Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach (2013)

If you’ve never read any of Mary Roach’s books, I highly recommend them. Her use of footnotes is excellent. (They might even be the best part of her books.)

Gulp is about eating and digestion. Her other books cover sex, death, and space travel, among other things. Roach has done a tonne of research and seems to revel in asking experts the way-out-there questions. She’s funny without sacrificing accuracy and scientific principles, and she has no qualms about grossing her readers out (lucky for me, as I like gross things and find them endlessly interesting).

As an aside — did you see this story from earlier in the week on a kid who had 232 teeth removed?! I was disappointed that there were no pics, but fortunately a kind person on twitter sent me a shot of the x-ray.

That aside is why blog posts need footnotes. Anyway, this was an A+ book and your kids (or inner kid) will probably appreciate all the poop jokes.

Dolls Behaving Badly: A Novel for Every Woman Who’s Earned a Little Fun by Cinthia Ritchie (2013)

This was a perfectly good book until I got to the end and there were Discussion Questions. As in a book club. Is that really a thing people do? Like, not just for the wine? It seems like all that talk would ruin the story, just like grade-school book reports did. I don’t really understand how the author and/or editor(s) think this book is so high-falutin and literary it needs reading group discussion questions at the end, and yet saw fit to put blow-up dolls on the cover (and it’s a really good cover! Good imagery and symbolism; totally appropriate for the story! So eye-catching I picked it up, even though I’d never heard of the book or the author!).

But yeah.

Discussion Questions.

*swigs wine*

Nobody Does It Better… Why French Home Cooking is Still the Best in the World by Trish Deseine (2007)

I just want to eat everything in this book. I want to cook everything in this book, and then eat it. It all looks so appetizing! (Even the weird stuff — escargots, tripe, honeycomb, olive oil and fleur de sel on chocolate cake, …) Deseine does a great job of making everything sound easy-to-do, too — a pretty tall order for the haute-est of haute cuisines. It probably helps that, as an Irish lady, she’s an outsider too. And she’s funny! I mean, how often do you actually sit down and read a cookbook? If you’re someone other than me, I mean.

Hors d’Oeuvres: More than 200 Recipes, Step-by-Step Sequences: Crostini, Tartlets, Skewers, Wraps by Victoria Blashford-Snell & Eric Treuille (2012)

Step-by-Step Filo tartlets (I always thought it was Phyllo?) pgs. 166-167. Photo credit: Kathryn Walsh

This book is not kidding when it comes to their step-by-step claims. Lots of pictures showing how to put pretty little hors d’oeuvres together and how to build the bases for them, as with the phyllo cups pictured.

The authors seem very realistic about what’s practical and actually doable for normal non-chef humans. They offer lots of tips for party planning and scheduling, and have convenient little notes for the quickest and easiest recipes, but they’ve also got a number of big fancy recipes for when you want to impress someone (or just show off your skills).

This is exactly the kind of nibbly food I could imagine serving when I’m grown-up enough and rich enough to have cocktail parties.

Still kind of on-topic: my mama refers to hors d’oeuvres as “whore’s drawers”, which always makes me giggle.

Make It Tonight: 150 Quick & Delicious Weeknight Recipes by the eds. of Fine Cooking Magazine (2012)

Yes, two cookbook posts in a row… I like food. Not even sorry!

Not only are these last two books put together by the editors of Fine Cooking magazine, they’re also from The Taunton Press publishing company, which does all kinds of other stuff that I love. Every book I’ve seen from them (and I’ve seen many!) is beautiful, nicely laid out, and informative. I’ve read several of their sports training books, as well as a stack of home improvement/wood-working/decorating books.

On top of being beautiful, nicely laid out, and informative, everything in this book does look delicious. So far I’ve only made the chicken parm (pg. 26) — my first time ever attempting it! And I’ve only even eaten it once! — turned out really well. (I forgot to take a picture… oops. Good thing this is a book blog and not a food blog!) It was indeed quick and delicious.

I’ve got a whole list of other recipes in this book that I want to try, and they all look like the sort of thing you can throw together when you get home from work, but they still turn out looking and tasting like you slaved away on them. I can definitely see this being the sort of cookbook I’d keep coming back to — classic suppers and family favourites in the making.

I say supper. Do you say supper? Apparently some people think the word “supper” is weird. I like it.

Chocolate: 150 Delicious and Decadent Recipes by the eds. of Fine Cooking Magazine (2013)

This book is glorious, and I want to eat pretty much everything in it. Examples:

• caramel-pecan brownies (pg. 10)
• flourless chocolate cake with chocolate glaze (pg. 102)
• chocolate truffle tart with whipped vanilla mascarpone topping (pg. 147)
• brownie cream cheese bites (pg. 70)
• always a classic, thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies (pg. 16)

And just about every recipe is accompanied by a lovely picture, all of which I’m drooling over now. Yum!

Real Simple Solutions: Tricks, Wisdom, and Easy Ideas to Simplify Every Day by the eds. of Real Simple Magazine

This is a pretty book by the editors of a pretty website , and it’s got lots of pretty pictures and pretty fonts and pretty layouts. The premise is exactly what the (sub-)title states: tricks, wisdom, and easy ideas. Includes such helpful hints as:

• how to wash your face (apparently it’s possible to do it wrong?) (pg.24)
• use Velcro to stick things to other things (pgs. 90-91)
• use a mug to hold stuff that’s not tea/coffee (pg. 152)
• use scissors to cut things (pg. 62)
• how to set a table (pg.156-157)
• how to “jazz up old standby beverages”: rim a margarita glass with sea salt and lime, or a Bloody Mary with celery salt (pg. 146). No shit. I will say, as a Canadian, that a Caesar will beat a Blood Mary any day.

In summary: if you can already read, you’re probably too smart for this book.

Fine Cooking: Your Guide to Choosing & Preparing the Season’s Best by the editors and contributors of Fine Cooking (2011)

Yes, I read cookbooks.

I cook often, and I enjoy cooking! I don’t often focus on produce, because I’m a meat-eater. This book highlights the fruit and veg that’s best in each season. It explains how to choose the best produce, how to clean and store it, and offers recipes and thoughts on how to serve it. So I guess it’s not just a cookbook.

But! The recipes.

Some of them seem a little strange, at least to me — squash and vegetable stew, curried apple soup, lemon parmesan turnips — but you never know, they could be good. Branching out is probably good for me.
On my list of ‘that looks/sounds delicious and I want to cook and eat it ASAP, as in the turnip parm can wait a hot second’:

• Hungarian ragoût: sautéed wild mushrooms with cream and spicy spices, served over noodles;
• ramp and bacon quiche: I’ve never eaten (or heard of) ramps, but apparently they’re garlicky oniony greens. The more you know! And bacon and cheese are involved, so duh;
• poblano peppers stuffed with cheddar and chicken: cheese, so duh again. I’d probably add bacon;
• peach Bellini ice pops: because summer and liquor.

And now I’ve made myself hungry and I’m drooling over the pictures in this book, so it’s a-foraging I go!