West

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco's Beloved Restaurant

Judy Rodgers, chef-owner of San Francisco's Zuni Cafe, has produced a true classic with The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. This book gives the cook and the reader two accessible temptations: to read from cover to cover, and to cook from cover to cover. One of the great voices in food writing today, Judy Rodgers truly stands shoulder-to-shoulder with any of the master food writers who have preceded and influenced her. Her writing is as delicious as the famous Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad, as simple and elegant as the Zuni Cafe Caesar Salad.

While firmly anchored in the food sentiments of California, Rodgers explores the honest cuisine généreuse of France, Tuscany, Umbria, Sicily, Catalonia, and Greece. Her chapter "Small Dishes to Start a Meal" runs to 65 pages! Look for her Lentil-Sweet Red Pepper Soup with Cumin and Black Pepper, her Citrus Risotto, and her Tomato Summer Pudding. Be sure to try Short Ribs Braised in Chimay Ale, and Rabbit with Marsala and Prune-Plums. Chapters are devoted to eggs, starchy dishes, sausage and charcuterie, and the cheese course; you'll also find all the basic chapters one might expect. Throughout, Gerald Asher provides insight into matching wines with foods.

Rodgers's natural instinct is to share and to teach, and the instructional material in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook is like a deep-tissue massage, improving any cook's posture and performance. Rodgers's fine book invites both the novice and the experienced cook to delve deep into the heart of real food and real cooking. --Schuyler Ingle

For twenty-four years, in an odd and intimate warren of rooms, San Franciscans of every variety have come to the Zuni Café with high expectations and have rarely left disappointed. In The Zuni Café Cookbook, a book customers have been anticipating for years, chef and owner Judy Rodgers provides recipes for Zuni's most well-known dishes, ranging from the Zuni Roast Chicken to the Espresso Granita. But Zuni's appeal goes beyond recipes. Harold McGee concludes, "What makes The Zuni Café Cookbook a real treasure is the voice of Zuni's Judy Rodgers," whose book "repeatedly sheds a fresh and revealing light on ingredients and dishes, and even on the nature of cooking itself." Deborah Madison (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) says the introduction alone "should be required reading for every person who might cook something someday." 24 pages of color, 50 black-and-white photographs.

Canyon Ranch Cooks: More Than 200 Delicious, Innovative Recipes from America's Leading Health Resort

101 Things to Do with a Cake Mix

Move over Betty Crocker--101 Things to Do With a Cake Mix will amaze your friends and leave them Jell-O green with envy! From Snickers Surprise Cookies to Christmas Rainbow Poke Cake, it's the best thing to happen in the kitchen since your last romantic rendezvous! So what are you waiting for? Grab a cake mix, whip up some goodies, and throw some flour on your face so it looks like you spent days in the kitchen.
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Texas Cowboy Cooking

What did cowboys eat on the range? It's doubtful their "chuck" much resembled the lively fare offered by restaurateur Tom Perini in Texas Cowboy Cooking, a collection of 75 recipes from the Perini Ranch Steakhouse. That said, the dishes, which include the likes of Black Bean and Roasted Corn Salad, Oven Roasted Beef Brisket, and Jessica's Favorite Green Chili Hominy, are just the thing when the call of meat and Tex-Mex seasoning can't be denied. Illustrated with color photos throughout, the book provides a big-food journey, noting en route the Texas lore that gives it context. Most readers will probably pass on the Calf Fries, a local delicacy the author hardly admits are made from beef testicles. But when Perini talks steak--offering useful cut information and such tempting dishes as a Spicy Beef Tenderloin with Roasted Garlic-Horseradish Cream, Round Steak Rolls, and Laredo Broil, a superior version of marinated flank steak--you'll want to pay attention. Other standouts include an exemplary Texas Chili, Winter Squash Soup, Grilled Sourdough with Texas Onion Butter (a recipe for the bread is included), Carrots with Bourbon Sauce, and the fancier Celebration Venison with Ginger and Wine. Desserts aren't neglected, and simple sweets like Grandmother's Pound Cake, Jane's Sweet Potato-Pecan Pie, and Bread Pudding with Whisky Sauce should put a happy end to whatever appetite is left after a massive Perini spread. With a short but interesting section on cowboy life and informative sidebars (such as Aging Beef), the book provides easily made, easily enjoyed food for millennial buckeroos everywhere. --Arthur Boehm

TEXAS COWBOY COOKING collects Tom Perini's all-time favorite recipes for mouth-watering Texan food and drinks. Perini also shares his award-winning tips preparing them, including his secrets to cooking the perfect steak - for selecting the cut, preparing it, knowing when to turn it, and when to call it done. Throughout, stunning photography, archival illustrations, and Perini's own dry, Texan wit bring to life the romance, adventure, character, and humor of life in cowboy country.

* Beautiful, artful photographs complemented by drawings of regional western art

* Written descriptions of historic Texas regions capture the romance of cowboy food and culture

* Showcases heritage food, with heirloom recipes and cowboy practicality complemented by modern kitchen shortcuts

Pike Place Public Market Seafood Cookbook

For close to 100 years, Seattle's Pike Place Public Market has been a favorite destination for food-loving locals and tourists alike. Packed with stalls offering the best quality and selection of fish found on the West Coast, restaurants serving up Pacific Northwest cuisine, and culinary shops of every persuasion, the market is a fish-lover's paradise. In this colorful gift edition cookbook, best-selling author Braiden Rex-Johnson shares shopping tips, cooking techniques, mail-order sources, and more than 50 recipes for fish and shellfish from the chefs, restaurateurs, and fishmongers who represent the market community. Filled with candid, colorful photos, the PIKE PLACE PUBLIC MARKET SEAFOOD COOKBOOK is the perfect gift for any seafood-loving soul and a great souvenir to bring the best of the market home.

Simply Classic: A Collection of Recipes to Celebrate the Northwest

101 Things to Do with a Slow Cooker

From the New York Times best-selling author of 101 Things to Do With a Cake Mix! comes 101 Things to Do with a Slow Cooker! Call it a slow cooker, a crockery cooker, or your best friend, the popularity of these handy machines has exploded recently, and "Mrs. 101" Stephanie Ashcraft has stepped up to the plate (or bowl, or serving tray) with an amazing collection of timesaving recipes. From South of the Border Pot Roast to Hearty Vegetable Soup to Cherries Jubilee, now anyone can make hearty, healthy dishes for the whole family the "throw-n-go" way-simply throw several ingredients into the slow cooker, get on with life, and come home to a kitchen filled with the aroma of real home cooking. 101 recipes for main courses, side dishes, desserts, and more are included, along with suggestions for how and what to serve with each dish, time-saving meal preparation tips, and easy modifications to fit your families tastes.
Stephanie Ashcraft, New York Times best selling author of 101 Things to Do With a Cake Mix, is a full-time mom who has created and collected recipes for years. She also teaches a monthly cooking class for Macey's Little Cooking Theater.
Janet Eyring's interest in learning how to cook healthy, inexpensive meals without living in the kitchen inspired her to write a cookbook that relied on the ease of the slow cooker. She also teaches cooking classes at Macey's Little Cooking Theater.

Creme De Colorado Cookbook (Celebrating Twenty Five Years of Culinary Artistry)

Big Sky Cooking

The West has a permanent pull on the American psyche. It's the place where the prairie meets the mountains, the mountains meet the sky, and the sky goes on forever. It's the home of our legends, our heroes and outlaws, our romanticized past.

Meredith and Tom Brokaw could feel the attraction all the way from their home in New York City. Native South Dakotans, they had settled into a frenetic Manhattan lifestyle, tempered by frequent visits to Montana, until Tom could no longer resist. He convinced Meredith to join him in buying a ranch north of Yellowstone. Meredith, in turn, convinced her friend, passionate cook Ellen Wright, to come and discover for herself the bounty of the region—its trout, bison, and elk; locally raised poultry; native fruits and vegetables. The result is Big Sky Cooking, a personal story of this Montana experience told through delicious recipes and menus, charming reflections, and glorious color photographs.

Nearly one hundred recipes, from new dishes to family standbys to reinterpreted classics, are organized into twenty menus that let you dip into the western lifestyle for any occasion: from a sunrise breakfast with eggs straight from the chicken coop to a picnic on the fly, from a rodeo dinner to a moonlight supper under the stars. The food is straightforward, unpretentious fare, as honest as Montanans and guaranteed to make every hour of the day an opportunity to enjoy the good life.

Along the way you'll be introduced to the region's charms: its slow rhythms, its work ethic, the influences of the ancient people and European settlers who formed the present-day state, the "neighbors" who live two hours away, the glow at dusk that's so extraordinary it has its own name.

Falling in love with the American West, one great meal at a time

Big Sky Cooking is the ideal combination of delicious recipes, evocative prose, and lush photography—the gift book of the year for anyone who loves the American West, and especially for those who vacation (or have second homes) anywhere in the Mountain time zone. The wide-open spaces and dramatic peaks, the rolling pastures and abundant wildlife, the clean, fresh air and crystal clear waters . . . the West is filled with sensual seductions that lure people from all walks of life to ski and hike, to ride horses and go rafting, to hunt and fish; they come to cook, eat, and be merry.

Meredith Brokaw and Ellen Wright show you how to re-create this lifestyle with the perfect prairie picnic or campfire celebration, the ultimate barbecue or a civilized supper under the stars in nearly one hundred accessible recipes. Big Sky Cooking also delves into the rhythms that define life there, with lyrical reflections and descriptions from well-known writers and artists. And surrounding all this beautiful prose and delicious food are 150 stunning color photographs that capture the essence of this delicious and magical part of the country.

The Tra Vigne Cookbook: Seasons in the California Wine Country

"The closer your cooking stays to the seasons, the simpler--and better--your cooking will be." Michael Chiarello's mom told him that as he stood beside her at the stove, learning what a real Italian tomato sauce looks, smells, and sounds like as it cooks. Those lessons led him into the chef's life and his own restaurant in the heart of California's wine country, Tra Vigne. So it should come as no surprise that the subtitle of his lush cookbook, The Tra Vigne Cookbook is Seasons in the California Wine Country. And such is the organizing principle. Not only are the sections of the book divided into the four seasons, but the subsets include four ingredients key to each season: asparagus or garlic in spring, for example, or mushrooms and eggplant in fall.

Chiarello describes his own cooking style as "combining spectacular ingredients, professional technique, and imaginative presentations." He shows how to take this into your own home kitchen, in word and technique. A lot of the exceptional flavors he is able to muster come from the flavor enhancers he has put up in his pantry through the seasons--the flavored olives, the dried figs. To read his section on the pantry is to yearn for a dark, cool basement. "Take the time when you have it in order to reap the rewards later when you don't," Chiarello encourages.

The Tra Vigne Cookbook is a carefully layered dish of family reminiscence, tech tips, master recipes, and heartfelt yearnings for the seasons and the way they pass outside the windows of a country restaurant, the way they feel on the skin, the way they taste and smell. It's about attitude. Chiarello grabs it all and makes it accessible. The Tra Vigne Cookbook is a large-format, elegant book you will want to leave open on the table to flip through. Let your attention get caught up in it and carried away. Chiarello stays with the seasons, and his accomplishment is simpler and better as a result. And therein lies a world of glorious, flavorful complexity. --Schuyler Ingle

This classic cookbook from Food Network star Michael Chiarello is at last available in paperback. It's vintage Chiarello: blending simple yet sophisticated recipes from Napa Valley's famed Tra Vigne restaurant with the grace of Wine Country living and the warmth of his Italian heritage. More than 80 rustic recipes are enhanced by personal stories, detailed descriptions of how to choose ingredients for seasonal perfection and deliciousness, and Chiarello's personal philosophy of life as it relates to cooking—and feeding—those you love.