This irresistible book offers accessible and delicious food without fuss - perfect for the modern cook. Every recipe is easy to follow, quick to make, but yet still tastes sensational. Whether you are a first time cook, a cook in a hurry or your fridge is looking decidedly bare, then this book is for you. Creating memorable meals with just three ingredients may feel daunting but be guided by our expert author and enjoy the warm comfort of oven-baked porcini risotto, or whip up stir-fried chicken with Thai basil in minutes. If you are after something sweet, you won't be disappointed with indulgent delights such as raspberry and lemon tartlets and passion fruit souffles. Whatever your mood, and whatever the occasion, you can cook up a storm with this fun, innovative approach to cooking.

In "The Party," Sally Quinn turns her trademark sharp wit on the Washington social scene and offers an irreverent look at what goes on at the parties you read about in the columns. From seating debacles to real-life scandals, she reveals her firsthand experiences as a member of the Washington power elite to illustrate how to entertain for any occasion.

No one knows better than Quinn how to make parties work. She has thrown some of the most talked-about parties and has attended most of the others. As Quinn writes, all that is necessary is that the host live by the golden rule: "Treat your guests the way you would like to be treated."

"The Party" provides a checklist of ideas to help make the important decisions--such as what time of day (or night) or month and how to choose the invitations, the place, the food, the booze, the setting, the table, the entertainment, and, above all, the guests. Within these guidelines, Quinn tells about her own adventures, stories, and techniques from all kinds of different parties--from the elaborate, formal dinner to the impromptu get-together. Her playful, poignant, and often hilarious accounts of party disasters from her own and others' parties will strike a chord with anyone who has ever entertained.

"The Party" is not only an amusing and lively glimpse into the party scene but also a useful and practical guide to making your own parties a success and guaranteeing that your guests will want to come back.

Until now, an invitation to the New York home of style icon Deeda Blair has been a rare privilege reserved for the fortunate few. In her first book, Blair opens her doors and invites readers in, sharing her coveted recipes and ideas for entertaining and setting tables honed over the course of a remarkable, illustrious life. Blair also reveals to readers how to develop their own uniquely personal style and taste through stories and examples gleaned from the friends and mentors who have inspired her, from decorator Billy Baldwin to designer Hubert de Givenchy and collector Jayne Wrightsman. Central to the narrative are six fantasy meals, each accompanied by a menu, recipes, table settings, and floral arrangements that are inspired by the people and places among them the Haga Pavilion in Sweden, Pavlovsk Palace in Russia, and Givenchy s chateau in the Loire Valley that have shaped Blair s own inimitable and envied taste and style. Each meal is set in Blair s exquisite home and accompanied by Ngoc Minh Ngo s evocative photography of the imaginative table settings Blair has created for her timeless dishes that defy culinary trends and are of the moment in their surprising beauty, seasonal ingredients, and ease of preparation. Accompanying Blair s favourite 80+ recipes are personal instructions, often enhanced by her own charming drawings of her serving suggestions. An Introduction by writer Andrew Solomon beautifully chronicles the arc of Blair s storied life as wife of U.S. ambassador William McCormick Blair Jr. in Denmark and the Philippines, her years in Washington, DC, and later in New York. Blair is one of the last great American swans, revered for her beauty, fashion, and elegance qualities captured in photos by Helmut Newton, Horst, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, and Juergen Teller that are featured in this book. Renowned design/style writer and tastemaker Deborah Needleman collaborated with Blair on this book, capturing for the page Blair s vision for entertaining with fantasy and enchantment, as well as her reflections on life and how her experiences have influenced the way she lives, works, and entertains.

Clean is the new green! Sustainable. Organic. Minimalist. Natural. Now more than ever, people are looking to create a nontoxic home by using products that are not only effective, but good for the planet. Salt, Lemons, Vinegar, and Baking Soda puts the home's hero ingredients front and centre, using these (and a few other) versatile items in hundreds of different combinations to clean the home and care for yourself, your family, and your pets. This handy book focuses on living simpler, stepping away from all those specific products for cleaning the oven, washing windows, polishing silver, removing stains and instead leveraging the power of a few humble but mighty ingredients in the common pantry. You can do a whole lot more with vinegar than make salad dressing! This practical book will guide you through hundreds of recipes, broken down by the area of the house, with easy instructions and explanations of the science and history behind the recipes and ingredients. Home cleaning (both indoors and outdoors), personal hygiene and grooming, pet care - this is an essential reference for all parts of your life that you will reach for again and again!

A revolutionary cookbook to renew body, mind, and spirit

The food at world-famous Chopra Center for Well Being is designed to delight the senses, enliven vitality, and tap into the joy of being alive. Now, Deepak Chopra, David Simon, and Leanne Backer offer you marvelous recipes from this extraordinary place of healing-showing how nature provides us with all the nutrients we need to create meals that are delicious as well as nutritious.

Combining Modern nutritional science and Ayurveda-the most ancient healing system on the planet-The Chopra Center Cookbook features more than 200 appetizing, low-fat, easy-to-prepare recipes for entrées, soups, stews quick meals, breakfast dishes, snacks, and desserts that take the guesswork out of choosing food that is good for the body, as well as 30 days of balanced meal plans. From Zucchini Pecan Bread, Vegetarian paella, and Breakfast Burritos to Rosemary White Bean Soup, Braised Salmon with Mango Tomato Salsa, and Unbelievable Double Chocolate Cake, you'll discover a new world of flavor and enjoyment as the authors show you how to eat food that is good for you, re-establish the mind-body connection, and reverse the aging process.

The first collection of food writing by Britain's funniest and most feared critic A.A. Gill knows food, and loves food. A meal is never just a meal. It has a past, a history, connotations. It is a metaphor for life. A.A. Gill delights in decoding what lies behind the food on our plates: famously, his reviews are as much ruminations on society at large as they are about the restaurants themselves. So alongside the concepts, customers and cuisines, ten years of writing about restaurants has yielded insights on everything from yaks to cowboys, picnics to politics. TABLE TALK is an idiosyncratic selection of A.A. Gill's writing about food, taken from his Sunday Times and Tatler columns. Sometimes inspired by the traditions of a whole country, sometimes by a single ingredient, it is a celebration of what great eating can be, an excoriation of those who get it wrong, and an education about our own appetites. Because it spans a decade, the book focuses on A.A. Gill's general dining experiences rather than individual restaurants - food fads, tipping, chefs, ingredients, eating in town and country and abroad, and the best and worst dining experiences. Fizzing with wit, it is a treat for gourmands, gourmets and anyone who relishes good writing.

Any event you plan and stage is a reflection of your organization's image - from the initial invitation to onsite operations. Whether you're planning a product launch, conference, sales meeting, an incentive event, or a gala fund-raiser, remember that the magic of a truly memorable event is in the details, but so is the devil. Whether your event is for 50 or 2,000 people, whether it has a budget of a few thousand dollars, or hundreds of thousands, it has to be perfect. Fully revised and updated, Event Planning, Second Edition, gives you a blueprint for planning and executing special events with flair and without any unexpected surprises and expenses. This unique book is loaded with practical advice on: * Choosing the best venue * Preparing and managing the budget, with sample costing forms included * Scheduling, staffing, and collaborating with other related professionals * Coordinating food and beverage, d cor, entertainment, and themes. It's still the comprehensive guide that it always has been, but much has changed in the industry in recent years, and this new edition of Event Planning includes: * Changes in security planning since 9/11 * Innovations in technology and how they can improve - or ruin - an event * How to stage an environmentally friendly event * New and updated examples and case studies of where things went right - and wrong * Event Risk Assessment - What You Need to Consider before Contracting * How keep your budget on target and where to find hidden surcharges * Ways on how to ease airport stress and make air travel a pleasurable part of the participant's event experience * When and When Event Planners and their Suppliers will need Work Visas * What you need to include in your client's event history in order to design your next event so that it maximizes your client's return on their event investment * A companion website with downloadable versions of the checklists, additional forms and tools

Patricia Volk’s delicious memoir lets us into her big, crazy, loving, cheerful, infuriating and wonderful family, where you’re never just hungry–your starving to death, and you’re never just full–you’re stuffed. Volk’s family fed New York City for one hundred years, from 1888 when her great-grandfather introduced pastrami to America until 1988, when her father closed his garment center restaurant. All along, food was pretty much at the center of their lives. But as seductively as Volk evokes the food, Stuffed is at heart a paean to her quirky, vibrant relatives: her grandmother with the “best legs in Atlantic City”; her grandfather, who invented the wrecking ball; her larger-than-life father, who sculpted snow thrones when other dads were struggling with snowmen. Writing with great freshness and humor, Patricia Volk will leave you hungering to sit down to dinner with her robust family–both for the spectacle and for the food.

The Pantheon in Rome is one of the grand architectural statements of all ages. This richly illustrated book isolates the reasons for its extraordinary impact on Western architecture, discussing the Pantheon as a building in its time but also as a building for all time.

Mr. MacDonald traces the history of the structure since its completion and examines its progeny--domed rotundas with temple-fronted porches built from the second century to the twentieth--relating them to the original. He analyzes the Pantheon's design and the details of its technology and construction, and explores the meaning of the building on the basis of ancient texts, formal symbolism, and architectural analogy. He sees the immense unobstructed interior, with its disk of light that marks the sun's passage through the day, as an architectural metaphor for the ecumenical pretensions of the Roman Empire.

Past discussions of the Pantheon have tended to center on design and structure. These are but the starting point for Mr. MacDonald, who goes on to show why it ranks--along with Cheops's pyramid, the Parthenon, Wren's churches, Mansard's palaces-as an architectural archetype.

"Exotic Appetites" is a far-reaching exploration of what Lisa Heldke calls "food adventuring": the passion, fashion and pursuit of experimentation with ethnic foods. The aim of Heldke's critique is to expose and explore the colonialist attitudes embedded in our everyday relationship and approach to foreign foods. "Exotic Appetites" brings to the table the critical literatures in postcolonialism, critical race theory, and feminism in a provocative and lively discussion of eating and "ethnic" cuisine. Chapters look closely at the meanings and implications involved in the quest for unusual restaurants and exotic dishes, related restaurant reviews and dining guides, and ethnic cookbooks.

This book is a far-reaching exploration of what the Heldke calls 'food adventuring': the passion, fashion and pursuit of the experimentation with ethnic foods. Exotic Appetites brings to the table the critical literatures on colonialism and anticolonialism, on racism and antiracism, and on feminist theory, in a provocative discussion of eating and 'ethnic' food. Chapters examine the meanings and socio-political implications involved in the quest for new and interesting restaurants and exotic dishes, restaurant reviews and dining guides and ethnic cookbooks.

A National Bestseller
Winner of an International Association of Culinary Professionals Award for Literary Food Writing
"An absorbing portrait of an unexpected friendship." -- "Entertainment Weekly"
"Julia's inimitable voice shines through . . . These letters offer a] glimpse of how the truly great can merge heart and soul in the pursuit of excellence." -- "Wall Street Journal"
Julia is known around the world by her first name alone. But how much do we really know of the inner Julia Child? Through this riveting correspondence between Julia and Avis DeVoto, her "pen pal" and literary mentor, we hear Julia's deepest thoughts and feelings and witness the blossoming of a unique and lifelong friendship. We see, too, the turbulent creation of one of the most influential cookbooks ever written. Frank, bawdy, funny, exuberant, these astonishing letters show an America on the verge of political, social, and gastronomic transformation and two women deeply engaged in the making of that new world.
" Child] comes booming back to life in these dishy missives . . . A delicious read." -- "People "(31/2 of 4 stars)
"Blazingly alive and entirely irresistible." -- "Boston Globe"

Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw is true to its title from start to finish. Chapter One is a primer on all things oyster. Chapter Two introduces readers to legendary oystermen and women from around the country. Chapter Three offers exquisite photographs of more than fifty varieties of North American oysters, along with flavor profiles and their merrior. This book concludes with highlights from the oyster timeline, depictions of oysters in art through the ages and stories of oysters as aphrodisiacs, and parses oyster myths and metaphors. It also features an oyster glossary and resource list. This is the only book of its kind: a definitive visual companion to this iconic, much loved mollusk. Overflowing with gorgeous original photography and fascinating anecdotes, Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw is the perfect book for oyster aficionados and newbies, foodies and chefs of all stripes, lovers of photography and art, the environment, history, and the sea.

Topics covered include: Psychoactive consumption in Cypriot Bronze Age mortuary ritual; food consumption and ritual at the Early Iron Age tholos cemetery of Moni Odigitria, south-east Greece; elite ideology and feasting practices in Early Iron Age Greece; intoxicating drinks and drunkards in ancient Indian art and literature; sixteenth-century polemics about cold-drinking; food in prehistoric coastal southern Brazil; the deceased as metaphorical food in Iron Age Veneto; food diversity in Mesolithic Scotland; ritualized feasting goods from Norwegian graves; feasting and the state in Uruk Mesopotamia; prehistoric spoons.

Folks in the Delta have a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. Down South, they don't forget you when you've up and died--in fact, they visit you more often. But there are quintessential rules and rituals for kicking the bucket tastefully. Having a flawless funeral is one of them.
In this deliciously entertaining slice of Southern life (and death), inveterate hostess Gayden Metcalfe explains everything you need to know to host an authentic Southern funeral. Can you be properly buried without tomato aspic? Who prepares tastier funeral fare, the Episcopal ladies or the Methodist ladies? And what does one do when a family gets three sheets to the wind and eats the entire feast the night before a funeral?
Each chapter includes a delicious, tried-and-true Southern recipe, critical if you plan to die tastefully any time soon. Pickled Shrimp, Aunt Hebe's Coconut Cake, and the ubiquitous Bing Cherry Salad with Coca-Cola are among the many dishes guaranteed to make the next funeral the most satisfying one yet.
Even if you've never been south of Rochester, this book will charm, it will entertain, and it will give you all the ingredients required for the perfect Southern send-off.

From remote times onwards people have sought to vary and enliven the flavour of their staple foods or disguise the taste by adding pungent herbs and spices. This practical guide deals with the herbs from the outdoor garden which can be used in the kitchen for spicing foods or added to salads.

The Book of Marmalade Revised Edition C. Anne Wilson "A delightful definitive study."--"New York Times" "An excellent study and a model of its kind."--William Woys Weaver "Wilson has found out just about everything anyone could ever have wanted to know about the splendid preserve."--"Bristol Evening Post" "The history is laid out lovingly on a plate, garnished with historical and up-to-date recipes."--"Caterer and Hotelkeeper" "Fascinating and pioneering."--"London Magazine" Here is everything you need to know about marmalade. C. Anne Wilson, Britain's foremost historian of food, traces the history of this most British of preserves from its Roman and medieval antecedents, through its adoption in Tudor England, its development in Stuart and Georgian Britain, and its fortunes up to the present day. She tells how the Portuguese learned from the Moors to eat quince marmalade, and how its characteristic Arab flavorings enhanced its appeal to the Europeans. Marmalade's varied roles--as a gift, as a sweetmeat, as a medicine, and as an aphrodisiac-are all discussed in "The Book of Marmalade." The book concludes with dozens of recipes, new and traditional, in which marmalade is the star ingredient. C. Anne Wilson was for many years in charge of the special collection of cookery books at the Brotherton Library in Leeds, England. She is the author of "Food and Drink in Britain" and many other studies of British food history. 1999 184 pages 5 1/2 x 9 12 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-1727-8 Paper $22.50s 15.00 Not for sale in the UK History, Home Economics

An engaging, solution-oriented approach to cooking tempting meals for, and with, your family. The first in a collectible series of cookbooks focusing on simple, yet delicious dinners for any day of the week.
Pizza is a favorite for family dinners, Sunday suppers, and casual parties. This book covers it all, showing you how to make enticing homemade pizza dinners that everyone will love.
Sample TOC
Introduction
Pizza Primer
Anatomy of a Pizza (plus a formula for making foolproof pizza every time)
Pizza Party (how to set up a pizza and topping bar for customized pizzas)
Easy Favorite Sauces & Toppings (purchased or quick pizza sauces and toppings for when time is short)
Doughs
Sauces
Pizzas
Easy Salads and Sides
Index

Homer called it a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. As Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates here, salt has shaped civilisation from the beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind. Wars have been fought over salt and, while salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia, they have also inspired revolution - Gandhi's salt march in 1930 began the overthrow of British rule in India.

From the rural Sichuan province where the last home-made soya sauce is made to the Cheshire brine springs that supplied salt around the globe, Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of world history, a multilayered masterpiece that blends political, commercial, scientific, religious and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.