Online
News November 8, 2007
Table of Contents
Events
If you can't make it to a signing event, just contact us and we can reserve an autographed copy for you.
 Saturday November 10th, 2 to 3 pm.
Massimo Capra - One Pot Italian Cooking
Charismatic chef/co-owner of Mistura Ristorante dishing up one-pot wonders!
 Wednesday November 14th, 5 to 6 pm.
Matt & Ted Lee The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook
Multiple award winners for this, their first book. Join us for southern hospitality and of course southern treats!
2007 James Beard Foundation: Cookbook of the Year
2007 IACP Award: American Cooking / 2007 IACP Julia Child Award; Gourmet Magazine "10 Cookbooks Destined to Become Classics;" Publishers Weekly 100 Best Books of the Year / Food Network Top 25 Favorite Cookbooks.
Special Lee Bros. menu for the week November 13 - November 18 at Allen's on the Danforth
John Maxwell of Allen’s, on the Danforth, who is Uncle to Matt and Ted, will be celebrating his nephews' success with a special menu at Allen’s. The Menu will feature Shrimp chowder, Tuesday fried chicken with sneaky collards and fried green tomatoes, Fried organic Wyatt Farm (Flamborough, Ont) apples with Bourbon caramel.
Cost: $32.50 pp, excluding PST, GST and Service.
Address: 143 Danforth Ave, Toronto M4K 1N2
Broadview station on Bloor subway line.
Tel 416 463-3086. Mention "Lee Bros. Menu" when making reservation.
CITYLINE
Monday November 12th
Set your PVR as Alison appears on CityLine with Marilyn Dennis this Monday November 12th for a cookbook roundup. CityTV at 10 am., repeated at 3 pm.
 Dana McCauley
Dana’s Top Ten Table
Saturday November 17th, 2 to 3 pm.
Identifying the top ten family dishes, Dana McCauley shows how to create more than one meal from a single cooking session.
 Christine Cushing
Pure Food: How to Shop, Cook and Have Fun in Your Kitchen Everyday
Saturday November 24th, 2 to 3 pm.
Join us as we celebrate Food Network personality Christine Cushing's new book. As the subtitle suggests Christine always makes sure fun and good tastes go hand in hand. Introducing new ingredients, as well as elevating the familiar, with simple quick instructions.
 Elizabeth Baird
Canadian Living: The Complete Christmas Book
Saturday December 1st, 2 to 3 pm.
Elizabeth Baird is always a popular visitor to the store and not just for the delicious treats. Holiday entertaining made easy, you can almost put your feet up!
Cuisine Canada Culinary Book Awards
This past weekend in Toronto, Cuisine Canada handed out their culinary book awards. Here are the winners:
English Language:
  Vij's
Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine
Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala
Indian by birth, European by culinary training, Vikram Vij fuses
the two cultures into addictively unique dishes. Seared striped bass with
sour cream curry, sautéed Brussels sprouts with red bell pepper,
paneer and cashews and beef short ribs in cinnamon and red-wine curry
are typical
creations. Colour photos. Softcover, 205 pp. $40.00.
French Language:
 Au
Pied De Cochon: The Album
Martin Picard
Just when we think that after reading cookbooks every day for the last 23 years
we have seen it all, something comes along that makes us absolutely giddy with
pleasure. This book from the celebrated Montreal restaurant is such a book. Both
the book and the restaurant it chronicles marry traditional Quebecois cuisine
to the French brasserie then immerse it in the wild abandon of a medieval feast.
Day-in-the-life photos and the Steadman/Searle-esque illustrations of Tom Tassel
and Marc Sequin aid and abet the air of unrestrained pleasure. The accompanying
DVD reinforces both the sense of revelry and the inherent respect for the ingredients
and traditions which inform the cooking of Martin Picard. Hardcover, 191 pp.
$74.95.
Canadian Food Culture:
Bitter Chocolate
Carol Off
An expose of the dark side of chocolate this is a must read for those unaware of the history and politics of chocolate and those dubious of paying extra for fair trade sweets. Off investigates the cocao trade from the original, exotic Aztec delicacy, through colonial exploitation and the slave trade, to today with cocao crops controlled by multinationals. The book also includes a critical look at the fair trade moniker and what it really means. Hardcover, 326 pp. $34.95.
Signed copies of Nigella Express
 We have a limited number of signed copies of Nigella Lawson's new book Nigella Express. First come first served!
After our book signings we usually have extra copies of signed books which make great gifts, example we have signed copies of The World Atlas of Wine, 6th edition autographed by Hugh Johnson, for the wine lover on your list.
New Books
 Country Cooking of France
Anne Willan
There can never be too many books on the glory which is French cooking. And this book from Anne Willan is particularly glorious. Filled with photographs of both food and the land, it is a feast for the eyes. However, a book from Willan, much praised as a cooking teacher, is always about more than appearance: her lucid instructions allow even the middling cook to recreate her gilded pleasures eg truffade, the cheese-laden potato cake from the Auvergne. Any Francophile will treasure this book. Hardcover, 390 pp. $59.95.
 Creole
Babette de Rozieres
Embracing elements of African, Asian, Indian, and European cooking, the Creole cooking of Caribbean was the proto-fusion food. Shark in curry sauce with green tomatoes and mirliton tarte tatin with honey and sweet spices perfectly illustrate the mlange of ingredients which typify Creole cuisine. Here exoticism meets glamour in another beautiful Phaidon publication (Silver Spoon, $49.95, Breakfast Lunch Tea, $39.95, Pork & Sons, $49.95). While the dishes serve up maximum visual impact, most are simply prepared from few ingredients. Colour photos. Hardcover, 359 pp, $49.95.
 Cook's Illustrated Best International Recipe
It is so hard to find books that are not single country specific. Trust Cook's Illustrated magazine to come up with 350 recipes from 30 different cuisines. Even those obvious countries, such as Italy, are represented by not so obvious recipes. Hardcover, 579 pp. $41.50.
 Fantastico! Little Italian Plates and Antipasti from Rick Tramontos Kitchen
Rick Tramonto
In Fantastico! chef Rick Tramonto highlights Italy's casual cooking and antipasti in recipes that are great for entertaining but also suitable for weeknight suppers or lunch. Crostini and bruschetta are paid their due, but there are also tempting braised vegetables and meats, grilled sausages and a chapter featuring Italian cheeses that will up the ante at your next holiday gathering. Colour photographs. Hardcover, 274 pp. $44.00.
Food, Wine & Friends
Fiona Beckett
Beckett is probably one of the best when it comes to pairing food and wine. It's not that you haven't seen some of these recipes before but the fact that Beckett puts them together in a menu with drink suggestions reduces the stress and guess work out of what to serve guests. Hardcover, 160 pp. $36.95.
 500 Best Value Wines in the LCBO 2008 edition
Rod Phillips & Vic Harradine
Makes navigating our monolithic liquor stores that much easier. Bargains abound, ones that actually taste good. Enough selection to keep the seasoned or beginner oenophile happy all year. And dollars in the pocket for those First Growth Bordeauxs. Softcover, 248 pp. $19.95.
 Table Talk
A.A. Gill
Subtitled Sweet and Sour, Salt and Bitter, this collection of columns from the Sunday Times and Tatler reveals the peripatetic restaurant/television critic at his rapier-witted best. Whether whale or Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Gill can mine any dish for the greater truth about a culture. Hardcover, 271 pp. $34.95.
October Bestsellers
We are always pleased to see half the best sellers are Canadian-authored.
1. Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver
2. The Complete Light Kitchen by Rose Reisman (Canadian)
3. Vij - Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine by Vikram Vij (Canadian)
4. Great Food Fast from the Kitchens of Every Day Food Magazine
5. Dish Entertains by Trish Magwood (Canadian)
6. de|Constructing the Dish by David Adjey (Canadian)
7. Recipe of Love: An Ethiopian Cookbook by Aster Ketsela Belayneh (Canadian)
8. Gordon Ramsay *** Chef by Gordon Ramsay
9. New Food Lover's Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst
10. Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
A note to our customers on currency exchange
As soon as our Canadian suppliers adjust their prices to booksellers, we pass the savings on to our customers. Unfortunately, some publishers are slower than others at doing this.
For all those books The Cookbook Store imports directly from Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, we will continue to adjust prices according to current exchange rates passing savings on to our customers.
We thank your for your continued support as The Cookbook Store heads into its 25th year of independent bookselling in 2008. Our aim is to provide you with the best possible selection of cookbooks from around the world.
Recipe
Country Cooking of France
Anne Willan
Marmelade de Fruits D'Automne
Butter of Autumn Fruits with Raisins and Calvados
Makes five 1-cup jars
The flavors of autumn are concentrated in this intense, deep golden Norman fruit butter of apples, pears, and quinces. Looking like ancient, craggy pears, quinces are perfect in preserves, their mellow, perfumed taste developing only with long cooking. They can be hard to find, so you may substitute more of the firm pears (Bosc or Seckel are best). For a non-alcoholic butter, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract instead of the Calvados. I like to serve this fruit butter with cold ham, pork, Terrine de Gibier, and, of course for breakfast.
3 tart apples (about 1lb/450 grams total)
3 firm pears (about 1lb/450 grams total)
3 quinces (about 1 1/2lbs/675 grams total)
pared zest strips and juice of 1 lemon
1 quart /1 liter water, more if needed
1/2 cup/125grams golden raisins
3 tablespoons/45ml Calvados
about 4 cups/800 grams sugar, more if needed
Preserving pan, five 1-cup/250ml jam jars
Wipe the apples, pears and quinces, then quarter and core them, leaving the peel. Cut into chunks, put them in the preserving pan with the lemon zest, and add the water; it should almost cover the fruits. Simmer over medium heat until soft, 25 to 40 minutes (quinces can be very slow to cook). Set aside to cool to tepid. Put the raisins in a bowl with the Calvados, add 1/2 cup/125ml hot liquid from the fruit, and leave them to macerate. Sterilize the jam jars.
When the fruit mixture is cool, puree it with its liquid, in batches in a food processor. Measure the volume of puree - there will be about 4 cups/1liter puree - and put the puree in the preserving pan. Stir in an equal volume of sugar. Bring the puree to a boil and boil over high heat stirring often, until it is thick, rich, and holds a ribbon trail when the spoon is lifted, 20 to 25 minutes. Note that the puree scorches easily toward the end of cooking and splashes as you stir.
Take the pan from the heat and let the bubbles subside. Stir in the raisins with their liquid and the lemon juice. Let the butter cool for about 5 minutes, then ladle into the sterilized jars and seal. Store in a cool dark place for up to 1 year.
Store Hours
Monday to Wednesday 9:30 am to 7 pm
Thursday to Friday 9:30 am to 8 pm
Saturday 10 am to 6 pm
Sunday noon to 5 pm
Back to top |
