Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in Gastronomy

In this entertaining, informative, and thoroughly unconventional wine guide, award-winning sommelier, winemaker, and wine educator André Mack presents listeners with the 99 bottles that have most impacted his life. Instead of just pairing wines with foods, Mack pairs practical information with personal stories, offering up recommendations alongside reflections on being one of the only African-Americans to ever work at the top level of the American wine industry. The 99 bottles range from highly accessible commercial wines to the most rarefied Bordeaux....

Felicity Cloake sets off on an epic bike ride round Britain to celebrate and investigate the legendary Great British Breakfast. She rates fry-ups on criteria from the crispness of the bacon to how long they keep her pedalling and stops for fact-based tea-breaks in place of last time’s pause café. And a woman cannot live by All Day Breakfast alone, so as well as recipes for things like Omelette Arnold Bennett or proper porridge, she will report back on the delights of regional specialities she encounters along the way.

For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way? The World of Sugar begins with the earliest evidence of sugar production.

Recounting the fairy-tale-like rise of Antonin Carême from Parisian orphan to a household name synonymous with culinary luxury, Carême offers a unique conflation of historical biography, social history and cookery guide. Kelly lifts the veil on one of the most momentous and sensuous periods in European history: First Empire Paris, Georgian England and the tsarist Russia of War and Peace, depicting Carême’s entanglements with the social and political elite of his age, from King George IV to Napoleon, the Romanovs to the Rothschilds.

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson struck a deal with one of his slaves, 19-year-old James Hemings. The founding father was traveling to Paris and wanted to bring James along for a particular purpose - to master the art of French cooking. In exchange for James's cooperation, Jefferson would grant his freedom. Thus began one of the strangest partnerships in United States history

Steven Spurrier is one of the wine trade’s most important figures. Over the years, he took the role of wine merchant, buyer, wine educator, and lecturer; he wrote books, wine courses, and over 300 columns for Decanter magazine. He set up the breakthrough "Judgement of Paris" in 1976—a tasting in which outsider wines from California were pitched blind against Bordeaux’ finest, and won—which still sends reverberations through the wine trade today.

France is in a rut, and so is French cuisine. Twenty-five years ago it was hard to have a bad meal in France; now, in some cities and towns, it is a challenge to find a good one. For the first time in the annals of modern cooking, the most influential chefs and the most talked-about restaurants in the world are not French. Within France, large segments of the wine industry are in crisis, cherished artisanal cheeses are threatened with extinction, and bistros and brasseries are disappearing at an alarming rate.

The scent of one freshly unearthed white truffle in Barolo was all it took to lead Rowan Jacobsen down a rabbit hole into a world of secretive hunts, misty woods, black-market deals, obsessive chefs, quixotic scientists, muddy dogs, maddening smells and some of the most memorable meals ever created. Truffles attract dreamers, schemers and sensualists. People spend years training dogs to find them underground. They plant forests of oaks and wait a decade for truffles to appear. They pay £2,170 a pound to possess them. They turn into quivering puddles in their presence.

When the world becomes overwhelming, Ella Risbridger focuses on the little things that bring her joy, like enjoying a glass of wine when cooking, FaceTiming with a friend whilst making bagels and sharing recipes that are good for the soul. One night she found herself lying on her kitchen floor, wondering if she would ever get up - and it was the thought of a chicken, of roasting it, and of eating it, that got her to her feet and made her want to be alive.

All tequilas are mezcals; all mezcals are made from agaves; and every bottle of mezcal is the remarkable result of collaborations among agave entrepreneurs, botanists, distillers, beverage distributors, bartenders, and more. How these groups come together in this "spirits world" is the subject of this fascinating new book by the acclaimed ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan and the pioneering restauranteur David Suro Piñera.

Dessert connects us heart-to-heart like almost nothing else. It brings us together in good times and bad, celebration and solace. Desserts mark big milestones and small wins and create indelible memories of comfort and joy. And Christina Tosi, the founder and CEO of Milk Bar, believes it can save the world.

Chez Panisse opened its doors in 1971. Founded by Alice Waters, the restaurant is rooted in her conviction that the best-tasting food is organic, locally grown, and harvested in ecologically sound ways by people who are taking care of the land for future generations. The quest for such ingredients has always determined the restaurant’s cuisine, and over the course of 40 years, Chez Panisse has helped create a community of local farmers and ranchers.

In early August 1889, César Ritz, a Swiss hotelier highly regarded for his exquisite taste, found himself at the Savoy Hotel in London. He had come at the request of Richard D'Oyly Carte, the financier of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operas, who had modernized theater and was now looking to create the world's best hotel. D'Oyly Carte soon seduced Ritz to move to London with his team, which included Auguste Escoffier, the chef de cuisine known for his elevated, original dishes.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Mary Berry's autobiography, Recipe for Life, read by the actress Patricia Hodge. From Queen of Tarts to the nation's heart, Mary Berry shares her Recipe for Life. "In the words of my father, my birth caused no end of trouble..." From the moment she came into the world - two weeks early, throwing her parents' lives into disarray - Mary has gracefully but firmly done things her own way.

In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States - by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey, Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.

Every cheese tells a story. Whether it's a fresh young goat's cheese or a big, beefy 18-month-old Cheddar, each variety holds the history of the people who first made it, from the builders of Stonehenge to medieval monks, from the Stilton-makers of the 18th century to the factory cheesemakers of the Second World War. Cheesemonger Ned Palmer takes us on a delicious journey across Britain and Ireland and through time to uncover the histories of beloved old favourites like Cheddar and Wensleydale and fresh innovations like the Irish Cashel Blue or the rambunctious Renegade Monk.

Thirteen chapters evoke the joy and discovery of reading a menu dotted with the sharp-eyed annotations of a linguist. Jurafsky points out the subtle meanings hidden in filler words like "rich" and "crispy," zeroes in on the metaphors and storytelling tropes we rely on in restaurant reviews, and charts a micro-universe of marketing language on the back of a bag of potato chips.

Part cookbook and part spiritual memoir, Bread & Wine illuminates how sharing food together mirrors the way we share our hearts with each other and with God. And it explores what it means to follow a God who reveals his presence in breaking bread and passing a cup.

Spending time in nature is good for both our bodies and minds - but with our hectic lives (not to mention the unreliable British weather), it can be hard to get outside as much as we'd like. But fear not: we've selected some of BBC Radio 4's best nature documentaries to transport you to the great outdoors - and encourage you to take your own trip into the wild.

In Eat Up, Ruby Tandoh celebrates the fun and pleasure of food, taking a look at everything from gluttons and gourmets in the movies to the symbolism of food and sex. She will arm you against the fad diets, food crazes and bad science that can make eating guilt-laden and expensive, drawing eating inspiration from influences as diverse as Roald Dahl, Nora Ephron and Gemma from TOWIE. Filled with straight-talking, sympathetic advice on everything from mental health to recipe ideas and shopping tips, this is an audiobook that clears away the fog, to help you fall back in love with food....