Happy New Year

Teddy finished playing "spin the bottle" with the champagne. I learned you should never set a brightly decorated bottle of champagne on the floor with a frisky kitten who loves ribbon. ( No animals were harmed in the shooting of this photo, though one was very upset we...

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Champagne: The Spirit of Celebration

Chronicle Books has always has an affinity for design. One of their most beautiful books, in my opinion, is their book on champagne by Sara Slavin and Karl Petzke.Champagne: The Spirit of Celebration is one heavy paper with lovely striped endpapers. There is a grand mix of...

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Caviar

"Charlie Chaplin has sold a 1,000-word excerpt fromhis autobiography to the soviet newspaperIzvestia for nine pounds of caviar."New York Times, September 22, 1964Susan Friedland has a broad and bold take on Caviar. Her first book was about Ribs, and frankly, I simply adore...

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ROASTED BRUSSEL SPROUTS with BACON

As a child, most of the vegetables my mother prepared were from a can or frozen pouch. "Fancy" at our house was canned cream corn. Being British, she did serve us brussel sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage, but they were always boiled for a long time. In all fairness, I have to...

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Caviar: A True Delicacy

“There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the manwho eats grape-nuts on principal.”G.K. Chesterton Susie Boeckmann and Natalie Rebeiz-Nielsen both work in the caviar business. It wasn’t a huge leap for them to conspire on a slim book...

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A Passion For Oysters

We have found ways to use our holiday leftovers and now we are heading into the festive New Year. What a great time to look at wonderful, celebratory recipes.I have a passion for oysters. I ate my fist raw oysters as a child in a dark and dreamy restaurant whose walls were...

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Beard on Pasta

Christmas is over and you are stuck with leftovers. Well, if you cooked turkey you probably do. And here is the quintessential leftover turkey recipe. Tetrazzini!!This is from none other than James Beard. Beard put variations of this recipe in several of his books, including...

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Aperitif

Christmas is over. The problem with Christmas on Friday is guests feel they should just spend the whole weekend. If they insist, have them take down decorations, or shovel snow, seriously, put them to work!It they decide to head on home and you have a moment to breath, take...

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Merry Christmas

from all creatures great and small here at Doe Run Farm,we wish you a veryHappy Holid...

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Ruth & Skitch Henderson’s Christmas in the Country

I like to buy cookbooks. I know, you are shocked to find that I like to buy cookbooks. There are a few “antique” cookbooks I covet, but they are usually out of my price range. So I am always on the lookout for books in my price range. On any given day, I generally have...

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Southern Living Christmas Cookbook

Every year or two, Southern Living puts out another Christmas Cookbook. In 2008 they published Southern Living Christmas Cookbook: All-New Ultimate Holiday Entertaining Guide. It is filled with a lot of recipes that feature canned soup, like the one below and they have a...

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Sarah Raven's Complete Christmas

Sarah Raven is a noted British writer of food and gardens. I am always pestering my friend, Sandra, to order me something from her gardening a catalogue and ship it "over the pond" as they say. Raven has written several wildly popular cookery books and a lovely book on growing...

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The Eve of Seven Fishes

If there was a Christmas tradition we would most like to steal and make a part of our Christmas tradition it would have to be the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Largely an Italian celebration, the feast is consumed on Christmas Eve. La Vigilia (The Vigil) or La Festa dei sette...

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Nigella Christmas

For me, food is fun and sensuous and entertaining and no one bathes in that ethos more than Nigella Lawson. Unlike many food presenters who seem to spend more on syrup of ipecac than on butter, Nigella cooks and eats. I'd be happy in her kitchen. Here's her favorite Christmas...

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The Gingerbread Architect

I laughed recently when I saw a ginger ale commercial that pointed to the fact that "ginger ale" was made with "ginger." It seems rather obvious doesn't it? The commercial had all the marking of a ad derived from a "Focus Group." Speaking of "ginger"...I love this book...

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REPOST -- Chatsworth Cookery Book

AGAIN, PHONE, ELECTRIC...PRAY FOR SPRING. In the meantime, this is still one of my favorite cookbooks and the recipe for “Darling Budd” Terrine never loses its charm, nor do the Mitfords...They say you always want what you don’t have.As an only child, I was always fascinated...

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REPOST -- The Twelve Days of Christmas

MY PHONE HAS BEEN OUT FOR OVER A WEEK! THE ELECTRICITY IS GOING IN AND OUT. HERE ARE A COUPLE OF REPOSTS. PRAY FOR SPRING!!!!Twelve Days of Christmas by Suzanne Huntley is a charming, narrow book filled with seasonal recipes. They run the gamut from traditional partridge...

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DamGoodSweet

The problem with "regional" cookbooks is always the same. The reader wants the regional recipes, but they have also seen all those regional recipes. You either get the same book over and over, or a book that is not true to the region. Walking the line between those two...

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Rôtis

Stéphane Reynard is one of my favorite chefs. He is French and he loves pork, like most Southerners he eats everything but the squeal. He has that rare combination of cooking food that is at the same time sophisticated and homey.His latest book, Rôtis, is subtitled, roasts...

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English Country House Cooking

Fortune Stanley came into possession of two lovely collections of recipes. One came from the cook to several stately homes and the other from her family, specifically and aunt who had actually lived in a stately home.Mrs. Isabelle Menzies was the daughter of the head forester...

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Clementine Paddleford’s Cook Young Cookbook

Here is another of the great Clementine Paddleford’s cookbooks, Clementine Paddleford’s Cook Young Cookbook. By the time she compiled this book she was falling out of fashion in the culinary world. As the food editor of This Week magazine, however she had access to a vast...

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My Dinner Party Book

"One of the things Duchesses frequently do is entertain. Some find it a terrible trial, and, to be honest, aren't very good at it. I am fortunate in that I love entertaining and without sounding conceited some say that I am quite good at it!" Margaret, Duchess of ArgyllCecil...

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Earth to Table

You can never have too many cookbooks. That’s my story and I am sticking with it. A while back home before dark suggested that I take a look at Earth to Table. What can I say; I rarely turn down a cookbook suggestion. I looked it up and was immediately entranced. The cover...

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Recipes from a Chateau in Champagne

Outside of Epernay, France in the heart of champagne country sits the chateau Saran. It is owned by the champagne firm, Moët and Chandon. The chateau was originally a vendangeoir when it was acquired by the Moët family at the end of the eighteenth century. They used it as...

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The Vicar’s Wife’s Cook Book

In 2007, Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine and Fourth Estate publishing ran a recipe competition. The winner would win a book contract. Nigel Slater wrote the article calling on cooks to give him a run for his money.The winner was Elisa Beynon, a mother of two and the wife...

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