Reading

Here are a list of books that I have been reading over the last several weeks/months. They are mostly food books pertaining to cooking, food writing, travel and other culinary related textbooks. I am going to list the books I have purchased for culinary classes, along with my recommendations for what you should check out should you become a freak with a fetish, like me! =)

Currently Reading:

Cooking Ingredients - by Christine Ingram
ISBN: 0681783230
This is a wonderful reference for ingredients I'm not terribly familiar with. We're approaching wild mushroom season, so in preparation I looked over some of the mushroom pages to help me begin learning to identify what different varieties look like. This is NOT, by any means, a book to use as a guide for mushroom hunting. I use it if I hear about an ingredient that I want to know more about. The book is organized according to "families" (like lettuces, meats, dairy...etc.) which makes it really easy to find what you're looking for. Do what I do and use mini sticky notes to mark pages you want to come back to. There's a lot of information, so it can be daunting, but it's definitely worth having if you're serious about learning more about the things you want to cook with. It's also good for learning about exotic ingredients, and it even has some simple recipes you can follow for preparing some classic dishes. And OMG the cheese section is AWESOME. Great book!



Past Reading:

The Professional Chef - by The Culinary Institute of America
ISBN: 0764557343
This was one of my textbooks for culinary school. We used it in several of the classes, but mostly in the beginning courses. It's a very instructional book that provides recipes and walks you through a lot of the staples needed in a professional kitchen (like how to make stocks, what the five mother sauces are, what a bouqet garni is...etc.). Like I said, this is a textbook, which means it's meant for someone who is interested in becoming a culinary professional. Am I saying that the home cook shouldn't buy it? No way! But I think you'll find it's a bit frustrating since it uses a lot of weight measurements rather than volumetric. Not only that, but the scale of the recipes is HUGE. I think one of the stock recipes makes 10 gallons. So, you'd have to scale it down. Don't forget, there are a lot of websites that will do conversions on recipes for you, so do a google search for recipe converter if you do decide this is the book for you. I think it's wonderful.



Garde Manger - by The Culinary Institute of America
ISBN: 9780470055908
Pronounced "gar mon-JAY", this book is simply incredible. This was another culinary school textbook that we used in the book's namesake class. What it means is "cold kitchen" and it has recipes and techniques for making everything from soups to sauces, pickles to sandwiches, molecular gastronomy to good, old-fashioned methods. It's a really cool book. One of the things I remember most from this textbook (besides the pickles!!!) was the terrines. They're basically a ground meat of some type which has been seasoned, and then layered with anything and served chilled. Think of them as cold meatloaves. We made a ground lamb terrine with a lamb tenderloin in the center. The outside was perfectly cooked and the inside was beautifully blush. They're usually very rich, so you only serve a slice or two with something very fresh on the side, either an acidic pickle, or a bright salad with a tangy vinaigrette. Great book! Again, same as The Professional Chef, a lot of this is on a large scale, and the recipes are done by weight.



Nutrition a Culinary Approach - by Mary Anne Eaton and Janet Rouslin
ISBN: 0757500900
Another textbook, but an awesome reference. This book has nutritional information for a ton of fruits, vegetables and other foods we eat (including things you go out for, like hamburgers, hotdogs...etc.). I'll give you an example: 1 Banana, is 74% water, 109 kcal (a bit more precise than calories), 1g protein, 1g fat, 0.2g saturated fat, 28g carbohydrates, 2.8g fiber, 467mg potassium...etc. And that's just part of it! There are literally over a thousand items with nutritional information. There's also a great section in here about nutrition for your age range, which is great if you're taking care of a little one or an elderly family member, or just yourself! Love this book. Gonna dive into this for a potential blog...


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