#booksforcooks

[themelbournesupremacy]

There is something so beautiful (to me) about a serious bookstore. This one is a Melbourne institution called Books for Cooks and for the last few years has lived in around another Melbourne institution, the Queen Victoria Market #booksforcooks #queenvictoriamarket #victoriastreet #melbourne #fontlove #fortheloveofsignage (at Books for Cooks) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSHCIY1JM_G/?utm_medium=tumblr

[elocinrevres]

Hi guys! @cheffieboybart and I are proud to announce the launch of @booksforcooks Kilkenny. #booksforcooks is a donation based initiative with the Kilkenny Library to help educate and inspire chefs through reading 📖📚 With your help, we hope to fill our chef’s corner in the Library with some of the most amazing cookbooks from the best restaurants, authors and publishers in the industry. So please, like and share our Facebook and instagram page 🙏🏼 If you want to help and donate some books, send us a DM 📩 #booksforcooks @foodontheedge ❤️❤️❤️📖 Show your support by donating a book!📖📚 How? Send us a DM. It’s easy as pie 🥧 #books #cook #cookbooks #chefs #cheflife #kilkennylibrary #bookworms #neverstoplearning #educate #irishchefs #kilkenny #probono #donate https://www.instagram.com/p/BpT1yT4Azli/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1wsuhjowjwpiv

[vikirunge]

#booksforcooks #painordinaire

[books4yourkids]

NEXT BEST JUNIOR CHEF is the new trilogy written by Charise Mericle Harper & illustrated by Aurélie Blard-Quintard. Episode 1: Lights, Camera, Cook! Kicks off the behind-the-scenes look at a kid’s cooking competition show, with the grand prize of a personalized food truck! As a compulsive viewer of these shows, I almost felt like Harper wrote this book just for me. She has created a world in which a kid's cooking competition is suspenseful and exciting, but also inclusive, educational, supportive and joyful. I especially love in this book is the way that the character contestants in LIGHTS! CAMERA! COOK! educate the readers! Breaks in the text feature first person narrative from the characters talking about how they learned certain skills (YouTube tutorials!) as & cooking terms & recipe ideas. Harper also includes instructional backmatter showing "Essential Knife Techniques for the Young Chef." Two boys and two girls make up the cheftestants, representing a good mix of ages & talents. There is the wise-child contestant who also knows how to play the game along with an enthusiastic 9 year-old & the daughter of a chef who owns a French bistro, who says she speaks, "French, English & food." Then there is Rae who lives in a trailer park & learned to cook after watching cooking shows with her grandmother and being inspired by her multi-cultural neighbors. There are so many other little details that delighted me as I read this book (the Gadget Wall! Camera Cards! The Jell-o dunk tank!) I could go on and on. Please read my full review on my blog, books4yourkids.com. And, while one contestant is eliminated at the end of each book, Harper also captures the kindness of children. If you don't watch reality cooking competitions, it is markedly noticeable how much kinder, empathetic & supportive the child chefs are as as opposed to the adults. Harper imbues this warm, caring spirit into her book, making it feel all the more authentic and worth recommending! @chariseharper @hmhkids @aurelieblardquintard #kidsbooks #kidsbookstagram #cookingcompetition #kidscooking #lightscameracook #series #middlegrade #books4yourkids #bookstagram #booksforcooks #summerreading

[mainlyfoodworld]

Books for cooks. Here's a few of my collection. What's your go to book for cooking inspiration? . . . #cookbooks #booksforcooks #cookbookcollection #whatinspiresyou #cooking #learning #inmykitchen #homemade #fromscratch #homecooking #eatwith #mainlyfood (at Susanna's Kitchen)

[mybookishwords]

Books for Cooks. Melbourne. Best bookshop for anyone looking for anything food or cooking based. A must go to shop for all foodies. #girlwithapen #books #bookshops #booksforcooks #melbourne #holiday @booksforcooksAU #cookingbooks #foodfiction #foodporn #foodblogger

[gluttonyfair]

What cookbooks to buy for Christmas.

Over the years, I started asking myself how many dishes do I see myself cooking when I hold a cookbook in a book store and if I can’t answer more than three I put the book on the shelf. By doing that I’d managed to curb my cookbook purchasing enthusiasm.  Last week I’d surprised myself by buying two books in a row. The second one I pre-ordered without demo-ing (and it would later prove to be a bad move.) 

Since Christmas is around the corner I thought I’d write a post to prove this blog useful by recommending a couple for your food-loving friends:  The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science 

J. Kenji Lopez is influencing modern cafe food just like how Yotam Ottolenghi did 5 years ago. Don’t believe me? Go to any new cafes and I bet you will find a ‘smashed burger’ on their menu. If not a special waffle or a fried chicken dish. He is the mythbusters of cooking, experimenting with different recipes and showing his results on his personal website - seriouseats.com  Here’s a guy who does all the research on thermometers, kettles, the best way to cook eggs, a fool-proof salad vinaigrette, all with tight experiments and plain explanations to back up his conclusions. If he’s your friend, you will take advantage of him yet feel sorry for his lack of life at the same time. (Don’t worry he has a wife and probably is rolling in Google ad money.) 

Thing is, he is an average Joe version of Heston Blumenthal and should be getting his own tv show by now. But I’m guessing he is too hands on, too ‘rogue’ for mainstream media. (Recently he started gopro-ing his cooking process.)  His book is a really good time stamp of his philosophy. It is HUGE, probably the second biggest cook book I have and it reads like a textbook. He goes through the basics of cooking, and the tools, and ALL his approaches in a very down-to-earth tone. He questions, challenges and debunks a lot of conventional way of cooking and I have to say it works for me because I am anti-loving, anti-Nigella, and anti-intuition when it comes to cooking. 

The good (and bad) thing about the book is that it only cover the basic like eggs, meat, pasta, salad etc which is too American for me. At times I also feel ‘tired’ of all the science behind cooking. Like, dude, just relax and burn your eggs once in a while. Take it easy.  Buy this book for your anal retentive cook friends. 

All Under Heaven

So I’m not sure if you know that Chinese food can be categorised into eight regions - Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang.  So context: The McSweeneys published this book, written by a non-Chinese (Carolyn Philips, has a blog titled Madame Huang’s Kitchen, married into a Chinese family), attempting to explain all eight regional food, covering over 300 recipes.  This is the book I ordered without previewing at the local Readings.  And of course, when I opened the book I would be greeted with no pictures; just illustrations. That is so McSweeneys I’m not even mad. Can you imagine photographing 300 Chinese dishes?  I scratched my head a bit with this book as I’m not sure who is the target market. It is too intimidating to serves as an introduction to Chinese food for beginners (read the last paragraph: no photo), yet as a Chinese, I roll my eyes a bit with recipes like green onion pancakes and zhajiangmian.  I guess it’s hard to explain, but imagine an Asian writing a book about the history of pies in the UK. As a Brit you’d probably appreciate someone going through all that trouble, taking interest in your historical culture yet at the same time amused to see ‘ fish and chips ‘ in a serif font, like a bible. Flipping through the book, I got hit by a huge wave of nostalgia. Carolyn, bless her soul, must have gone through so much trouble categorising each dish to match the region / country with the proper analogy. It is like my memory of Chinese food, materialised into an index.  I haven’t tried the recipes yet but you know, Chinese food is always Shaoxing wine, black vinegar and soy. Truth is I don’t trust any Chinese recipe because my uncle’s neighbour’s auntie will always have a better recipe. The best recipe online will always be the blog still using geocities.com  My point is, buy this book for your friends who are trying to feel smarter than they are (or marry into a Chinese family), which I guess is the core audience of the McSweeneys publications. Treat this book like a story book before cooking is a good start. 

Bonus: NIgel Slater If all this technical drilling and no-picture Chinese history nonsense make you feel claustrophobic, just grab anything by NIgel Slater. He looks out of his window, reaches into his drawer, grab some ingredients, writes a haiku with his fountain pen, and voila, a baked dish inspired by his memories from autumn leaves with a beautiful photograph.  If all else still fails, buy the new Anthony Bourdain one. 

[lovagemetender]

A fabulous painted wall in the back room of Books for Cooks. A good place to indulge my Nigel Slater addiction. #London #food #artichoke #figs #booksforcooks #cookbooks (at Books For Cooks)