Friday, January 2, 2009

Authentic Chinese Cuisine or Tale of 12 Kitchens

Authentic Chinese Cuisine: For the Contemporary Kitchen

Author: Bryanna Clark Grogan

This book stands out among the many Chinese vegetarian cookbooks with its innovative recipes for "mock meat" dishes, just like those you enjoy in Chinese restaurants. Sections include: regional cooking in China; planning a Chinese meal; shopping for essential Chinese ingredients; meat substitutes for the right taste and texture. These recipes are as authentic as possible without calling for extremely exotic ingredients or special Chinese equipment to prepare them. These recipes also show that Chinese vegetarian cuisine can provide variation and culinary delight along with nutritional excellence.



Go to: American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World or Emergence of Entrepreneurship Policy

Tale of 12 Kitchens: Family Cooking in Four Countries

Author: Jake Tilson

Reading this remarkable cookbook-cum-scrapbook by Jake Tilson is like encountering a wonderful friend you haven't seen in years, and setting off together on a culinary journey through four countries to cook and have myriad happy experiences, and meet scores of fascinating people along the way.

It might be a monk singing an awe-inspiring rendition of "Ave Maria" in a family-run restaurant in Cortona, Italy, or a master pancake flipper at a breakfast haven in New York City. Or a recipe for the divine gnocchi-like spinach dumplings served in Tuscany.

With eighty recipes that are far-ranging and delicious, you'll learn to make black beans the Dominican way, couscous in the Tunisian fashion, and burritos flavored with Mexican beer and a chipotle chile.

And as you cook your way through his book, you'll fall in love with Jake's artistic family and their obsession with cooking and eating. Great characters all and, like many of us, as likely to spend their vacations wandering food markets as museums, then returning home with overweight luggage crammed full of local foods.

Anyone who thinks twice about tossing out a food can with a great label, who treasures stubs and receipts from travel for the experiences they evoke, or who feels nostalgic for kitchens of the past, will find a kindred soul in these pages.

And if you're someone without an urge to collect, or who'd just as soon stay and cook closer to home, you will be every bit as delighted with this dazzling collection of recipes.

Tilson presents his recipes in a remarkably original way. Subtly embedded in his wonderful descriptions, in tales told in his very engaging prose, isthe reminder that cooking, sharing and eating meals with family and friends is of utmost importance in our lives.

Claire A. Schaper - Library Journal

Tilson, a British artist by training, writes about his life as well as recounts the experiments made in his and his family's kitchen through many years and several countries. Voyeuristic readers will be pleased—this is a little peek into an intriguing man's daily life, with photographs, sketches, and best of all, hand-written recipes gracing many of the 256 pages. Tilson is not a trained chef but has a passion for concocting fabulous recipes and following borrowed ones. The nonfiction equivalent of Laura Esquivel's 1989 novel, Like Water for Chocolate, though clearly not as fantastical, this is a sensual memoir that will be enjoyed by those who like autobiographies and culinary fiction and nonfiction. Pictures of the food Tilson has eaten will satiate the eye; the narrative keeps a steady pace similar to the author's own lifestyle. Recommended for large public libraries and academic libraries with a culinary arts program.

What People Are Saying


“Fascinating and the recipes are delicious. Tilson has created an exhilarating work of art around his love of food.”—Claudia Roden




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