Cookery

Brown was originally a lawyer, but he realized what he really wanted to do was bake, and in 2003 he opened CakeLove, a bakery, in Washington, DC; it was followed by LoveCafé and then by several other branches of the bakery. His first book is a detailed but accessible guide to cake baking, featuring a good introduction followed by chapters—essentially tutorials—on the three basic types of cakes (pound, butter, and foam), along with separate sections on fillings, frostings, meringues, and assembling cakes. Color photographs show off many of the cakes in mouthwatering detail, and there are step-by-step technique shots as well. For all baking collections.

The latest title in this popular series from Cook's Illustrated offers more than 300 recipes for chicken, along with a primer called "Chicken 101," information on techniques (including step-by-step illustrations), and ratings of equipment and ingredients. The magazine's Complete Book of Poultry (originally published in 1999 and reissued in 2002 as The Complete Book of Chicken) included much of the same information and more than 500 recipes for all types of poultry, but most home cooks are always happy to add more chicken dishes to their repertoire. For most collections.

Fein is a food writer, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cooking Basics, and owner of a cooking school in Stamford, CT. She notes that while traditional foods are still expected on the holiday table, modern kosher cooks want simpler and more contemporary recipes for everyday cooking. She provides a guide to cooking kosher and lists of pantry staples, followed by simple recipes, from Quick Osso Buco to Thai-Style Fish Curry, inspired by a variety of cuisines. The meat, fish, and poultry chapters open with "Kosher Quick Guides" on the main ingredient, but it would have been helpful to have the other recipes designated as meat, dairy, or pareve. The recipes are fine but not special; Laura Frankel's Jewish Cooking for All Seasons provides a more imaginative approach to contemporary kosher cuisine. For subject collections.

Gayler is executive chef at the Lanesborough hotel in London and author of several other cookbooks, including A Passion for Vegetables. In his latest, he presents eclectic recipes for small bites from a range of cuisines; Spain, with its abundance of tapas, gets its own chapter, while others focus on the Americas, the Far East, the countries on the ancient spice route, and beyond. Many of the recipes are shown in full-page color photographs. Restaurants featuring small plates are increasingly popular, and there have been other recent books on the topic, but most of them are limited to a single cuisine. Gayler's title is a good accompaniment to Jennifer Joyce's Small Bites, which also features recipes from around the world.

Goldstein was the chef/owner of Square One, the popular San Francisco restaurant, for 12 years and is the author of 20 other cookbooks, many of them on the foods of the Mediterranean. Her latest book grew out of "Salad Boot Camp," a workshop she conducts for chefs. It features more than 100 fresh, lively recipes for Mediterranean-inspired salads, from Tunisian Roasted Pepper Salad to Venetian Smoked Trout Salad with Lemon Cream Dressing. The salads are followed by recipes for dressings of all sorts, from citrus vinaigrettes to Moroccan charmoula. The salad recipes suggest alternate vinaigrettes and many other variations, and Goldstein offers ideas for using the dressings in a variety of ways; headnotes and sidebars provide a vast amount of information on Mediterranean cuisines, ingredients, and techniques. Highly recommended.

This follow-up to food writer Jacobi's 12 Best Foods Cookbook focuses on 60 "best foods"—the original dozen, of course, plus other healthful ingredients from avocados to red wine (in moderation). An introductory section that provides information on buying, storing, and using each ingredient as well as "Why It's Best" is followed by dozens of simple but imaginative recipes that use at least one but usually more of these healthy foods. Nutritional analyses are given for all of the recipes, and most of them include serving suggestions, variations, and "food facts" as well. Highly recommended.

Lapine's first book, The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals, became a best seller (and stayed in the news, in part, because of controversy—manufactured or not—surrounding similarities in the recipes in Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious). Her basic trick for sneaking nutrition into children's food is to incorporate a vegetable or fruit puree into a dish so that it goes unnoticed; some mothers of picky eaters loved her first book, while others disliked an approach they viewed as based on deceit. Now she employs the same basic tactics to get grown men to eat their vegetables (and other healthy foods). The recipes, with cutesy titles like Not-for-Chicks Chicken Salad and Stuffed Manli-Cotti, feature icons indicating if they are low in carbs and/or sugar, high in omega-3s, and other health benefits; however, nutritional analyses are not included. Buy for demand.

Lillien started her web site, www.hungry-girl.com, in 2003, and she now has close to 400,000 subscribers to her free daily e-newsletter. She doesn't have a food background but describes herself as a "foodologist," someone who is "obsessed with foods that taste great but don't pack on the pounds." Like the newsletter, the book includes recipes, food and nutrition factoids, and "Hungry Girl Hints" and other strategies. The recipes rely heavily on low-fat, low-calorie products and other convenience foods—'Kickin' Chicken Pot Pie, for example, is made with frozen mixed vegetables, fat-free cream of celery soup, reduced-fat biscuit dough, and chicken (that's it). Whether they taste great is debatable, but many of the soups, salads, and main courses are very high in sodium. Nevertheless, Hungry Girl has many fans, and there is sure to be demand.

St. John is the chef/owner of the Purple Parrot Café and two other restaurants in Hattiesburg and Meridian, MS, and author of Deep South Parties and Deep South Staples. He also writes a syndicated food/humor column, and his earlier cookbooks were humorous celebrations of such classics as Pimento Cheese ("the pâté of the South"). His new book is a more straightforward compendium of grilling recipes, from BBQ Oysters to Cracked Pepper Burgers to Andouille-Stuffed Prime Rib. Most of them are quick to prepare, and many of them are unusual and fairly sophisticated. For most collections.

Award-winning country-music star Yearwood grew up in Georgia and now lives in Oklahoma with her husband, Garth Brooks, and children. Several years ago, her mother, Gwen, and sister, Beth, put together a notebook of favorite family recipes for Trisha's birthday, which in turn inspired this compilation. All the recipes are simple and range from community-cookbook standards like Chicken Baked in Cornflake Crumbs and Pink [Gelatin] Salad to Southern classics such as Garlic Grits Casserole. There are color photographs throughout, along with personal anecdotes from the three Yearwood women. Buy for demand.