Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Book Round-Up. We all know what comfort foods are and we all have our favorite comfort food. For me, it’s MR N’s chili with his marinara coming in a close second. He’s making both this weekend for our lunches and dinners next week and it got me thinking about comfort reads.
What defines a comfort read? It is any books you love to curl up to and spend an afternoon losing yourself. Any book having to do with food and drink (primarily wine) tend to be comfort reads for me. I scoured my tablet and came across some fantastic comfort reads. I’d love to know yours so be sure to scroll down and comment.
Buttercream Dreams: Small Cakes, Big Scoops, and Sweet Treats by Jeff Martin
Maybe a cupcake will help? That's the slogan of one of the nation's most popular sweet spots, Smallcakes. Here are thirty of the best, fun, and easiest recipes for iced cupcakes, ice creams, and sweet treats from this fast-growing company.
More than just a super cookbook, this is the story of how Jeff Martin created the wildly popular and fast-growing Smallcakes franchise. He shares his experiences on starting his business and coming up with some of his very first signature cupcake flavors like Cookies-n-Cream. He appeared on the Food Network's reality show called Cupcake Wars and famously became the guy who forgot the pumpkin in a pumpkin cupcake challenge. That popular recipe for a Pumpkin Cupcake with Cardamon buttercream is among the recipes in this book. He also introduces some of his creative new flavors like Peanut Butter Pretzel and French Toast with Bacon. Since they are a family owned company, he also includes his kid's favorite flavors. His son Jax loves bubble gum so they created a Bubblegum Cupcake. His daughter Lily is a very crazy kid, so she asked her dad to come up with some crazy flavors like Orange Creamsicle and Caramel Pecan Carrot Cake. This is not just another cupcake book, it also contains recipes for ice cream and other confections offered now at Smallcakes locations such as Jeff's recipes for their famous Nutella Wella Ice cream, Mama's Chocolate Fudge, and Smallcakes Crazy Monster Cookies. These are thirty recipes to make and enjoy with the whole family, along with 35 color photographs.
The James Beard Cookbook
An undisputed classic from the man who changed American cuisine forever.
Hailed by the New York Times as “one of the best basic cookbooks in America,” The James Beard Cookbook remains as indispensable to home cooks today as it was when it was first published over fifty years ago. James Beard transformed the way we cook and eat, teaching us how to do everything from bread baking to making the perfect Parisian omelet.
Beard was the master of cooking techniques and preparation. In this comprehensive collection of simple, practical-yet-creative recipes, he shows us how to bring out the best in fresh vegetables, cook meat and chicken to perfection, and even properly boil water or an egg. From pasta to poultry, fish to fruit, and salads to sauces, this award-winning cookbook is a must-have for beginning cooks and expert chefs alike. Whether it is deviled pork chops or old-fashioned barbecue, there is not a meal in the American pantheon that Beard cannot teach us to master.
Both timeless and eminently sensible, The James Beard Cookbook is the go-to book for twenty-first-century American home kitchens.
Gennaro: Slow Cook Italian by Gennaro Contaldo
Slow Cooking is one of Gennaro’s favourite ways to cook: it’s simple, stress-free and allows you to get on with other things safe in the knowledge that slowly, slowly the stove-top or oven is doing its job. Stews and sauces bubble on the hob, a roast cooks in the oven with herbs gently infusing the meat, breads and cakes bake, all filling the house with mouth-watering smells and creating that special warmth which nothing else can.
A classic Italian cookbook and kitchen essential, Gennaro: Slow Cook Italian brings together more than 100 recipes for rich soups and stews, slow-cooked pasta sauces, braised meats, tender roasts, soft breads and sticky desserts and sweets. Unfussy, effortless and often inexpensive, the gutsy and sumptuous dishes are mostly quick to prepare, and let the oven or slow-cooker do the work – so that you don’t have to.
Buon appetito!
The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home by Ken Forkish
In this highly anticipated cookbook, Ken Forkish—owner of the beloved restaurant Ken’s Artisan Pizza in Portland, Oregon; the James Beard and IACP Award-winning author of Flour Water Salt Yeast; and one of the most trusted baking authorities in the country—proves that amazing pizza is within reach of any home cook.
The Elements of Pizza breaks down each step of the pizza-making process, from choosing a dough to shaping your pie to selecting cheeses and toppings that will work for your home kitchen setup. Forkish offers more than a dozen different dough recipes—same-day “Saturday doughs” that you can make in the morning to bake pizza that night, levain doughs made from a naturally fermented yeast starter, and even gluten-free dough—each of which results in the best, most texturally sublime crust you’ve ever made at home.
His clear, expert instructions will have you shaping pies and loading a pizza peel with the confidence of a professional pizzaiolo. And his innovative, seasonal topping ideas will surprise and delight any pizza lover—and inspire you to create your own signature pies, just the way you like them.
Slow Dough: Real Bread - Bakers' secrets for making amazing long-rise loaves at home by Chris Young
Making bread is an ancient craft and a fulfilling experience, a skill that is learnt by touch and feel. There is nothing more satisfying than kneading, pulling, stretching and punching the dough, using a little yeast and sugar to transform its lumpen beginnings, as if by alchemy, into a loaf. But it's not all hard work. To get a truly wonderful bread, you can use a starter to do the work for you and it does wonders for the texture, flavours and aromas of the final bread. The Real Bread Campaign has been running since 2008, encouraging people to get baking and raising awareness of the additives that exist in most shop-bought loaves. In Slow Dough: Real Bread, learn secrets from the campaign's network of expert bakers to make a huge array of exciting slow-rise breads at home. Whether you want to make a Caraway Seed Rye Bread, a Fougasse Flatbread or an All-Butter Brioche, in these recipes you'll learn how to make different starters for different breads, as well as the fundamental processes (many of which you can just sit and wait for): fermenting, kneading, first proof, last rising, and baking. In a world of mass-production and redundant additives, bread being among the worst offenders, this book, about real craftsmanship, is like a breath of fresh air.
Champagne [Boxed Book & Map Set] The Essential Guide to the Wines, Producers, and Terroirs of the Iconic Region by Peter Liem
Winner of the 2018 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award in "Reference, History, Scholarship"
Winner of the 2017 André Simon Drink Book Award
Winner of the 2018 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Cookbook Award for "Wine, Beer & Spirits"
From Peter Liem, the lauded expert behind the top-rated online resource ChampagneGuide.net, comes this groundbreaking guide to the modern wines of Champagne--a region that in recent years has undergone one of the most dramatic transformations in the wine-growing world. This luxurious box set includes a pullout tray with a complete set of seven vintage vineyard maps by Louis Larmat, a rare and indispensable resource that beautifully documents the region’s terroirs. With extensive grower and vintner profiles, as well as a fascinating look at Champagne’s history and lore, Champagne explores this legendary wine as never before.
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MRS N, Book Addict