Slashfood

• Raising the Bar: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask
  

  Filed under: Recipes, Books, Cocktails, Raves & Reviews, Raising the Bar

  Long before there was a Kevin Bauch circumnavigating the globe to cure his thirst, there was the inimitable Charles H. Baker, author of my current favorite cocktail book The Gentleman's Companion - Being an Exotic Drinking Book or Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask.
  
  Charles H. Baker Jr. (December 25, 1895 - November 11, 1987) was a true bon vivant who spent most of his adult life traveling the globe, collecting food and drink recipes, the most famous of which being his chronicles on cocktails. Many of those recipes found in...
  



• Marge Piercy's ode to coffee from The Writer's Almanac
  

  Filed under: Books, On the Blogs

  
  I don't know exactly when I discovered The Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor's daily show that includes a poem and some highlights from that date in literary history, but it is a vital element in my morning routine. My mom listened to it when I was in college, as I remember her hushing me and running over the radio to turn up the volume one morning when I'd just gotten home for summer break after my freshman year. I started subscribing to the daily email version six or seven years ago, and now I read it before I settle down...
  



• Bake Until Bubbly, Cookbook of the Day
  

  Filed under: Books, Cookbook of the Day

  Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong food era. While I love all the artisanal products and amazing variety in fruits and vegetables, I am also a huge fan of the casserole. Sadly, it's a style of cooking not particularly popular in my generation. However, there's nothing I enjoy more than combining a protein, a starch, a sauce and one or two veggies in a large dish, topping it off with cheese or breadcrumbs and baking it until the top is golden brown. Casseroles are great for potlucks, for parties or for ensuring that you only have to cook...
  



• Faye Hess shares her intense passion for food
  

  Filed under: Books, Television/Film

  
  I am currently totally and completely enamored of Faye Hess. I discovered her over the weekend, while catching up on the backlog of feeds in my reader. She is a New York City-based (well, Queens to be exact) chef who has made a series of four cooking videos that are entertaining, instructive and appealingly quirky. Oh, and did I mention that her food looks delicious?
  
  During the nicely edited and captioned videos, she carries on a conversation with the camera that is so natural, passionate and easy that you can readily imagine that you are actually standing in her long, slightly slant-y kitchen with her....
  



• The Waiter's identity has been revealed
  

  Filed under: Books, On the Blogs

  
  I started reading Waiter Rant sometime in the fall of 2004. I was stuck in a job that wasn't particularly busy and so I would pass the hours reading blogs and exploring the internet (the boredom I experienced at that job is what prompted me to start blogging, which eventually led me here to Slashfood). Having never worked in a restaurant, I was fascinated by the stories that the Waiter posted and would check back every day, hoping for a new post (this was long before I learned to use an RSS reader). I, along with many of his...
  



• Millet muffins from the Metropolitan Bakery Cookbook
  

  Filed under: Breakfast, Recipes, Books, Bakeries

  
  Several years ago, I spent some time working at a medical school. It was the kind of job where there were lots of morning meetings and at least once a week I found myself trekking to other schools for some planning powwow. One of the few benefits to these meetings were that the host school often served breakfast-y treats. Most of the time it was just an assortment of dough-y bagels or supermarket donuts, but once, someone was feeling generous and picked up muffins from Metropolitan Bakery. And it was at that meeting that I discovered the millet muffin.
  
  These...
  



• A favorite children's foodie book heading to the big screen
  

  Filed under: Culinary Kids, Books, Television/Film, Newspapers

  
  When I was growing up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was one of my very favorite books. Set in the very fictional town of Chewandswallow, the residents don't have to shop at grocery stores the way the rest of us do. Instead, all their food was delivered by the weather. Morning would start with a drizzle of hot coffee, followed by eggs, toast and bacon. Life was good in Chewandswallow, until the weather becomes unpredictable and the food that comes from the elements becomes life-threatening. Eventually the townsfolk are forced to...
  



• Slashfood Ate (8): Best food and cooking books
  

  Filed under: Books, Slashfood Ate

  
  If you're reading Slashfood right now, chances are that you're a foodie. In my experience, if there's anything a foodie likes besides eating/cooking, it's reading a book about eating/cooking. These are a few of the books I consider the best cooking books, but we all have strong opinions on this subject. What are some of the cooking books that you think should be on the list?
  
  1. Larousse Gastronomique , the classic food encyclopedia.
  2.Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking
  3. Cookwise (I can't wait for Bakewise) From Shirley Corriher
  4....
  



• You Won't Believe it's Gluten-Free, Cookbook of the Day
  

  Filed under: Books, Cookbook of the Day

  These days, more and more people are discovering that they are either gluten-intolerant or have Celiac Disease, which means that their bodies cannot handle even a tiny bit of gluten. There were tons of products at the Fancy Food Show that were designed to be totally gluten-free in an attempt to respond to the newly realized need. However, if you're more of a do-it-yourself kind of person and want to make your own gluten-free foods at home, then you should check out the growing category of gluten-free cookbooks.
  
  One such cookbook is You Won't Believe...
  



• The Martha Washington Cookbook, Cookbook of the Day
  

  Filed under: Books, Cookbook of the Day

  The Martha Washington Cook Book is the only cookbook I've ever owned that came with a outer, protective sleeve to guard against warping and page-bending. Published in 1940, it has that smell that old books get, not musty exactly, but of ink and dust and aging paper. The inside cover and front page are illustrated with a drawing of the canoe-shaped kitchen garden at Mount Vernon.
  
  The book starts out with short-story length biography of Martha Washington, before moving into a section simply entitled, The Cook Book. The author, Marie Kimball, explains that all the recipes contains...