Think Like a Chef or Vegan with a Vengeance

Think Like a Chef

Author: Tom Colicchio

With Think Like a Chef, Tom Colicchio has created a new kind of cookbook. Rather than list a series of restaurant recipes, he uses simple steps to deconstruct a chef's creative process, making it easily available to any home cook.

He starts with techniques: What's roasting, for example, and how do you do it in the oven or on top of the stove? He also gets you comfortable with braising, sautéing, and making stocks and sauces. Next he introduces simple "ingredients" -- roasted tomatoes, say, or braised artichokes -- and tells you how to use them in a variety of ways. So those easy roasted tomatoes may be turned into anything from a vinaigrette to a caramelized tomato tart, with many delicious options in between.

In a section called Trilogies, Tom takes three ingredients and puts them together to make one dish that's quick and other dishes that are increasingly more involved. As Tom says, "Juxtaposed in interesting ways, these ingredients prove that the whole can be greater than the sum of their parts," and you'll agree once you've tasted the Ragout of Asparagus, Morels, and Ramps or the Baked Free-Form "Ravioli" -- both dishes made with the same trilogy of ingredients.

The final section of the books offers simple recipes for components -- from zucchini with lemon thyme to roasted endive with whole spices to boulangerie potatoes -- that can be used in endless combinations.

Written in Tom's warm and friendly voice and illustrated with glorious photographs of finished dishes, Think Like a Chef will bring out the master chef in all of us.

Vegan with a Vengeance: Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock

Author: Isa Chandra Moskowitz

In Vegan with a Vengeance, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, host of the community access vegan cooking show The Post Punk Kitchen, brings the do-it-yourself, community-driven ethos of punk rock into the kitchen. Her cooking philosophy embraces being kind to animals (all recipes are completely animal-product free) and your wallet—while being creative and having fun in the process. She emphasizes staying clear of corporate brand-name foods, and says that cooking should be an innovative, experimental, and completely real experience. This one-of-a-kind cookbook offers 125 recipes for all meals of the day, from stuffed mushrooms to tofu pizza, gingerbread cupcakes to pasta with "alfreda sauce," and is full of tips and tricks on how to keep your diet vegan, inexpensive, and liberated.

Library Journal

It's hip. It's punk. It's high energy. And it's darn fun to read! Cohost of a community-access vegan cooking show called The Post Punk Kitchen, Moskowitz here espouses a philosophy of being kind to both animals and one's budget and of adopting a do-it-yourself attitude for a fun time in the kitchen. Vegan has a solid repertoire of recipes that will carry readers through the day, the seasons, and the holidays. Even though everything is made from scratch, most of the recipes are neither complicated nor time-consuming. The ingredients are common enough to be found in most large grocery stores or health food stores, and Moskowitz encourages substitution and experimentation. She provides good, basic information about handling tofu and making seitan and includes sidebars, a.k.a. "Punk Points," with tips ranging from how to puree soup in a blender to how to cook with lemongrass. And who can resist a vegan cookbook with recipes for Hazelnut Scones or Brooklyn Pad Thai that yield excellent results? This book will be a hit with teens and young adults as well as with adults wanting to add more spice to their own kitchen experiments. Highly recommended for all public libraries.-Marija Sanderling, Lane Memorial Lib., Hampton, NH Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.