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Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make

Witty, one-of-a-kind imaginative cupcake designs using candies from the local convenience store.

America's favorite food photography team, responsible for the covers of America's top magazines, shows how to create funny, scary, and sophisticated masterpieces, using a zipper lock bag and common candies and snack items.With these easy-to-follow techniques, even the most kitchen-challenged cooks can

• raise a big-top circus cupcake tier for a kid's birthday
• plant candy vegetables on Oreo earth cupcakes for a garden party
• trot out a line of confectionery "pupcakes" for a dog fancier
• serve sausage and pepperoni pizza cupcakes for April Fool's Day
• bewitch trick-or-treaters with chilly ghost chocolate cupcakes
• create holidays on icing with turkey cupcake place cards, a white cupcake Christmas wreath, and Easter egg cupcakes

No baking skills or fancy pastry equipment is required. Spotting the familiar items in the hundreds of brilliant photos is at least half the fun.

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold.

In 1985, at a heated auction by Christie’s of London, a 1787 bottle of Château Lafite Bordeaux—one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson—went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors about the bottle soon arose. Why wouldn’t Rodenstock reveal the exact location where it had been found? Was it part of a smuggled Nazi hoard? Or did his reticence conceal an even darker secret?

It would take more than two decades for those questions to be answered and involve a gallery of intriguing players—among them Michael Broadbent, the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women and staked his reputation on the record-setting sale; Serena Sutcliffe, Broadbent’s elegant archrival, whose palate is covered by a hefty insurance policy; and Bill Koch, the extravagant Florida tycoon bent on exposing the truth about Rodenstock.

Pursuing the story from Monticello to London to Zurich to Munich and beyond, Benjamin Wallace also offers a mesmerizing history of wine, complete with vivid accounts of subterranean European laboratories where old vintages are dated and of Jefferson’s colorful, wine-soaked days in France, where he literally drank up the culture.

Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, The Billionaire’s Vinegar is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries. It is also the debut of an exceptionally powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction.

Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick-Ass Recipes for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Cooking Crap (and Start Looking Hot!)

The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life

Do you think that healthy food couldn't possibly taste good? Does the idea of "eating healthy" conjure up images of roughage and steamed vegetables? Author Ellie Krieger, host of Food Network's Healthy Appetite, will change all that. A registered dietitian, Ellie is also a lover and proponent of good, fresh food, simply but deliciously prepared. And she's not about denial--no nonfat foods here, because when you take the fat out of natural foods, in go the chemicals. Don't deny yourself butter--use a pat of it, but put it front and center on those mashed potatoes, so you can revel in it with all your senses. The Food You Crave is all you'll need to change the way you eat and change the way you feel. It contains 200 recipes that cover every meal of the day and every craving you might have. Every recipe contains a complete nutritional breakdown, as well as tips on ingredients and techniques that will keep you eating smart and eating well.

Italian Grill

Italian Grill By Mario Batali, Judith Sutton"From Mario Batali, superstar chef and author of Molto Italiano, comes the ultimate handbook on Italian grilling, which will become an instant must-have cookbook for home grillers."Easy to use and filled with si

Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook

Who knew vegetables could taste so good? Moskowitz and Romero's newest delicious collection makes it easier than ever to live vegan. You'll find more than 250 recipes--plus menus and stunning color photos--for dishes that will please every palate. All the recipes in Veganomicon have been thoroughly kitchen-tested to ensure user-friendliness and amazing results. And by popular demand, the Veganomicon includes meals for all occasions and soy-free, gluten-free, and low-fat options, plus quick recipes that make dinner a snap. Recipes include:

-Autumn Latkes
-Samosa Stuffed Baked Potatoes
-Grilled Yuca Tortillas
-Baby Bok Choy with Crispy Shallots
-Chile-Cornmeal Crusted Tofu Po' Boy
-Roasted Eggplant and Spinach Muffuletta
-Jicama-Watercress-Avocado Salad with Spicy Citrus Vinaigrette
-Acorn Squash, Pear and Adzuki Soup
-Tomato Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans
-Asparagus and Lemongrass Risotto
-Almost All-American Seitan Pot Pie
-Hot Sauce-Glazed Tempeh
-Black Eyed Pea Collard Rolls
-Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti
-Pumpkin Crumb Cake with Pecan Streusel

Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)

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

A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine—now with all-new, never-before-published material

Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

A full-spectrum nutritional cookbook with a startling message--animal fats and cholesterol are vital factors in the human diet, necessary for reproduction and normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. Includes information on how to prepare grains, health benefits of bone broths and enzyme-rich lacto-fermented foods.

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