The River Cottage Meat Book #FoodieGiftGuide

Day 10: The River Cottage Meat Book

(See every gift in the full 2012 #FoodieGiftGuide by clicking here)

Warning: Don’t buy this book for a person who is squeamish about animal butchery. The River Cottage Meat Book is comprehensive. Seriously, this is probably the only butchery reference you’ll ever need. I have owned a copy for about five years. (It’s also a hell of a good read, by the way.) Highly recommended :)

Meat starts with animals, so that’s where this book starts too. You’ll learn in painstaking detail how and why some animals produce better meat than others. Then you’ll learn how to butcher the animal (if that’s your thing), learn how to select superior cuts, see step-by-step guides to common preparations, and choose from hundreds of related recipes.

The vivid photographs make The River Cottage Meat Book a weird and interesting coffee table book, especially for L.A. Don’t expect your vegan friends to take kindly to your choice of reading materials.

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This is a perfect gift for the amateur chef who is dissatisfied with the meat at the supermarket.

Grab The River Cottage Meat Book for $26.40 (free shipping with Prime) on Amazon.com.

Jewish Cooking in America #FoodieGiftGuide

Day 6: Jewish Cooking in America: Expanded Edition

(See every gift in the full 2012 #FoodieGiftGuide by clicking here)

Happy Chanukah!!

The holiday season is so wonderful in this country because we are incredibly lucky to have so many different cultures who seem to celebrate at around the same time of year. From a culinary point of view that says DELICIOUS no matter what your background or mother tongue happens to be.

While everyone is pretty familiar with some of the many contributions that people of the Jewish faith have given us, Joan Nathan’s book (for many of us) opens up our taste buds to an amazing new array of delicacies. Delicacies that will make you scream “Why have I not tried this before!?!?!?!” to the gods of food.

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So, what are you waiting for? These recipes are delicious!

Grab Jewish Cooking in America: Expanded Edition for $27.39 on Amazon.com.

I’m Just Here For The Food by Alton Brown #FoodieGiftGuide

Day 3: I’m Just Here For The Food by Alton Brown

(See every gift in the full 2012 #FoodieGiftGuide by clicking here)

Alton Brown is my hero. He’s always been my favorite TV chef. His innovative Good Eats series taught me how to cook, more effectively than any TV show or book. Seriously, Alton Brown almost single-handedly taught me how to cook. Let’s just say I spent a lot of my five-and-a-half year (undergraduate) college career drunk on the sofa watching Alton wax poetic about peas while measuring a half-cup of honey in that cool plunger measuring cup. If you’re lucky, he’ll dispense some beans or cereal out of those enviable clear plastic cereal dispensers on his counter.

But Alton isn’t just a gadget nut. I’m Just Here For The Food reduces cooking to its basics. And I mean really basic. The point of the book is to teach you how to control the 3 basic elements of cooking: (1) heat, (2) salt, and (3) water.

While this might sound like a book for beginners, it is definitely not. Alton goes into great detail about vital things to know about some of the most common American ingredients, like chicken, for example. You get a full diagram of every part of the chicken, how to butcher it properly, instructions for different cooking methods, and then a few useful and simple recipes.

Plus it’s funny. Yeah, a funny cookbook. What a novel idea :)

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Drew and Hot Dog The Rapper ponder Alton Brown’s sage advice about cooking sausages on an outdoor gas grill.

Grab a copy of I’m Just Here For The Food for less than $24 (free shipping with Prime) on Amazon.com.