The Cookbook Junkies

 

Devoted cookbook collectors love Phaidon.  Phaidon publishes high quality books that take the reader on a culinary tour of the region, restaurant or subject matter.  Two of my favorite books are Phaidon’s Mexico and Thailand that were published  last year.

Puglia arrived this week and as is usual with Phaidon publications – it is beautiful.  The photographs of Puglia and the food are inspiring.  The narrative whisks you away to a cherry orchard in the summer or the breathtaking coastline.

From the first recipe for pancotto, bread soup, to the calzoni di castagne, chestnut pastries, you are drawn into the delicacies of Puglia and it’s people. The timballo di pasta will whip Big Night movie fans into a frenzy of pasta building masterpieces.

Before each recipe there is a wonderful page or two of glorious words weaved together to provide you information on the area of Puglia and the ingredient from which it originates– for example, octopus — “The town of Fasano, situated right at the top of Italy’s stiletto heel, is where its plains stewn with olive trees meet the clear blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. It is here also that the region’s finest octopus is caught…”  You are there in Fasano harvesting octopus to make the polpi in umido for your family that will be served on rustic wooden table near a warm hearth.

My desire is to attempt every recipe in this gorgeous book including the lagana chiapputa (pasta and almond dessert), sfoglio a cerchi (artichoke pie), strascinati con pomodoro e basilica (strascinati with tomato and basil), biscotti glassati alle noci (iced walnut biscuits), pasta e cavolfiore (pasta and cauliflower), zuppa di natale (Christmas soup) and the torta di bietoline e ricotta (chard and ricotta pie).

Tonight I made the pancotto, the bread soup.  Easy and incredibly delicious.  One recipe down!  Tomorrow the Torta Salata Di Pasqua, Easter savoury pie is on the menu.

Puglia will be available in March and is available for preorder now.

For more information on Phaidon visit their website at www.phaidon.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Winners!!!  The grand prize winner is Allison Cofone (had to pick another winner as no response from the first winner).  The ten runner ups are:  Carol Siegel, Joan Osborne, Erin Barto, Try Prayer, K.  Rau, Kim #37, Brenda Cunningham Meeny, Gail Magnani, Karen Wirima and Laurel Eden.  Congratulations – please e-mail your names and addresses to icywit @ gmail dot com.

I’m so thrilled that my new website is up and running!  I have some wonderful things planned for this site.  Thank you to my friend, Heather Shively, who did an amazing job setting up this site for me and to my husband, Jim, who always is supportive and proud of my endeavors.  Andrew gets a shout out too because he started my whole blogging career (okay I’m even laughing at that word choice) with Mad Rantings of Andrew’s Mom.

From as early as I can remember – I have had an affinity for cookbooks.  I think it became serious when I was around eighteen.  I was working for an oncologist and to earn extra money, started babysitting for he and his wife.  On those nights of babysitting the girls and doing my laundry (I hated the Laundromat) — I remember the great leftovers that could be found in their fridge and the cookbooks she had on her shelves.

My mom wasn’t much of a cook.  There was never anything exotic in her rotation of chicken, meatloaf, spaghetti – and by no means were there any herbs or spices in those dishes.  I do remember she made great fried chicken….but it might have been great because we didn’t have it very often.

When the doctor’s wife went through her cookbooks to thin them out – she gave me a stack.  She was my gateway to cookbook addiction.  I still have one of those books – Miss Hullings’ Cookbook.  Miss Hullings’ Restaurant was a famous restaurant in St. Louis.   My cookbooks and I have lived around the country St. Louis, Phoenix, New York City and now Denver – at times I thin them out making way for new passions and new titles and they will always be a part of my life.

Enough strolling down memory lane, my wonderful friends at Tastebook are sponsoring a wonderful giveaway to celebrate the website launch! (U.S. addresses only).

One lucky winner will win a copy of:

• To enter this giveaway – please visit Tastebook’s Facebook page  and give them a like.  Leave a comment here telling me you did.
• For a second chance, please leave a comment on this post telling me which title you are most excited about.
• For a third chance, visit the forum here on this website and register (your information and email will never be shared).  Leave a comment here telling me you registered.

Good luck — a random winner will be chosen on February 28th — and thanks for being a part of this journey.

 

There is no denying that Relæ: A Book of Ideas is beautiful – great pictures, wonderful ideas — this book is truly for the gourmet cook and chef.  There are how tos, instructions on flavors, theories and techniques but no real recipes until the Appendix near the end. 

The cover and quality of the book and how the book is indexed and set up is stunning.

It is a book to dream through and find inspiration — it’s a biography and a trip into Christian Puglisi’s chef mind and his Copenhagen restaurant.  It earns a spot on my shelf of inspirational tomes but it won’t become food stained. 

I received this book from Blogging for Books.