone who tries to live a waste-free, low plastic, and environmentally friendly lifestyle - Packed with inspired, accessible meal-prep ideas and techniques.

Celebrate Summer with Gardening

Crops in Pots:  How to Plan, Plant and Grow Vegetables, Fuits and Herbs in Easy-Care Containers by Bob Purnell is a great book for the aspiring gardener!  It is perfect for the home gardener who wants to get his/her feet into growing fruits and vegetables for snacks or meal time.  The book begins with a great section on how to grow plants from seed

and how to take care of them, including figuring out what to plant and how to fertilize them, and even a section on pests and diseases.  The rest of the book is divided into sections as to the type of food you want to grow--starters, main courses, and desserts.  Each type of plant shown has a picture of the plant, a detailed method on how to grow it and a recipe using the items you've grown.  One of my favorites is the "Select Salad" on page 68.  It's a main course, and combines an assortment of edible leaves, blooms and other unusual salad ingredients in a large growing pot.  This is a very accessible and easy-to-read book, perfect for beginning and seasoned gardeners.  The 50 planter projects contained in the book will yield delicious rewards, even if your gardening space is minimal!

Under the Cajun Moon

I just read the first book in (I hope) a new series by Mindy Starns Clark. Under the Cajun Moon is set in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana and involves the things I love most about the state---food, music and eccentric people! The heroine of the story is Chloe Ledet, daughter of the famous chef Julian Ledet, owner of a famous French Quarter restaurant. Chloe has tried to "win" the love and respect of her parents for years, but finally moved away to have a successful career as a business etiquette consultant in Chicago. Chloe is called back to New Orleans suddenly when her dad is shot and ends up in a coma. Chloe is called to handle her father's affairs but when she wakes up in a strange hotel room with her father's dead lawyer on the couch, she immediately falls under suspicion of murder and must clear her name as well as discover who shot her father. With the aid of the son of her father's best friend, a handsome cajun named Travis, Chloe must "follow the recipe" and search for a priceless treasure while staying one step ahead of the people trying to kill her and her father--while trying to find the treasure. I absolutely loved the non-stop action of this story as well as the descriptions of Louisiana's swamps and exotic food and wildlife. Mindy Starns Clark truly knows Louisiana and her gutsy heroine is one you'll remember for a long time. Try a "taste of New Orleans" by reading this book!

Succulent River Cuisine

Every now and then a book with a snazzy cover or title catches my eye! The library recently purchased The Paddling Chef: A Cookbook for Canoeists, Kayakers and Rafters, by Dian Weimer. Being a canoe and kayaker myself, I was intrigued when this book was cataloged and made available for checkout. The author was born and raised in Vancouver, and is a big fan of adventure kayaking, which she does all over Canada. Whether you are an experienced paddler, or strictly a beginner, you will love this book! In a friendly, non-nonsense manner, Weimer explains how to plan your menus, whether you are taking a two-day or a seven-day trip, and how to organize your food in dry bags (pack the frozen meat on the bottom and place the cheese on top of it so it will stay cool as the meat unfreezes) or in plastic tubs. She also gives great tips on how to pack your items so that your veggies receive the least amount of bruising and you don't have to empty your whole pack each time you make a meal. The best part of the book are the recipes included: from meat to pasta to vegetable and dairy recipes, the recipes range from easy to hard and include helpful advice about how many pans or pots you need to prepare the recipe. I especially enjoyed the dessert and saucy companions recipe sections. I agree with Weimer--the right sauce can cover up any mistakes made by overcooking your meat on a camp stove you can't regulate properly! Weimer also includes a section on drying food for longer trips and several anecdotes about disasters and successful meals she has prepared on her paddling trips. This is a great book for any paddling or camping enthusiast!

A Book for Food Lovers

I don’t know if you are as big a fan of the “food network” television channel as I am, but it is one of my favorites. The chefs on most of the food networks shows are wildly popular with our library’s patrons, and in response to their popularity we have purchased many recipe books authored by Paula Deen, Rachael Ray, Giada De Laurentiis and Sandra Lee. One of my new favorites is Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run. The book itself is a visual feast! It is chock full of colored photographs, recipes, portraits, and notes that Brown wrote while traveling up the Mississippi River from Louisiana to Minnesota on Buttercup, his motorcycle. Along the way, he stops in river cities and towns to sample (in my opinion) some of the best food in the United States. Brown does not just visit restaurants, however—he takes time to visit many culturally significant museums and other places in these towns, while giving a brief history of each place. Most of the recipes in the book came straight from the mouth of the chef, but if the chef was unwilling to give up the recipe, Brown does his best to write down what he thinks is in the dish, as well as a “who inspired the dish” notation. I might be partial to this book simply because it includes a description of Alton Brown’s visit to the Beidenharn Candy Co. and Coca-Cola museum in Vicksburg, but I do know one thing. Don’t read this book while you are hungry- it will only make you want to go whip up a batch of your grandma’s best fried chicken!