New American Chef: Cooking with the Best of Flavors and Techniques from Around the World
Author: Andrew Dornenburg
America's leading authorities on ten influential cuisines offer a master class on authentic flavors and techniques from around the world
Today's professional chefs have the world to use as their pantry and draw freely on a global palette of flavors. Now Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page bring together some of the foremost culinary authorities to reveal how to use different flavors and techniques to create a new level of culinary artistry. Mario Batali, Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasse, Paula Wolfert, and many others share the foundations of ten influential cuisines:
* Japanese
* Italian
* Spanish
* French
* Chinese
* Indian
* Mexican
* Thai
* Vietnamese
* Moroccan
Packed with information, ideas, and photographs that will inspire every cook, The New American Chef shares a mouthwatering array of nearly 200 authentic recipes, including Honey Spare Ribs from Michael Tong of Shun Lee Palace, Gazpacho Andaluz from José Andrés of Jaleo, and Steamed Sea Bass with Lily Buds from Charles Phan of The Slanted Door.
Publishers Weekly
Dornenburg and Page (Chef's Night Out; Becoming a Chef) collaborate successfully once more, bringing together the international inspirations that today's chefs draw from. As unusual, often imported ingredients become more readily available, the authors believe that "there is an exciting opportunity for experimentation and exercising creativity. On the other hand, experimentation-particularly in the hands of an inexperienced chef-can be disastrous." Dornenburg and Page address this problem by bringing together 10 fundamental international cuisines in one handy volume. Drawing on the knowledge of the leading exponents of each fare, and liberally sprinkling in quotations, they distill these styles, ingredients and techniques into a philosophy that can guide the chef or the inspired home cook to produce authentic results. Whether focusing on Japanese or Moroccan cuisines, the authors call for advice upon the likes of such notables as Paula Wolfert, Rick Bayless and Daniel Boulud, who provide not only their expertise but also their recipes. Each section is divided into the fundamentals, including a culinary map, flavor palette, ingredients and techniques as well as a suggested reading list from cookbook shop notable Nach Waxman, before finishing with several timeless recipes that provide a basic repertoire. Most recipes require a certain level of knowledge and competence, but some, such as the clean-tasting Gazpacho Andaluz and vibrant Chicken Tangine with Prunes, are within reach of any cook. The finished work is deceptively thorough, but it works better as a guide to the values, tastes and methods that form each cuisine than as a recipe book. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
New interesting book: The Arthritis Cure or Gut Solutions
Educating Peter: How I Taught a Famous Movie Critic the Difference Between Cabernet and Merlot or How Anybody Can Become an (Almost) Instant Wine Expert
Author: Lettie Teagu
Lettie Teague knows wine. She has been the wine editor at Food & Wine magazine for almost a decade. The only question she is asked more than "Can you recommend a great wine for under $10?" -- great cheap white: Argiolas Costamolino Vermentino from Sardinia; great cheap red: Alamos Malbec from Argentina -- is "What is the best way to learn about wine?"
After many years of fielding these questions, Lettie was determined to debunk the myth that learning about wine is hard. She decided to find just one wine idiot and teach him a few fundamentals -- how to order off a restaurant wine list without fear, approach a wine merchant with confidence, and perhaps even score a few points off a wine snob.
Enter her neighbor, good friend and complete wine neophyte Peter Travers, Rolling Stone magazine's longtime film critic.
Peter Travers proved the perfect Eliza Doolittle to Lettie's Professor Higgins. As a film critic he made bold pronouncements ("This movie stinks," which could be readily translated to "This Cabernet tastes like Merlot") and exhibited a finely tuned visual sense ("The cinematography could be improved" could easily become "This wine is too white"). But, most important, Peter knew almost nothing about wine.
As Lettie begins their lessons, Peter puts down his ever-present glass of "fatty" Chardonnay and learns that there is a huge world out there full of all kinds of wine. He is taught to swirl his glass to release the wine's aromatic compounds -- or esters -- above the rim and vows, "I'm going to do that for Martin Scorsese next time I see him. I'll volatize my esters for him."
Thus Lettie enlightens her wine-challenged but film-savvy friend aboutthe Facts of Wine: how to hold a glass; the vocabulary of wine; how wine is made; how to read labels; how to tell the difference between grape varieties; how to make sense of vintages; how to glean information about a wine simply by looking at the shape and color of the bottle; and an overview of the great wine regions of the Old World and the New.
Finally, after many fact-filled, hilarious lessons, Lettie takes Peter to the most famous American wine region of all, Napa Valley, where he hobnobs with wine and Hollywood royalty and finally puts his new skills to the test in the real world.
Part buddy movie, part serious wine tutorial, Educating Peter is as much a treat for oenophiles in on the joke as it is for beginners who think Chablis is a brand name of wine.
Publishers Weekly
When Teague, the wine editor for Food & Wine, first takes Rolling Stonefilm critic Peter Travers in hand, he's the sort of uninformed drinker who rarely spends more than $10 on a bottle and inevitably ends up selecting bad vintages. So Teague (Fear of Wine) starts pouring him selections from around the world. Each region gets its own chapter, transitioning between the tastings and Teague's general recommendations. Later, after a visit to Napa Valley, she takes Travers out to dinner to see if he'll be able to interact with sommeliers and match wine to various courses, then visits an assortment of shops to show him what to look for when building his own collection. She corrects his vocabulary when he says a wine has "a fatness to the swirl" instead of "good viscosity." He stubbornly resists New Zealand vintages because director Peter Jackson criticized them, and complains that green wine bottles keep him from seeing how red the wine is. Novice tasters can add this pleasure to more traditional guides, while enjoying the entertainment value. (Mar. 13)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationTable of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction How to Taste Age and Temperature The Basic Six Grapes and Beyond Peter's Tasting Vocabulary What Makes a Wine Great?
Bottle Colors, Shapes, and Sizes How Wine Is Made Winemaking
France
Bordeaux Burgundy Alsace The Loire Valley The Rhône Valley Champagne
Italy Spain Portugal Germany Austria Hungary
Argentina Australia New Zealand South Africa Chile New York State Oregon and Washington State California
Sonoma More That Is Not Napa
Peter Faces His Fears, or Four Days in the Napa Valley The Night the Eagle Landed
Peter at the Zachys Wine Auction Peter in a Restaurant, or a Guide to Pairing Wine with Food Peter Dines with the Collector Peter Goes Shopping, or What to Do in a Wineshop
Five Favorite Retail Wine Sources
The Final Exam The Final Word: Peter
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