Joel Serra's modern Spanish kitchen

Sample

Elisabeth Luard

This is a cookery book with a strong travel bias, dealing with each of Andalucia's eight provinces in turn to provide a personal, geographical and culinary survey of the area. It shows how the land itself and historical events have influenced the culinary tradition of the region, with its intriguing combination of hearty peasant fare and the delicate seasonings that are a legacy of the Moorish invasions. Each province draws on its own magnificent natural larder, and the recipes, such as hot gazpacho from Huelva, salt cod with potatoes and peppers from Jaén, pork and beans with chard from Seville, and chickpea and wheat soup from Almería, reflect this diversity. The author lived in the area for several years. Her personal reminiscences are interwoven with a wealth of cultural and historical information, and the text is accompanied by the author's own watercolors of dishes, places and scenes of Andalucian life.

Sample

Barbara Tropp, assisted by Arminda Asprer Schreil

Provides over two hundred recipes bursting with unexpected flavors and combinations, including chili-orange cold noodles, tea and spice smoked duck breast, spicy tangerine beef, and eggroll-cartwheel soup.

Sample

Sarah Murray

In her book, Sarah Murray has toured the globe in search of the stories behind food miles. Along the way, she has collected a series of astonishing facts and vivid accounts of Shanghai cafes serving English tea from Harrogate, American grain falling from a United Nations plane in Sudan and Memphis barbequed ribs flying FedEx to Wall Street traders. And such journeys date back millennia, from Roman olive oil to the Eastern spice trade. Moveable Feasts brings historical perspective to a subject that has grabbed the headlines, illustrating food's crucial role in shaping global politics, taste and culture. Murray shows how the well-travelled dinner is an inevitable consequence of man's quest for sustenance and argues that globetrotting food was a reality long before the term 'food miles' was coined.

Sample

Sarah Vaughan

"There are many reasons to bake: to feed; to create; to impress; to nourish; to define ourselves; and, sometimes, it has to be said, to perfect. But often we bake to fill a hunger that would be better filled by a simple gesture from a dear one. We bake to love and be loved. In 1966, Kathleen Eaden, cookbook writer and wife of a supermarket magnate, published The Art of Baking, her guide to nurturing a family by creating the most exquisite pastries, biscuits and cakes. Now, five amateur bakers are competing to become the New Mrs. Eaden. There's Jenny, facing an empty nest now that her family has flown; Claire, who has sacrificed her dreams for her daughter; Mike, trying to parent his two kids after his wife's death; Vicki, who has dropped everything to be at home with her baby boy; and Karen, perfect Karen, who knows what it's like to have nothing and is determined her facade shouldn't slip. As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest pastry seems the least of the contestants' problems. For they will learn--as as Mrs. Eaden did before them--that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it's very much harder in life"--