Weekend Cooking - a welcome addition to the cookbook shelf

Author: David Joachim

Publisher/Format:Robert Rose (2005), Paperback, 621 pages

Subject: Food definitions

Genre:  Reference

Source:  Public Library

This is a fantastic guide that would be a welcome addition to any well stocked cookbook collection.  Even for those who do not have a lot of cookbooks, this one is quite useful.  I've been thumbing through it now for the past two weeks since I got it from the library, and with all the holiday cooking, it has really come in handy.  For instance, tonite I had a recipe that called for grinding almonds in a food processort to make almond flour.  I really didn't want to get the food processor  out just to do this, particularly when I had purchased a bag of almond flour last week because several cookie recipes I'm planning to bake called for this.  However, I was at a loss on how to convert cups of chopped almonds to cups of almond flour.  Joachim's guide had it right there.

There are definitions of ingredients with lists of acceptable substitutions.  What do you do if you don't have any  persimmons for your mother in law's favorite recipe?  There are also exceptionally thorough tables of conversions, listing metrics, liquids, solids, etc. etc. etc.

I noted when I went to order this one for myself that there is a new edition out. .  The cover indicates:

Practical and enjoyable to read, this new edition of The Food Substitutions Bible has the best instructions for the home cook or professional chef who needs to find a great substitution when a vital ingredient is missing at a critical time in the preparation of a recipe.

Every substitution includes exact proportions and precise directions for making accurate, reliable replacements. Out of confectioner's sugar? Finely grind half a cup plus one and a half tablespoons of granulated sugar with three-quarters of a teaspoon of cornstarch in a blender or small food processor.

This new edition features:

More than 300 new entries and cross-references for ingredients, such as agave nectar, and equipment, such as a mandoline. Five new ingredient charts and measurement tables, such as Picking Coffee, Container Size Equivalents and Alcohol Retention in Cooking 20 percent more content overall...

The straightforward page design makes each entry, chart and sidebar easy to understand and follow. This new edition is bigger, better, updated, expanded and completely revised, providing more information more readily.

I'm not waiting for Santa on this one.

Beth Fish Reads sponsors this weekly meme where we foodies can chat about cookbooks, cooking gadgets, recipes, or anything else gustatory. Be sure to stop over there to find other terrific weekend cooking posts.

Chocolate Week in Maine

 

 

Beth Fish Reads sponsors this weekly meme where we foodies can chat about cookbooks, cooking gadgets, recipes, or anything else gustatory. Be sure to stop over there to find other terrific weekend cooking posts.

Here in Maine we are recovering from Lobster week, and now fully into celebrating the wild blueberry which is enjoying a bumper crop this year.  However, in this household, this has been chocolate week. We celebrated hubbies birthday on Thursday with a chocolate cake, with chocolate fudge filling with chocolate chips, heath bar crunchies, and chocolate fudge frosting.  Granddaughter and I had a great time gussying up a cake mix cake. We even had chocolate ice cream to go with it.

Then yesterday, we were downtown at the Farnsworth Museum and in their gift shop we got a copy of  The Official Whoopie Pie Book - Making Whoopies,  published by DownEast press. We had a wonderful time leafing thru this one and remarking on the many variables of this wonderful treat.  Both Pennsylvania and Maine claim to have originated this delicacy and frankly I don't care where they started as long as they are available. There are as many variations of ingredients as there are lovers of the pies.  My grand-daughter's other grannie LOVES whoopies and we are trying to decide which ones to make her for her birthday later this fall. 

My personal favorites are the ones that have a butter creamy filling as opposed to the marshmellow fluff variety, and I love the pumpkin cake ones.  This book is a fun volume with history, local variations, and lots of recipes. Grand-girl especially loved the 4th of July specials with one blue cake, one red cake, and the white middle. I was in awe of the Whoopie Pie Wedding Cake, trimmed in lavendar and topped with a top hat looking cake.  That one was made by Two Fat Cats bakery in Portland ME.

Incidentally, the typical whoopie pie has less calories than a Dunkin Donuts Chocolate Coffee Coolata, so we therefore can eat them with impunity ---right?

More Grocery Lists

People on LT have left comments on my thread similar to Caite's on my Milk, Vodka, Eggs post.  I have to agree...there is nothing more frustrating that taking inventory, planning menus, trolling through the coupon pile, making the list, double checking with others in the household, organizing the list by aisles, (or categories)  etc. and THEN LEAVING THE #)($*% THING HOME!!!!!

Just after Thanksgiving every year, I retrieve the cookie box from the attic ( I have all my favorite Christmas cookie recipes stored in a separate slip case) and spend a quiet evening sipping eggnog and deciding which cookies I'm going to bake, for whom, how many etc.  Then I make a list of how many eggs, how many cups of flour, sugar, milk, shortening, butter, etc, what extracts, spices, jimmies, sprinkles, paper liners I'm going to need, figure out what I already have in the pantry, and proceed to make THE LIST.

This year, when it came time to go shopping (the big store where I do this kind of shopping is an hour away and requires A TRIP), I couldn't find THE LIST.  My husband kept saying "Oh, you know what you need, you'll be alright" but I refused to budge without that list.  I knew WHAT I needed, just not how much.

How was I supposed to remember that I needed 4 lbs of sugar and 8 lbs of flour, (or was it 8 lbs of sugar and 4 lbs of flour?) or 28 eggs, or 6 lbs of butter and 5 lbs of raisins, or cinnamon, colored non-pareils, 10x sugar (2 lbs), etc etc etc....?

Then I remembered that I'd actually sorted out THE LIST on an Excel spreadsheet and saved the file..and I did go shopping with the list (and returned with it too!).  Now I just have to bake all of them, and get them in the mail to the relatives.

Oh...and after all that...the store didn't have any parchment paper ..........

Review: The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel

This was quite an interesting read following on the heels of The Christmas Cookie Club. The Recipe Club is a Mercedes compared to Pearlman's Chevy. Recipe Club is a novel about friendship, a cookbook, and a history of the relationship of two women from the time they are in their pre-teens through their mid-twenties; then again after a 20+ year hiatus following "a disagreement", and to the present when they reunite.

The recipes are numerous and diverse, cleverly woven into the story of Lilly and Val, and their parents. The girls form a Recipe Club, correspond via mail, and help each other throughout their lives, up to the time when Val graduates from college.  They are as different as night and day. Neither set of parents would ever be nominated for parents of the year, and the girls help each other relate to the individual parents by seeing them through the other's eyes.

The book is written not just as a series of letters, interspersed with yummy recipes but also as emails (when the relationship takes up again in 2000) and also has a section written in normal fiction format.

It is an elegant, thoughtful, delicious book. You have to love the two characters, although you also want to smack them. You have to wonder how two people who are so different in so many ways, can stay such good friends. And then you wonder as you work your way through the book, what caused the estrangement.

The ending of the book was quite surprising to me, but I think I should have seen it coming. It's a well-written, well-planned book that will be enjoyed by women of all ages.

The characters have so much more depth than Pearlman's women, while dealing with many of the same real life issues.  It's amazing to read them back to back and compare.  There truly is no comparison.  If you have to read only one, pick The Recipe Club  You won't be disappointed.

Edited to add:  One of my LT buddies asked if I had tried any of the recipes yet.  Short answer: No, but.....I'm on the road and have marked a couple to try when I get back.  I realize people will want to know about the recipes, but this book stands alone as a novel....the recipes are frosting on the cake. (Pardon the pun.)

Review: The Christmas Cookie Club

This book was part of the BEA Atrium Galley Grab earlier this summer, but I just couldn't bring myself to read about Christmas cookies in the heat.  I grabbed it earlier this week, and can't say I missed too much by waiting. It has good recipes, great little non-fiction essays on the history of various ingredients, like flour, butter, almonds, chocolate, vanilla, etc, loosely tied together by the stories of the 12 women who form the Christmas cookie club.

They meet the first Monday of December to exchange cookies and catch up for the year. Their stories are wooden, formulaic, and re-hash many of today's "women's" issues (sex, divorce, pregnancy, widowhood, money, sullen teenagers, aging parents, etc etc) with nothing much new to say about them. The author could have done a much better job of building some character into these women. They all seem like wax figures from a museum who spit out their stories when someone winds them up and it's their turn.

There seems to be a glut of these women's support group books being published, and it really is going to take some effort to come up with an angle that allows the group to present something fresh. This just didn't work for me. I enjoyed the food parts, but could have easily skipped the soap opera.

They're Everywhere!!

As you can see , my TBR shelf is full--in fact it's grown to four shelves.

Since I confess to being someone who likes to seem like I'm in control, I decided to take today to prioritize things so I could leave town next week with a clear conscience:

• I have my sister Cheli lined up to do a guest review of one of the books she 'borrowed' from my TBR pile
• I'm taking my last 999 book (Saudade by Katherine Vaz) with me to finish while cruising (or flying over the Atlantic)
• I've been trying to straighten up the office and blog space because my daughter is going to house-sit/vacation/work here, and I'd like her to have a place to put a coffee mug at least.

So what happens when I return on Labor Day?

Although I'm participating in several personal reading challenges, I'm going to give priority to ARCs and Early Review copies I've agreed to read and review.

First priority: I have four books that I personally received from the authors:

• Susan Vaughan, a local author who has written several suspense romances, gave us a copy of her latest book Primal Obsession. Knowing how difficult it can be for Indie presses to get wide coverage, I offered to review for the blog. It's first up when I get back.
  
• Sam Moffie offered me a copy of No Mad. I confess it wouldn't be something that I would normally go out and buy, but I have been trying to expand into new genres and this looks like it will be interesting.
  
• Circle of Souls was sent by Preetham Grandhi -- another story with a young psychiatric patient with visions, her pyschiatrist, a murder, art therapy; the book cover calls it a "Stunning pyschological thriller". After reading The Rapture I think I can handle this and am looking forward to it.
  
• The Saint and the Fasting Girl was sent by the author Anna Richenda. It arrived just as I finished Sacred Hearts and I wanted to put some space between the two. It will be an excellent read for my 2nd 999 challenge's Historical Fiction category.
  

Then there are two Early Reviews I received from LT-- they will be the next up. Both are books I really wanted because the suspense thriller is a genre I am coming to enjoy more and more.

• Rizzo's War by Lou Manfredo
  
• Guardian of Lies by Steve Martini
  

Shortly after those, I have to get to ARCs I've received from publishers, and I'm going to try to behave myself and not request any more (unless they are to die for!) until I get this pile under control. In no particular order they are...

• The Maze Runner, by James Dasher - due out in October. I'm trying to expand and read more YA, and fantasy: genres I don't normally read. This one really caught my attention.
• The Weight of Silence, a book about children lost in the woods by Heather Guedenkauf. After I survived reading Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,I guess I can do this one without fainting.
• Half-Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage that Redrew the Map of the New World by Douglas Hunter. I love biography, and this book is a topic that really interests me.
• The Boy who Harnessed the Wind LP: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba. Set in Malawi, this is a true story of courage and inventiveness. I have enjoyed the previous books I've read this year set in various countries of Africa, and this will be another to help expand my knowledge. I'm hoping this will also be suitable for the YA group in our library.
  
• An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkerson by Andro Linklater. I requested this one because it's set in a period I love to read about- the American Revolution- and it's about someone I'd never heard of. Curiosity is a great reason for picking books...
• Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron. I love the Deborah Knott series, so when Hachette Books offered me the chance to review and run a contest to share this one with others, I could not resist.
  
• The Christmas Cookie Club: A Novel by Ann Pearlman. I am a Christmas cookie nut...I go absolutely crazy baking for weeks before the holidays, and if I'm not going to be with people, I actually mail giant boxes of them. I'm always looking for new recipes and new mysteries, so in spite of the plain red cardboard wrapper on the galley proof, this one looks great. I'm hoping to be able to try some of the recipes as I read it, so I can share the results in my review.
• The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright. I honestly don't remember requesting this one, but it is an area in which I read a lot. I've tried three times to read Karen Armstrong's History of God but just couldn't get into it. Maybe this one will be better.
• South of Broad by Pat Conroy. Another of my favorite writers, and settings.
• The Brutal Telling (An Armand Gamache Novel) by Louise Penny. Another of my favorite authors. I was thrilled to be able to be among the first to get this one. My sister also wants it, so I may try to eek out a spot in the luggage to take it along for the cruise. The Armand Gamache books are some of the best in the genre today. I hope this one doesn't disappoint.

And finally, there are three others that I received as prizes from other people's contests that I am itching to get to:

• The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe.
• The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden by William Alexander.
• The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths by Charlotte Gordon.

So if you are OCD and counted the books in the pictures, there are 75 there. The ones that are left after the ARCs, and ERs are books that were on my original list to be read for various challenges during 2009. I'm not sure I can finish all 75 of them before New Years but I'm going to have a wonderful time trying.

Reviews: Mystery Read-A-Thon Recap

Today's Mystery read-a-thon was lots of fun. I managed to complete two books, Michael Connelly's Scarecrow and On What Grounds, the first of the coffeehouse series by Cleo Coyle. I'm half-way thru a third one, the Mint Julep Murders by Carolyn Hart. I'll finish that one tomorrow. I'd never read anything by Michael Connelly before, but that hole in my reading is going to be filled sooner rather than later. The Scarecrow had me on the edge of my chair throughout. As is probably apparent, I am a heavy internet user, and this story about bad people's ability to track, and manipulate data in the virtual world is as scary as anything Stephen King ever wrote. He almost had me pulling the plug on my laptop. It is stunningly plotted, with wonderful characters, and lots of action. A really good read. My sister pointed out the coffeehouse series to me. I am more addicted to coffee than I am to reading, if that is believable. So I really enjoyed meeting the heroine Clare Cosi, her ex-mother in law, and several other fun characters in this opening round of what promises to be a coffee loving clone of Goldi in Diane Mott Davidson's books, or Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swenson. I love them all but I'm not sure I could handle a steady diet of any of them (pardon the culinary pun.) They're all just fun reads to have around when you're in the mood for something delicious, interesting, but not too taxing. Notice I didn't say 'not too fattening' because they're all worth it just for the recipes. Finally, I'm already a fan of Carolyn Hart's Death of Demand series, but haven't read any in almost a year. Our heroine Annie Darling is embroiled again in another murder. Can't wait to see who dunnit. It was great fun to sit back today and read and listen (I did Scarecrow in audio while I kept my eye on the Red Sox and then grilled outside on a glorious Maine early summer Sunday.) I'm not sure I'm reading for another 12 hour marathon in the near future, but all the books were enjoyable, and it was a great excuse to bury my nose in them.