The Best Cookbooks of 2010
Harvest to Heat
by Darryl Estrine and Kelly Kochendorfer (Taunton)
Recipe to try: Grilled Broccoli Rabe and Radicchio with Pancetta Dressing Topped with a Soft-Cooked Egg
While the farm-to-table trend is hardly new, many cookbooks on the subject tend to address primarily one aspect or another of the movement at the expense of the whole picture. Harvest to Heat is different and rises to the top: Darryl Estrine and Kelly Kochendorfer present the bigger picture by portraying the interdependent relationship between chefs, farmers, and artisanal food and drink producers. Through the chef recipes and producer profiles, we get to know the peopleâ€"and processesâ€"that supply pork to Peter Hoffman at New York City's Savoy, pearl onions to Charlie Trotter's eponymous Chicago restaurant, and chocolate to Maria Hines' Tilth in Seattle. The beauty and essence of carefully, thoughtfully produced foods is highlighted throughout. Alice Waters writes in the introduction of her hope "that through these recipes and stories, more home cooks will embrace seasonality, support local economies, and
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Six delicious books to give or get this holiday season
With the rise in popularity of electronic reading devices such as the iPad, Kindle, and Nook, putting together a list of the year's best cookbooks may seem like a genteel and antiquated pursuit. And yet, like many home cooks, we at Epicurious still make time to actually turn the pages of a new cookbook and make space in our homes to add noteworthy titles to our existing collections. These six books deserve to take up some countertop real estate, as they wowed us with their love of good food, their bold designs, and their intimate stories told through recipes. We hope these cookbooks will inspire you not only in the present but also in the future, in their inevitable electronic versions.
Two Additional Titles to Keep in Mind
Bon Appétit Desserts: The Cookbook for All Things Sweet and Wonderful by Barbara Fairchild (Andrews McMeel) weighs a hefty six pounds, but its singular devotion to our favorite course makes this 600-recipe compendium worth its weight in sugar. If "the holidays" is code for "cookies" at your house, then The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe from Each Year 1941-2009 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is the baking cookbook for you. This slim volume has 69 recipes from the magazine's archives, and each is accompanied by a beautiful new photo.
Read More About Cookbooks:
By Esther Sung
