Basting a turkey, making cranberry sauce and whipping up a pie can be much easier if you get a little advice and help from an expert. Four new cookbooks should make the approaching holiday season fun and problem free.

Tips Cooks Love by Rick Rodgers (Andrews McMeel, $15)
Rick Rodgers has written more than 30 cookbooks and was recently named Outstanding cooking Teacher by Bon Appetit magazine. For his latest effort, he has teamed up with the Seattle-based culinary retailer Sur La Table. The result is 500 tips, techniques, and shortcuts that are guaranteed to make almost everyone a better cook.
This pocket-sized guide covers almost every aspect of food prep, from acidulated water to zest. The advice is just specific enough to be what you need, when you need it, and just broad enough to be applicable in the next meal that you make. For hamburgers, for example, the differences of ground sirloin, ground round, and ground chuck are all sorted out along with tips such as never pressing a hamburger to speed its cooking since that will squeeze the precious fat and juices out that make the finished product so good.
In addition to all the tricks and secrets, there are 10 deconstructed recipes designed to put the leaned tips into perspective so that, say, after you’ve read up on parchment paper, you can put the guide to use making such delectable treats as caramels.
This is an excellent cook, whether for personal use or for a stocking stuffer for that favorite cook of yours.

Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking by Julia Child (Knopf, $14.95)
Even though Julia Child is no longer with us, her kitchen techniques and tips are and they remain timeless.
Ever wonder how many minutes you should cook green beans and if it is better to steam or boil them, or do you hesitate to make a vinaigrette because your are confused about the right proportions and flummoxed because you do not know the proper way to skim off fat? Fear no more, the answers to these questions and much, much more are all to be found in this delightful book.
Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom is divided into eight chapters that reveal tips and techniques for almost every aspect of cooking. They are Soups and Two Mother Sauces; Salads and Their Dressings; Vegetables; Meats, Poultry, and Fish; Egg Cookery; Breads, Crepes, and Tarts; Cakes and Cookies; and Kitchen Equipment and Definitions. The blanch/boil chart for green vegetables, techniques for broiling, and directions for making a proper French Omelet are highlights.
Originally published almost a decade ago, this is delicious, comforting, essential compendium is a kitchen helper that no cook worth his or her salt should be without. It’s that good.

Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread and a Definitive Guide to Baking Your Own by Andrew Whitley (Andrews McMeel, $34.99)
It’s no secret that most store-bought breads contain unnecessary additives and have little nutritional value. Andrew Whitley, a professional organic baker with more than 25 years of experience, offers an alternative to this problem in an award-winning book, first published in the United Kingdom. His recipes for this edition have been adjusted and tested for American cooks and kitchens.
Whitley founded Bread Matters, an organization devoted to improving the state of bread, near his home in Cumbria, England. He has gained international attention for his baking classes and techniques that promote bread without additives.
His collection is diving into thirteen main chapters: What’s the Matter with Modern Bread; Does It Really Matter What Bread We Eat; Taking Control; The Essential Ingredients; Starting from Scratch; First Bread and Rolls; Simple Sourdough; Bread, A Meal in Itself; Of Crust and Crumb; Sweet Breads and Celebrations; Easy as Pie; Gluten-free Baking; and Growing Old Gracefully. There is also a list of resources. Tucson bakers will especially enjoy the chapter about sourdough which features several excellent recipes plus tips and troubleshooting.
This cookbook is comprehensive and essential. If you liker bread, you should get a copy of this book. It might just be the last bread cookbook you’ll ever need. It is accessible and highly recommended.

The Kentucky Bourbon Book by Joy Perrine and Susan Reigler (University Press of Kentucky, $14.95)
Why a book about cocktails in a column about holiday cooking and baking? I discovered a number of years ago that nothing makes complicated recipes and cooking for crowds easier than an occasional swig of spirits. When times get tough, the seasoned cooks that I know start knocking down little pick-me-ups such as Key Lime Sours or Manhattans.
This delightful little book is written by Joy Perrine, who has been a bar manager at Equus Restaurant and Jack’s Lounge in Louisville since 1987, and Susan Reigler, an award-winning journalist and former restaurant critic and drinks writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Regular readers of this column will recall Reigler’s excellent reissue of The Blue Ribbon Cookbook two years ago.
The chapters are fairly self-explanatory: Getting Started; Infusions; The Classics; Joy’s Award-Winning Cocktails; Bourbon Cocktails by the Calendar; The Sweet Side of Bourbon; Guest Cocktails; Nibbles; and Glossary. The recipe for a proper mint julep is almost — in itself — worth the price of this collection.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 9:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Tags for this post: More holiday help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.