Book reviews

At Grandmother’s Table by Ellen Perry Berkeley (editor) ($24.95, Artisan) is subtitled “Women Write about Food, Life and the Enduring Bond between Grandmothers and Granddaughters,” and it is a charmer. Full of vintage photos, recipes that have been handed down and personal recollections, it would make an ideal gift for almost any modern woman who cherishes the past. It might even inspire you to create a family scrapbook/cookbook of your own.

Chef’s Night Out by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page ($29.95, John Wiley & Sons) lets readers in on 100 chefs’ favorite restaurants and neighborhood cafes. Two Houston chefs—Robert Del Grande and Monica Pope—are included in this book. Their local choices may surprise you: Among Del Grande’s favorites are Otilia’s Mexican, Goode Co. Barbecue and Beck’s Prime; Pope’s list includes Ashiana Indian, El Meson and La Vista.

Chinese Cuisine Made Simple by Dorothy Huang ($27.95, Pinewood Press) is the new, updated version of Dorothy Huang’s Chinese Cooking, which was published more than 20 years ago. Since then, Houston’s own Huang has seen her book through six reprintings and has taught hundreds of cooking classes in Houston and around the country. This book is a revised, revamped and re-tested edition of the original, and more than half of the 160 recipes are new. It boasts clear instructions (supplemented by photos), easy-to-read format and a charming design.

Chocolate: The Sweet History by Beth Kimmerle ($39.95, Collectors Press) will appeal to those who believe that chocolate inhabits a special place in ones realm of indulgences. (This may explain the many, many chocolate books that cross our desk.) This scrapbook-style history of the native American treat includes reproductions of old advertisements, a chocolate historical timeline, glossary of terminology and a handful of classic recipes. We can’t imagine dipping into this book without a bar of Scharffen Berger 70 percent bittersweet at hand.

Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl ($24.95, Artisan) is the second installment of the memoirs of Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl. This covers “the California years,” and there’s plenty of juicy stuff about food-world scenemakers, including her lover Colman Andrews (now the editor at Gourmet rival Saveur) and husband-and-wife team Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff. No movie star kiss-and-tell sizzler has anything on this book.

Commander’s Kitchen by Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon ($35.00, Broadway Books) is the first cookbook from New Orleans’s preeminent restaurant since 1984. This time a younger generation is at the stove in the kitchen and at the computer keyboard. All the traditional Commander’s favorites here, as well as many newer, lighter, more experimental recipes. Lots of cooking/shopping tips and New Orleans trivia.

Cookies Unlimited by Nick Malgieri ($35.00, HarperCollins) comes from a dessert master with several other tomes to his credit. In this one, he goes crazy with the cookies, from brownies (five recipes) to macaroons (12 recipes) to shortbread (six recipes) to biscotti (15 recipes). It’s serious, quite instructional, but not at all tedious. This is an excellent resource for the leisure-time baker.

Cooking With Texas Highways by Nola McKey ($24.95, University of Texas Press) . Editor Nola McKey puts it succinctly when she writes in her introduction that Texas Highways is hardly in a culinary league with Gourmet or Bon Appetit, but “you can’t travel the state for more than three decades … without picking up a few good recipes.” And here they are, from Lone Star classics (e.g. chicken-fried steak, green chile cornbread, tortilla soup) to fresh Vietnamese spring rolls, tabouli, paella, tacos al carbon and Lady Bird Johnson’s peach ice cream. The recipes are homecook-friendly, and we love the travel photography. What a swell melting pot of a state we live in.

Cowboy Cocktails by Grady Spears and Brigit L. Binns ($14.95, Artisan) is the second book from Texas chef Spears, who had the marvelous Reata restaurants in Alpine, Fort Worth and Beverly Hills. Engaging graphics and a “recommended listening” song title for each drink. This is so entertaining, even teetotalers will enjoy it.

Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities by Mark Morton ($16.95, Insomniac Press) answers questions you haven’t even yet thought to ask. Who knew that the word pomegranate is related to the word grenade, that baguette is a cousin of bacteria, that soufflé comes from the same root as flatulence? If you love words and food, you will find this an entertaining work, stuffed full of stories behind familiar and not-so-familiar gastronomic terms. The original book was published in 1997; this is an updated and expanded edition.

D.K.’s Sushi Chronicles from Hawai’i by Dave “D.K.” Kodama with Bonnie Friedman ($35.00, Ten Speed Press) is inspired by the author’s Hawaiian-Japanese restaurants in Hawaii. The books emphasizes contemporary sushi making, offering a friendly guide to sushi, 21st-century style. And even though these are restaurant recipes, none is overly complicated or saddled with 25 ingredients. Fun to dip into and cook from; it could have used more photos.

Easy Indian Cooking by Suneeta Vaswani ($18.95, Robert Rose) is the first cookbook from Houston’s popular local culinary instructor. Based on the recipes that she teaches at her cooking school, these are manageable by any cook of moderate ability. In keeping with traditional Indian cooking, there are a significant number of vegetarian dishes. Alas, we could not find the recipe for Suneeta’s famous tomato chutney.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser ($25.00, Houghton Mifflin) is subtitled “the dark side of the all-American meal,” and we guarantee this book will make you reconsider the next time you’re tempted to head for the closest drive-thru. Is it an indictment of American fast food? In a word, yes. It almost illustrates the power that McDonald’s et al have for good (i.e. nutritional Happy Meals, Earth-friendly farm policies) as well as bad. Let’s hope Ronald McDonald is reading.

Fearless Baking: Over 100 Recipes That Anyone Can Make by Elinor Klivans ($30.00, Simon & Schuster) offers a step-by-step course designed specifically for beginning bakers. The book begins with detailing the basics and recipes that require nothing more than simply stirring ingredients together (e.g. Toasted Hazelnut Peach Crisp). Subsequent chapters build upon the basics, and by the end include recipes for melting sugar, rolling crusts and making meringues.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris ($25.00, William Morrow) follows up Blackberry Wine and the best-selling Chocolat. The novel is set, again, in France and, again, a mother’s memory haunts a daughter possessed of a gift for cooking. This time the heroine operates a crperie rather than a chocolate shop.

Fonda San Miguel: Thirty Years of Food and Art by Tom Gilliland and Miguel Ravago; text by Virginia B. Wood ($34.95, Shearer Publishing) . Oh, that every restaurant might publish so lovely a book as this on its 30th anniversary! It’s beautiful to look at, fun to read (especially if you know Austin) and offers a straightforward guide to Mexican cooking. Need another recommendation? Mexican food authority Diana Kennedy wrote the Foreword as “a love letter.”

Food for the Soul by Monique Y. Wells ($44.95, Elton-Wolf Publishing) This is a labor of love, written by an African-American Houstonian living in Paris trying to explain soul food.  Beautifully illustrated, it presents family recipes, Texas and Louisiana culinary culture and a history of ingredients commonly used in soul food dishes.  To order this book here.

Foods of the Americas: Native Recipes and Traditions by Fernando and Marlene Divina and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian ($39.95, Ten Speed Press) straddles two worlds. It tries via essays and reporting to be an academic and thoughtful discourse on the indigenous foods of the Americas, including Hawaii. At the same time, it sells a tried-and-true cookbook formula, featuring recipes from Chile to Alaska. It’s a lovely book, beautifully produced, but its stretch is too thin, too wide and too derivative. Wild goose with sauerkraut and juniper? Fava bean soup with mint? Hmmm.

From My Mother’s Hands: Remembrances and Recipes from Texas Women by Susie Kelly Flatau ($21.95, Republic of Texas Press) Clearly a book created with great affection, this is a collection of poignant memories from 33 notable Texas women. It’s woven together with recipes, observations, family photos and personal profiles. If ever there was a book perfect for a Texan’s Mother’s Day gift, this would be it.

Gordon Ramsay’s Just Desserts by Gordon Ramsay and Roz Denny ($29.95, Laurel Glen Publishing) was nearly overlooked by our editors. Just another sweets book, we thought. However, a closer look reveals a very useful dessert book from British culinary superstar Gordon Ramsay. The 100-odd recipes (e.g. fruit tempura, mocha tart) are very simple, quick and generously illustrated. If you like fruit desserts especially, this book is a good choice.

Great Firehouse Cooks of Texas by Ron and Caryl McAdoo ($18.95, Republic of Texas Press) Co-author Ron McAdoo is a former Dallas firehouse cook himself, so this book is off to a good start. The couple interviewed some 40 firemen from all over Texas, men who have honed their talent cooking for hearty, albeit discriminating, appetites. Recipes range from chicken and dumplings to Bruno’s spaghetti and meatballs to jalapeno meatloaf to Captain’s coconut pie.

Haiku-Sine: 217 Tiny Food Poems by Texans Who Love to Eat and Feed Their Heads  by Micki McClelland (editor) ($9.95, Lazywood Press) Food, glorious food—how do we love thee? Let us count the syllables! Adopting the ancient Japanese haiku form to accomplish our exercise, Lazywood Press (publisher of My Table magazine) presents more than 200 poetic munchies, written by Texan foodies and devoted to the delights of palate and tummy. Purchase from Amazon.com or from the My Table store.

Home Sausage Making by Susan Mahnke Peery & Charles G. Reavis ($16.95, Storey Books) The cover subtitle—How-to Techniques for Making and Enjoying 100 Sausages at Home—nicely sums up the book, which stands alone as a most-serviceable guide for both home cooks and restaurant chefs. (This is the third edition of the 1981 original, greatly revised.) Certain semi-vegetarians around our office were grossed by this book, but most of us found it fascinating and demystifying.

Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid ($40.00, Artisan) boasts some of the most beautiful food photography we’ve ever seen, both color and coffee-toned black and white. There are some 175 recipes in the book, but the personal anecdotes, photography and gorgeous production make this more an intimate journal of food discovery than a working cookbook. Indeed, we can’t imagine bringing it into the kitchen: It might get splattered with food stains.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain ($24.95, Bloomsbury) must be the year’s most-talked-about book in foodie circles. Bad boy Bourdain is a chef (at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City) as well as a novelist, and he tells the real story of what goes on in the kitchen. Don’t say we didn’t warn you: It may well be more than you really want to know. The New York Times calls it “deliciously depraved.”

Le Cordon Bleu Wine Essentials ($30.00, John Wiley & Sons) is a good basic textbook on wine. It doesn’t concern itself with varieties, vintages and styles so much as how to buy wine and what to do with it once you get it home. It explains how to start a collection, how to store, open, decant and pour wine, as well as how to choose glassware, taste wine and assess wine in a restaurant.

Magic in the Kitchen by Jan Bartelsman ($50.00, Artisan) is striking for its astonishing photographs of 40 of America’s top chefs (including Houston’s own Robert Del Grande). These photo-montages by Dutch photographer Jan Bartelsman are worth the price of the book alone, and the profiles of the illustrated chefs are interesting enough. The recipes, however, are too long, too complicated and too bizarre to appeal to the average home cook.

Matt Makes a Run for the Border: Recipes and Tales from a Tex-Mex Chef by Matt Martinez Jr. and Steve Pate ($29.95, Lebhar-Friedman Books) offers more than 150 recipes, all with a Lone Star Tex-Mex accent. Martinz comes from a long line of Texas chefs and restaurateurs. He currently operates six restaurants in Dallas, including Matt’s No Place.

Neiman Marcus Cookbook by Kevin Garvin with John Harrisson ($45.00, Clarkson Potter) is one gorgeous and useful book, with super-saturated color photography and well-written recipes. The recipes reflect American cooking at its best: Eastern shore crabcakes, herb-crusted salmon, chopped salad, braised pot roast, Reuben sandwich. Good head notes, easy-to-buy ingredients, clear cooking methods. Pricy, yes. But there’s nothing frou-frou about this book (except its good looks).

Off The Eaten Path: Inspired Recipes for Adventurous Cooks by Bob Blumer ($20.00, Ballantine Books) is one of the goofiest, most out-there cookbooks we’ve seen in a while. It’s not for the serious cook, but would be a swell gift for the new, unsure beginner: It infuses kitchen duty with so much fun, it makes food preparation irresistible.

Our Texas Heritage: Ethnic Traditions and Recipes by Dorothy McConachie ($19.95, Republic of Texas Press) The Lone Star State’s history and tradition are written here in recipes, from Native Americans (e.g. fry bread, chile casserole) to Mexican (enchiladas, empanaditas) to German (steamed bratwurst in sour cream sauce, bierocks) to, yes, Italians (shrimp sauce for spaghetti, fig cookies). A total of 14 ethnic groups are represented with a bit of history and several recipes.

Recipes from Historic Texas by Linda & Steve Bauer ($24.95, Taylor Trade Publishing) will appeal to collectors of all things Texan. This cookbook/travel guide from local Houston-area writers Linda and Steve Bauer takes readers across the state, visiting historic inns and restaurants, and collecting recipes along the way. More than 60 of your day-trip favorites — e.g. The Brazos Bell in Burton, The Tremont House in Galveston, The Salt Lick in Driftwood — are included. Note: We’re not fond of the awkward recipe formatting that separates the ingredients from the cooking method.

Rick Stein’s Complete Seafood by Rick Stein ($40.00, Ten Speed Press) is stuffed with more than 500 photographs and is one of the most inspiring fish cookery books we’ve seen in a long while. It’s written for people who love seafood but don’t like to cook it at home. The author, who is also a long-time PBS cooking show host, organizes the planet’s fish by group so that various fish can be cooked in similar ways. Full of how-to photo spreads, illustrated guides and glossaries.

River Run Cookbook by Jimmy and Maya Kennedy and Marialisa Calta ($35.00, HarperCollins) offers a curious twist: a restaurant cookbook from a Vermont eatery where the food is mostly Southern. Yes, chef/co-owner Jimmy Kennedy, who hails from Mississippi, and wife Maya created a cozy cafe in Plainfield, Vermont, where they serve such Dixie standards as cornbread, black-eyed pea succotash, fried green tomatoes and pulled pork.

Southern Fried Spirits: A Guide to Haunted Restaurants, Inns and Taverns by Robert Wlodarski and Anne Powell Wlodarski ($18.95, Republic of Texas Press) Did you know that Texas is populated by a whole horde of ghosts, many of them apparently residing in downtown San Antonio’s finest hotels? Yes, the Menger Hotel, Gunter Hotel, Crowne Plaza St. Anthony and others all have live-in ghosts. Here are those stories and several dozen more about Southern eateries and hotels and their friendly spirits.

Spanish Home Cooking by Miriam Kelen ($34.95, Cocina Casera, Inc.) provides a roadmap to a cusine that, with the exception of the tapas concept, has been rather neglected by Americans. If you’ve been curious about Spain’s various regions and how the food differs among them, want to learn more about Spaniards’ legendary devotion to the ham (some hand-cured hams cost more than $1,000 and must be ordered a year ahead of time) or could use some good paella recipes, this is the book. Several Spanish homecooks contributed recipes and background to the text, which makes this a quirky good read as well as a useful cooking book.

Spectacular Restaurants of Texas: An Exclusive Showcase of Texas’ Finest Restaurants by Jolie Carpenter ($39.95, Gibbs Smith Publishers) This is a silly and useless book. It’s a large-format, photo-heavy and text-light collection of the interiors of 60-plus restaurants in the state’s largest cities. For each restaurant, photos of varying number and quality (there are roughly three dozen photographers credited) are accompanied by a paragraph or two (or more for Dallas restaurants). This sports the feel of one of those hardcover advertising guides for restaurants that you might find in a hotel, but is not nearly as useful. The information is slight, the writing and editing are sloppy, and the restaurants that are featured will give further doubts about any usefulness.

Stalking the Green Fairy and Other Fantastic Adventures in Food and Drink by James Villas ($26.95, Wiley Publishing) is an eclectic collection of essays (the green fairy of the title refers to absinthe, of course) that range from Southern Pig (in praise of pork) to Gastronomic Goo (a discourse on peanut butter) to Super Suds (on American micro-brews). It’s lively, insightful and packed with the author’s favorite recipes. Not required reading by any means, but a lovely distraction and amusement.

Sushi For Dummies by Judi Strada and Mineko Takane Moreno ($16.99, Wiley Publishing) knows that everyone understatnds the trick to making sushi is using the freshest possible fish. But proper seasoning and handling of the rice is also essential. This book spends a number of pages plainly explaining sushi rice techniques. Overall it’s an excellent primer for anyone who wants to prepare sushi at home—our 11-year-old, who’s already had a sushi-making lesson with a professional sushi chef, pronounced it well done—or wants to know about ordering/enjoying sushi in a restaurant.

Sweet Seasons: Fabulous Restaurant Desserts Made Simple by Richard Leach ($45.00, John Wiley & Sons) is organized by season and presents an appealing fusion of restaurant-style sophistication and home-kitchen accessibility. The summer offerings, for example, include Frozen Peach Parfait and Chocolate-Espresso Cube with Chocolate Sorbet. (Don’t you feel cooler just reading the names?) Architectural food style and glorious photography.

Texas Food Companies: A Tasty Guide by Rhonda Cloos ($18.95, Republic of Texas Press) A roadmap for dining chair travelers, this nifty paperback tells the stories of many of Texas’ best-known food companies (e.g. Blue Bell Creameries, Collin Street Bakery, The El Paso Chile Company), and many small outfits as well. There’s a chapter devoted to companies that host tours.

Texas on the Plate by Terry Thompson-Anderson ($34.95, Shearer Publishing) marks the first cookbook from Shearer in many years. As you would expect, it’s stunningly designed and photographed, right down to the flyleaf. Terry Thompson-Anderson’s 150-plus recipes are upscale versions of the Lone Star state’s tried-and-true (e.g. venison and mango enchiladas, mesquite-smoked oysters), all very elegant. On the other hand, how many cookbooks offer a recipe for squirrel? Like all of the recipes, Alton and Virginia Anderson’s Braised Squirrel and Dumplings is even paired with suggested wines.

The Amazing World of Rice by Marie Simmons ($19.95, William Morrow) Rice seems to be neck-in-neck with corn in the race for most-written-about grain. This latest volume offers 150 recipes for pilafs, paellas, risottos, rice salad, rice puddings and more. It doesn’t have much in the way of color photos (there are none, in fact) or cutting-edge design. Nevertheless, this is a handy reference book written by the well-known Bon Appetit magazine contributor.

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan ($24.95, Random House) is ostensibly a book about plants, but it’s just as much about food and culture. Pollan tells the stories of four everyday plants—apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes—using a juicy blend of history, science and personal memoir. In doing so, he dispels the myth that man has control over these species; in fact, as Pollan illustrates, the plants have done a remarkable job of using us. A witty and engaging work.

The Cheese Lover’s Cookbook & Guide by Paula Lambert ($35.00, Simon & Schuster) tells the story of Dallas-based cheesemaker, Paula Lambert. You’ve no doubt eaten her cheeses—she began by making fresh mozzarella back in the early 1980s—in restaurants or purchased them in better supermarkets. This is her story, lots of recipes and general cheese info. She even tells you how to make your own cheese at home.

The Culinary Institute of America’s Gourmet Meals in Minutes ($40.00, Lebhar-Friedman Books) offers more than 200 of our favorite recipes, from grilled vegetable appetizer to soba noodle salad to a Reuben sandwich to risotto with scallops and asparagus to molten chocolate cake. Nearly every culinary influence currently enjoyed in American dining is represented. Impressive pedigree, easy-to-follow recipes, accessible ingredients, restrained layout.

The Eating Well Healthy In a Hurry Cookbook by Jim Romanoff and the editors of Eating Well ($24.95, Countryman Press) If you’re a believer in the gospel according to Eating Well magazine, then no one will have to sell you on this book. It’s handsomely done with some 150 recipes (each of which is nutritionally broken down) and excellent photography. This is not diet food—it’s healthful food that will make you want to shop smart and eat well. Perfect timing to fulfill those New Year’s resolutions, no?

The Essential Eating Well Cookbook by Patsy Jamieson, editor ($29.95, Countryman Press) is subtitled “Good Carbs, Good Fats, Great Flavors,” and the recipes in this book will be familiar to subscribers of Eating Well magazine. Many traditional recipes (e.g. macaroni and cheese, lasagna, pizza margherita) are reworked here, netting less of the bad stuff. We like the modest production (non-glossy paper, all the photos grouped into one section) but hate the hard-to-read brown ink used throughout.

The Grand Literary Cafes of Europe by Noel Riley Fitch, photography by Andrew Midgley ($39.95, New Holland) Award-winning biographer and cultural historian Noel Riley Fitch takes a journey through 40 historically significant cafes in Europe that tourists can still visit for an espresso. Coffeehouses included in the book range across the map from Paris to Budapest. Fitch begins with a stimulating account of coffee’s past, as well as an explanation of how these watering holes became so important to the literary movements of their time. This book will appeal to literature-, architecture- and food-lovers alike. The visual landscape between the pages is stunning, filled with pictures of cafes both unadorned and opulent. Sadly, in the age of Starbucks, the prominence of great coffeehouses has declined. Literary Cafes allows us to hark back to those days and perhaps imagine ourselves as Honore de Balzac, who consumed coffee only when he was writing.

The Italian American Cookbook by John Mariani and Galina Mariani ($29.95, Harvard Common Press) is not about Italian food, but the tradition of Italian-American food, an original cuisine as integral to our country’s cultural fabric as is Tex-Mex. The Marianis present 250 recipes (some their own, some from restaurants), suggested wines for pairing and a feast of anecdotes.

The Last Days of Haute Cuisine: America’s Culinary Revolution by Patric Kuh ($24.95, Viking) offers another insider’s view of the American food scene, this one by a chef/novelist. The book is framed by the story of what happened when Europe’s elitist haute cuisine met the populist approach of our country’s various ethnic styles, but there’s more than just history here. Lots of gossip, personalities and insider poop.

The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver ($34.95, Hyperion) is about the food, not the cook, and refers to stripping away the pretentions of good cooking. Oliver, if you haven’t read elsewhere, is the BBC’s 24-year-old shaggy-haired cooking sensation, sort of Emeril meets Herman’s Hermits. (His cooking series currently airs on The Food Network.) The book features 120 basic recipes, including roast chicken, slow-cooked lamb shanks and fruit desserts.

The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather with Alison Oresman ($29.95, Ten Speed Press) is a gift from the popular owner of Rather Sweet Bakery & Cafe in Fredericksburg, Texas. The state’s many baking traditions — Mexican, Czech and German among them — are represented here, as are many of Texas’ best-loved ingredients, including pecans and peaches. Ten Speed Press always produces a good cookbook, and this is no exception.

The Tailgater’s Cookbook by David Joachim ($14.95, Broadway Books) Texas may be the capital of tailgating, what with our many sports teams and typically fine weather right through the end of football season. The tradition has changed, however: No longer is a pre-game beer and mug of chili enough. Today devotees spend thousands on pick-ups with built-in grills and coolers, fancy canopies, folding chairs with footrests and cup holders and gas-powered blenders. This cookbook is for them. It includes chapters on cooler stuff (dips, salads, salsas, etc.), grilling, pot cooking (such as stews, soups, even deep-fried turkey), drinks, breakfast and tailgating menus. There are even tips on healthy tailgating, but that seems pointless, doesn’t it?

The Texas Cowboy Kitchen by Grady Spears with June Naylor ($34.95, Texas Monthly Custom Publishing) may make you wonder, as the celebrity chef’s name is larger than the cookbook title. Yes, Grady Spears is BIG —practically an industry unto himself—and this is a BIG cookbook with BIG type throughout. If you’ve used other Spears cookbooks, you’ll recognize the folksy, Texas stylin’ throughout. His co-author is My Table magazine’s Dallas-Fort Worth correspondent June Naylor.

The Top One Hundred Italian Rice Dishes by Diane Seed ($14.95, Ten Speed Press) includes more than 50 risotto recipes among its 100 rice dishes. Prettily illustrated by Sarah Hocombe, this is a useful little book that thoroughly addresses the subject of rice cooking, Italian-style, without overreaching. (You may recall that Diane Seed was our cooking instructor for My Table’s Off the Eaten Path trip to Italy last November.)

The Waiting Game: The Ultimate Guide to Waiting Tables by Mike Kirkham, Peggy Weiss and Bill Crawford ($14.95, Twenty Per Cent, Inc.) is a must-read text for restaurant managers and their staffs. Co-author Peggy Weiss owns Jeffrey’s, the Shoreline Grill and Cipollina Cafe in Austin, and co-author Kirkham is the manager of the Shoreline Grill. Their authority is indisputable. This straight-forward manual covers such diverse areas as traditional American service, how to open and serve wine, a primer on cuts of meat and how to be part of a restaurant team.

The Waldorf=Astoria Cookbook by John Doherty with John Harrisson ($50.00, Bulfinch Press) is printed with tankerfuls of gold, black and deep rich burgundy ink. This gorgeous book is both the story of the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel in New York City and executive chef John Doherty’s first cookbook. Larded with historical photos and close-up photos of the hotel’s Art Deco architectural details, this book will please lovers of New York and urban history. Doherty, who has cooked for more presidents, world leaders, rock stars, celebrities and billionaires than probably anyone in the world, has made sure that his recipes are home-cook-friendly — not always the case with restaurant cookbooks — and the head notes give each an arresting back-story.

The Wines of Texas: A Guide and a History by Sarah Jane English ($26.95, Eakin Press) October is Texas Wine Month, so we thought it appropriate to alert you to the fourth edition of one of the original Texas wine books, first published in 1986. If you attend wine and food festivals in this state, you’ve surely met author Sarah Jane English, who teaches, writes about, eats and breathes Texas wine. This brand-new edition tells the stories of more than 20 state wineries and traces the history of the industry, beginning in 1659 near El Paso. Two other recommended Texas wine books include Touring Texas Wineries by Thomas and Regina Ciesla (Gulf Publishing Co.) and Texas Wines & Wineries by Frank Giordano (Texas Monthly Press).

Under the Texan Sun: The Best Recipes from Lone Star Wineries by Rhonda Cloos ($17.95, Taylor Trade Publishing) What a jumble of a book. We like the idea of rounding up more than 25 Texas wineries and asking the owners and winemakers to contribute recipes and food-wine matches. But we’re sorry that this book is carelessly edited — recipe headnotes could use a firm and consistent hand, for example — and the recipe collection highly uneven, with too many recipes that rely on things like boxed brownie mix, Velveeta and dehydrated soup mix. The wine-label graphics are poorly reproduced, and the bonus chapters that comprise about a third of the book have no apparent organization or function except to fill space. In other words, a good idea with mixed execution.

Van Gogh’s Table at the Auberge Ravoux: Recipes from the Artist’s Last Home and Paintings of Cafe Life by Alexandra Leaf and Fred Leeman ($35.00, Artisan) provides a view into Vincent Van Gogh’s world—the place that was his final home, his work and the kind of traditional food that is still served in the region. Illustrated with photographs, paintings and drawings and excerpts from letters, this is a book of art, of history and of cookery.

Vegetables: Recipes and Techniques from the World’s Premier Culinary College ($40.00, Lebhar-Friedman Books) Inspired by the variety of fresh vegetables available in organic food stores and farmers’ markets, the experts at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) provide cooks and readers with countless recipes for soups, appetizers, salads and more—all made from what is garden grown. The book, filled with appealing colorful images, begins with a primer on vegetables. It includes detailed descriptions, useful nutritional facts and a chart delineating the best cooking methods for each vegetable. There are times Vegetables goes on at such great length on one subject the book gets to be a snooze for everyone but the most impassioned vegetable fan. But once you get past the introductory course, the myriad imaginative recipes will make you look at greens (reds, and yellows) in a whole new light. The book provides recipes as down-home as okra stewed with tomatoes and as refined as cold carrot bisque, with an overall tendency towards more sophisticated fare. Even better, the specificity of every recipe makes them almost foolproof. The utility of Vegetables is virtually indisputable and the reader can hardly finish it without learning something.

Wanderlust: The Life of a Globe-Trotting Chef by Joe Mannke and John DeMers ($28.95, self-published) is from the personable chef/owner at Bistro Le Cep (and until not long ago, Rotisserie for Beef & Bird). Mannke has finally gathered all of his stories and committed them to paper. Over the years, we’ve heard tales of a childhood in Pomerania as Nazi Germany came apart, about his years cooking in South Africa and Bermuda, and a stint at the legendary Stork Club in New York City. Later he worked for the Walt Disney organization, helping them to launch their theme park in Orlando. Ultimately he came to Houston, via the Hyatt Regency. Wanderlust is a personal chronicle of that journey, packed with photos, anecdotes, menus and recipes. (Alas, there is no recipe index.) Copies of the book are available at Bistro Le Cep.

Winning Styles Cookbook by James Beard Foundation Award-Winning Chefs ($42.00, Feeding Frenzy) was produced in 2003 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of American culinarian James Beard. This book is a tribute to him. It’s also a celebrity cookbook, and thus full of personalities and chef portraits. Former Houston chef Robert McGrath (now of Phoenix) is spotlighted, but there are no other Texas chefs included. Hmmmm.